"Many people jumped and I witnessed it, I watched that. I have a view -- a view in my apartment that was specifically aimed at the World Trade Center," Trump said Monday during a rally in Columbus, Ohio.CNN seems dubious:
"And I watched those people jump and I watched the second plane hit ... I saw the second plane hit the building and I said, 'Wow that's unbelievable,'" Trump continued.
The Republican presidential contender lives in Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan, more than four miles away from where the World Trade Center towers once stood. Trump has lived in the 5th Avenue tower since before the attacks, according to media reports pre-dating 9/11.Dubious... or they just don't want to refer to the possibility I brought up the other day in this post about Trump's statement that he watched people celebrating on rooftops in Jersey City: he has telescopes. If Trump has a beautiful view "specifically aimed" at downtown Manhattan, doesn't he have telescopes (and high-power binoculars) to take in all the many sights you can get from that angle? What percentage of residents of Manhattan high-raise buildings have devices to assist their vision? They may brag about their view from high-floor windows, but it's less likely they'd flaunt the technology for enhancing that view. But I think it's pretty standard.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment asking how Trump witnessed people jumping out of the Twin Towers from more than four miles away.
Here's a NYT article from 1990: "Telescopes for (Sneaky) City Views":
"It all boils down to the voyeurism thing," said Mark Abrams, the manager of Clairmont-Nichols, a Manhattan optical store that has a dozen telescopes on tripods with a straight-shot view across the street. "Sales are pretty good; there's interest out there."...The World Trade Center.
"It gives you a special kind of vision that you ordinarily wouldn't see," said Michael de Santis, an interior decorator. "It brings the Statue of Liberty in closer, the World Trade Center, the bridges. When you see it that close, it's so much better."
Better yet are camera attachments and specially coated low-light lenses that make the dimmest apartments seem as bright as high noon, but not to the people who live there.... It took Mr. Abrams a few days to figure out why so many residents of one high-rise apartment building on East 58th Street were buying binoculars. It turned out that the tenants in a building nearby were sunbathing on the roof in the nude. "We're not selling morality here," Mr. Abrams said. "We're selling binoculars and telescopes."...ADDED: Consider the possibility that Donald Trump has his own video, shot with his own equipment on 9/11, and he will eventually reveal it, after his antagonists have committed themselves to accusations of lying and delusion.
Bob Evans, a salesman at Clairmont-Nichols, said his fourth-floor apartment had an unobstructed view of a woman's apartment on the third floor across the street. "I got one of those SS-80's over there, 66 power," he said, referring to a $697 telescope. "I could read the numbers right off the remote control on her TV. Phenomenal."...
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105 comments:
"We're not selling morality here,"
Love the Trumpster! He brings out how silly the modern Republican Party has become. It has become the party of political hillbillies. (Who show up in all social-economic classes; but all white, mostly men.) Republicans have spent decades cultivating these cretins as their electoral base, now they have one as their likely presidential nominee!
Trump is a billionaire with the resources to get the best view. Everything is possible, including all angle views and videos of the surroundings
Trump is outsmarting the media once again.
Trying to gotcha him on this is a terrible idea by the media, but they can't help theirselves. And Trump knows it, playing them like a fiddle.
It happened whether he saw it or not. This is indisputable. That means Trump can seamlessly shift the dialogue from him to what happened that day. Given the terrorism fear justifiably flaring up these days, this is a total win for him.
This isn't going to hurt him one iota. All he has to do is say something they jump on then shift the conversation. He's done it so many times you would think they would learn, but they are partisan hacks, so...not so much.
I have to chuckle at the term political hillbillies. Hillary and Bill from Dope ... er.... Hope, Arkansas.
My father had a Questar that was good for viewing individual rgb dots on the color TV across the room. It was less fun for astronomy, which involved either cold or mosquitos.
Donald Trump - Level 11 troll.
-XC
Once written, twice... said... nothing relevant to the post.
I am no Trump supporter but I can see when the media is being unfair and biased. Their appetite for scrutinizing and correcting Republicans is ridiculous. Republican statements, no matter how insignificant, often get rated false. At best, true but misleading.
Could have used one of those telescopes to read the print on Obama's college transcripts.
