MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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Hits of the Day
A thread for news related to Bob Woodward's "Rage"
By artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 12:36am |To start, I link to the headline story for the print edition of Thursday's Washington Post.
URL:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-woodward-rage-book-trump/2020/09/09/0368fe3c-efd2-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html
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Comments
As I just posted on another thread, Senator Lindsey Graham is being run over by buses as regards the book
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 12:40am
Then there's the issue whether Jared has zero or no street smarts and how he must actually believe that his father-in-law is capable.
And how even people who are insane enough to like Donald can't stand Jared.
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 12:52am
Oops almost forgot this Jared tidbit:
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 1:43am
Confirmation for Jared's "Alice in Wonderland" thesis, but not the way he meant it:
by artappraiser on Fri, 09/11/2020 - 3:28am
PBS's coverage, which Bob Costa retweeted:
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 12:54am
WH refuses to talk w Congress all through impeachment proceedings, claiming "Executive Privilege", but can make extensive time for a journalist divulging some of same information, because they mistakenly believe it'll be flattering - plus delayed by months. Outrageous, should be illegal, but at least that "2 months before the election" becomes yet another one of their "worst nightmares". Unlike Covid and large fires and Russian election interference and the destruction of the Census + US Postal Service, this nightmare is just theirs - say like calling the military "losers" and the collapse of Jerry "hey, your fly's down!!" Falwell. (though to be fair and putting my progressive values hat on, paying millions to watch a pool boy fuck your wife *should be* a private matter within the sanctity of marriage, though perhaps a question whether that should be a tax deductible religiously exempt payout instead of going tax rate for NetFlix's naughtier channels, Idunno).
Which scandal will people remember in November? (or while they're doing remote voting over the next 2 months)
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 2:16am
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 12:58am
Woodward had the information but waited until a book release to inform the public.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 8:44am
If you're writing a book full of important exposés where you're interviewing people for months and any early release kills your access and book, do you publish early and give up?
Did we not know already from multiple sources that Trump ignored multiple Covid intelligence briefings?
How much of a shit did people give to hear Trump ignored Putin helping out bounties on soldiers' heads? How much did they care that Trump was extorting a foreign president to help his campaign effort, while pushing out an Ambassador and a decorated intelligence officer?
We know Trump confiscated Covid masks from states and urged people to drink bleach. How many degrees of stupid before a journalist recognizes the public "need to know" or curiosity (followed by action) ain't that great?
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 9:05am
He had tapes.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 9:30am
??
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 10:15am
Woodward had Trump on tape admitting that he knew the danger represented by COVID.
Trump said COVID was not a threat.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 10:42am
Did you see my comments? Even now just before the election I don't think people really care. So why should Woodward mess up his reporting?
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 1:08pm
Obviously, I saw your comments. There are many who would have been alarmed. Many would have taken more precautions. Trump was telling people that it was a Democratic hoax. Lives could have been saved.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 2:09pm
Who the hell didn't think Trump was downplaying the pandemic every time he spoke about it, comparing it to "the flu"? Those who would listen to Woodward already didn't believe Trump. Woodward talked to Trump Feb 7, *after*:
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 2:32pm
There was a push for earlier and more aggressive action against COVID early on
The tapes might have increased the pressure because Trump's would have been directly exposed.
Perhaps PPE would not have been shipped to China
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 3:51pm
Oh yeah, exposing Trump lies always works. I'm sure he feels that pressure. Like impeachment. Funny, this Woodward interview started the day after Trump was acquitted. Any remorse? GOP more careful?
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 5:02pm
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 11:28am
you're far from alone, it's clear he's catching a lot of fire on that front
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 11:58am
Absurd - you can't even get Yanks to wear masks, much less take a plague seriously. Yeah, blame it on Woodward rather than people listening to Trump over a respected M.D.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 1:23pm
He has dozens of tapes. There are probably things in the very first tape that could/should have been released. If he had released it Trump would have cut off access then and there never would have been the tape on the virus. We wouldn't be having this controversy over what Trump said behind closed doors about the virus because we wouldn't know. Woodward isn't my favorite journalist but different journalists do different things. Woodward is writing a book about a person's behavior over a year, not weekly articles. If we think there is any value in a long term exposé then we have to allow reporters to hear bad information without expecting them to immediately reveal it.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 1:23pm
Being an apologist for Woodward is not necessarily wrong in principle but I believe it is a mistake in this instance.
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 2:20pm
This doesn't address my point. Is there any value in a long term exposé? Should all reporters immediately disclose everything they learn about a politician? Frankly I never expect you or rmrd to engage in honest debate so this is no surprise. That's why I mostly ignore you.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 5:42pm
My answer is: sometimes yes, sometimes no. I did not/do not see that we were having a debate. I offered an opinion and you follwed that with a different opinion on a particular incident. I did not suggest that my opinion should cover every possible situation. But okay, let's debate. Wouldn't you agree that there are instances when a reporter should immediately report what they have learned? I certainly do. Politicians and pundits on the Democrat side have have told us about a billion times that what Trump says, no matter how stupid and so presumably also true if he said something correct, has an effect on what his followers do. LIke whether or not they wear masks, for instance. If true that would indicate that revealing that recording immediately might have saved many lives but would also cost Woodward a bright shiny plug for his latest book.
To make a point on the sometimes-yes sometimes-no axis I will offer another for-instance where I think it was wrong to withhold reporting a fact. The NYT withheld that the NSA, with the knowledge of Bush and with his approval, was illegally spying on the American people. At the request of Bush they did not reveal it until after the election that kept Bush in office. I think they were wrong to do that. I think it was very important news and should have been reported immediately. What do you think?
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 7:36pm
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 7:41pm
If there's a difference of opinion any discussion that follows is a debate. It can proceed amicably or with varying degrees of hostility. I almost always start out amicably because all I'm trying to do is explore the differences of opinion and the reasoning behind them. Though I'm capable of getting hostile fast when dealing with people with hostile intent. You usually immediately go for the insults. That's sometimes the reason you get hostility in response.
Apologist is an insult. What ever the definition, it now has a negative connotation. For example, one might say someone is an apologist for racism but while technically correct one is highly unlikely to claim someone is an apologist for equal rights.
I'm not an apologist. We apparently have a difference of opinion about what Woodward is doing, it's value, and what is the appropriate way for him to proceed in that task. I was open to exploring those differences but now I just don't have the energy for dealing with a turd.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 10:32pm
The President always cites anything and everything as "proof" of his innocence. It's meaningless.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 6:19pm
Your response is to a comment about Woodward, not Trump. You do not have to convince anyone here I think, but certainly not me, that Trump is a soulless idiot.
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 7:42pm
Yet a couple comments up I offer a note from Eric Wemple -worth clicking on for other obervations - that directly addresses the dilemma - some reporters are beat reporters, others are long format - they have different rules and expectations and outcomes, they complement each other. ( of course there are more than 2).
And no, this comment wasn't to call Trump done - it was to note what he does what he wants - defying his party and conventional logic yet for him at least, no one cares for some reason Former limits don't apply - even all that whistleblower stuff that gets derided rather than any sort of applause. Even the whistleblower protections themselves are attacked by Trump, rather than a veneer of concern for propriety.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 10:52pm
I have tempered my first angry reaction a bit but Woodward was ethically completely free to release his big reveal anytime he chose to and I think he could have done so without taking any severe career or reputational damage, and doing so might have saved some lives. Still, I see that it would have been a tough choice, especially if he could convince himself, as Wemple argues, that it wouldn't have made any difference then anyway and Woodward knew it would be a winner later. And, even if I remain cynical of Woodward I can be glad that his timing might even turn a few votes in the right direction.
Marcy Wheeler faced a similar dilemma, if it even was a dilemma for Woodward, and made a different choice.
Yeah, whistle blowers are having a tough time under Trump. I remember when their troubles first spiked.
by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 09/11/2020 - 3:39am
Initial reactions similar to yours, though, got me thinking about something related, that this a long debated philosophical problem for scholars. In humanities, they fancy themselves as practicing like objective scientists as best they can, not interfering in the unfolding of whatever is happening but just being a bug on the wall. But where do you draw the line on that and interfere if you see evidence of something horrible going on, get activist or political, become more of a journalist informing the public and less of a historian?
I believe one of the reasons Woodward and Bernstein had fallouts is that Woodward fancies himself a historian and scholar and Bernstein fancied himself becoming more of a political activist pundit.
Bernstein does "outrage" as a pundit all the time. Woodward rarely if ever.
I have seen the problem in your own reaction to me in the past sometimes, it's almost like you get real aggravated that I won't show outrage about this or that. I just don't have much belief that one person showing outrage anonymously on the internet is that useful of an activity. And I don't see debating as changing minds, it's merely a game. I believe in people being as best informed as they can and then voting, and voting is private.
Right now, I suspect Woodward did the best he could and there's not a lot of mercenary intent there, judging mostly by what he did with the previous book.
Actually I can't believe Trump took him up on the offer! Propagandists Tucker Carlson and Hannity are correct to be outraged at Lindsey Graham about that. The whole deal with the Trump admin is not just hide the facts, but to support Trump's postmodern alternate reality narrative, which happens to change day to day on whim.
But my opinion about what Woodward did could change, I am not sure. Still, to me all that would mean, like moat pointed out, is that he deserves a bad rep for his own historic reputation.
One thing; do you realize that reacting to his book with "you could have saved lives and you didn't" is partly falling for the savior complex that was built up around the Woodward & Bernstein team by "Hollywood"? Journalist using anonymous whistleblower sources as hero, journalist as the only one who can save us, etc.
by artappraiser on Fri, 09/11/2020 - 4:05am
P.S. I am guessing Trump took up the offer because as usual he thinks he is a genius and he could prove to Bob that the current White House was not "crazytown" as Bob's previous book had described it. Trump thought he had cleaned house of all the previous sources that told Bob it was "crazytown". Trump wanted to prove to Bob that it was those people who were crazy and now the White House was working as a brilliant well-oiled machine, that the genius had gotten all the flaws out now.
Bob just listened and watched, he wasn't there to ask "gotcha" questions like a press conference. He was there to record what new or different was going on. He was trying to figure out the reality of the situation.
by artappraiser on Fri, 09/11/2020 - 4:13am
Woodward's decisions and motivations are interesting as a consideration of ethics in journalism. I don't understand how "apologizing" for him or not relates to the larger enormity of what has been revealed.
It is not a scumbag contest. Woodward has no executive power. The other person on the call does.
by moat on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 7:21pm
Um, did everyone read the link I gave in reply to Lulu?
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/515761-woodward-defends-sitting-on-trump-interview
He basically answered already that he assumes with everything that "Trump lies" and he didn't know what the truth was until much later on.
Just mentioning because some of you are sort of making his argument but different.
It's over, he has explained why.
I really don't get into arguing about something like this like you guys do. It is what it is, it's reality. Flawed human Woodward is what we got. It's like you are all arguing where to put him somewhere on a scale of "good" person and "bad person" and "good journalist" and "bad journalist". And that's a value judgment. To me, there's nothing to debate about, people have different values, it's like arguing whether a movie is good or bad, everyone's going to have as different opinion about what Inspector Clouseau should have done, as well.
It's like you're arguing "on a scale of 1 to 10, how evil is Bob Woodward"? He is what he is, did what he did. Why are you arguing about that? He's not running for election. Coulda shoulda woulda...Everyone was free to try to get private interviews...
I took his explanation at first as kind of sounding dumb, like--huh? you didn't have any way of checking his info. was accurate until May? But then I put it in context of what we were learning about Covid when and from whom, what and who to believe and who not, and from Woodward p.o.v. and Trump's babbling dribs and drabs of this and that at each meeting, and it's not all lies, though, some is classified intel he's not supposed to be blabbing! Certainly Woodward could have used a lie detecting expert at his side....to sort out which part of each meeting is lies and which is true and which is hyperbole. And what he's doing is looking at this messy mixture of all 3 and trying to confirm or deny by talking to other sources without letting cat of bag...like a giant puzzle of Trump spew to be connected with a million other quotes from other sources.
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 7:51pm
That account makes sense, especially from the point of view of someone who has gained access and wants to maintain it because it is so rare.
My point of view is that what has been revealed is the important thing. The messenger can be killed, if that satisfies some people. So many people have gone down after touching the elephant.
It is true that the "puzzle" needs to be completed. That part will take a decade or two.
by moat on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 8:00pm
I responded to an apology for Woodward's actions, which definitely do raise ethical questions, by noting that it was an apology. Doing so, apologizing for him that is, has the effect of letting Woodward off the hook for his ethical lapse and one which does ignore the enormity of what was revealed too late to do any good for anyone besides Woodward.
Woodward does not have any executive power but he has the power of a respected voice with a huge megaphone. When he abuses that power for personal gain, as I think he did, it should be noted.
by A Guy Called LULU on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 7:54pm
If it turns out he did this for personal gain, then he will lose the honor afforded him up to this point.
Isn't it a little early to be holding that trial?
by moat on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 8:04pm
Woodward likely works for prestige, money, sense of service/duty, and habit. All but the last is "gain" of sorts (even if you out your elf helper bonus points in escrow for others, they're still a personal thrill of sorts). He'll be judged as he's judged. But certainly better than Trump.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 09/11/2020 - 5:42am
For a guy who defends every despot from Putin to Maduro your ethical standing to sermonize on "abusing power for personal gain" is pretty flimsy.
by NCD on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 9:52pm
Why would a reporter publish the words that would condemn a president? Say he murdered? They'll see and they'll know, and they'll say, why, Trump wouldn't even harm a fly!
by NCD on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 5:07pm
On Khashoggi:
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 1:59pm
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 7:04pm
I prefer cheerleaders who don't shake pom poms while 200,000 people die.
by moat on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 5:47pm
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 7:13pm
Dan Coats to Woodward:
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 7:24pm
"President Woodward" is trending on Twitter, but it's not for the reason one might first assume:
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/10/2020 - 8:43pm
by artappraiser on Fri, 09/11/2020 - 8:42am
It reminds me of the theme of having an informer share a cell with the Criminal in order to coax the lonely killer into revealing where the bodies are located.
by moat on Fri, 09/11/2020 - 12:08pm
by artappraiser on Sun, 09/13/2020 - 9:28pm
here's one more I missed from 60 Minutes:
by artappraiser on Sun, 09/13/2020 - 9:30pm
You try to assess how many people are like a Mattis, perhaps too much for our tastes but professional, vs a Stephen Miller evil suck ups or Kellyanne spin-away-everything types, and imagine how much the sinking ship has tilted to the latter these last 3 1/2 years. I mean, part of civil service is always a compromise between your own values and any specific administration, but this is a (I'm)purity test at every level.
by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 09/14/2020 - 1:10am
by artappraiser on Mon, 09/14/2020 - 9:49pm
I agree this is a smart observation, I like the whole idea of comparing the two men, find it useful:
by artappraiser on Thu, 09/17/2020 - 6:27pm