I live in a waterside high-rise and everyone I know in the building has telescopes and binoculars. It's not for voyeurism but to be able to see the interesting things that are going on in the harbor, along the docks, and through much of the city. I particularly like to watch the tall ships that frequently visit the harbor.
But Cretin means a person who is brainless, stupid , childlike , and full of useless information that makes no sense and appeals only to other cretins. That sounds like a term for anti-social Phd's who live out their lives in a reality free zones
So Trump's middle class supporters are the antidote for cretinism.
Nice, Meade.
My brother makes his telescopes from scratch. That's crazy, but he happens to be an artisan and a glass scientist, so it kinda makes sense.
Every New York-based journalist knows that whether or not Trump saw people falling does not turn on the distance of his apartment from the towers. Trump is once again highlighting the frivolousness of reporters by getting them caught up in whether or not he saw what everyone knows happened. For a public desperate for journalists to start practicing journalism, this is damning.
BH0 knows how to lie and use unnamed sources and imaginary enemies. Trump is not so slick.
A more plausible explanation is that Trump watched the fire from his apartment, and also had the TV on, and doesn't necessarily remember what images came from where. At the time of the attack, the media were very open about showing pictures of people jumping from the Towers, although those pictures have now been put down the memory hole, lest they give aid and comfort to Goldstein and his supporters.
Similarly, I presume that Trump is conflating videos of Muslims in Palestine and elsewhere celebrating the attack with press reports of Muslims in America doing the same. Both the videos and the press reports certainly existed once, although again, to remember them now is considered crimethink by most intellectuals. I'll bet most of Prof. Althouse's colleagues would flatly deny the existence of both items.
"We're not selling morality here,"
Meade's got eyes. And vision.
There's a lot to be dubious about here. I'm dubious about CNN reporting, with a staff that gets Tweeted instructions from the Hillary campaign. I'm dubious about Trump- for just about everything he says. I'm dubious about any country that's willing to put a slimy, corrupt, egomaniacal, mid-level talent like Hillary up against a slimy, lying, egomaniacal, mirror-gazing putz like Trump as our best two choices to lead the country that is supposed to lead the world. A lot to be dubious about this Thanksgiving. I'm going to the beach.
Anyone with a decent view would be nuts to not own a telescope.
We're getting caught up in the weeds of whether Trump saw those images directly, or if he saw them on TV (and they were on TV). But I think the lie of "I saw them from my penthouse" when the truth was "I saw the towers burning from my penthouse, and saw people falling on TV, and conflated the two" doesn't reach quite to the level of "we were dodging sniper fire in Bosnia" when the truth of that story was "I landed at Bosnia and imagined there was sniper fire because I have no relation to truth anymore".
If anyone's trying to take Trump down with this stuff, it's pretty weak cheese.
"A more plausible explanation is that Trump watched the fire from his apartment, and also had the TV on, and doesn't necessarily remember what images came from where."
I think that's the only plausible explanation. As far as politician lies go, it's a very unimportant distinction whether he misremembered whether he saw the image on TV or in person. No one questions whether the people fell out of the towers (despite the media refusing to show those images later, because reasons). It's not as though seeing it personally adds anything to his narrative.
Saying Hillary is a bigger liar is not a good pro-Trump argument. He's not the nominee yet. If the other party's nominee is vulnerable on honesty, you shouldn't want to put up a candidate who also has an honesty problem. It's like putting up Romney against Obama when you want to use Obamacare against Obama.
The better argument for Trumpsters is that Trump isn't dishonest. Work on that.
Their appetite for scrutinizing and correcting Republicans is ridiculous. Republican statements, no matter how insignificant, often get rated false. At best, true but misleading.
Well maybe if the Republican candidates didn't lie so much(especially the unconventional candidates, Fiorina, Carson, and Trump), the media wouldn't have to label their statements false.
Trump is clearly lying (or maybe as George Costanza once quipped "it's not a lie if you believe it"). Even if he was conflating the Palestinians celebrating, none of the media reports showed "thousands and thousands" celebrating (at most it was "dozens and dozens"). And are we supposed to believe that even if Trump had high powered telescopes and an unobstructed view of the towers, this hard charging businessman was home at 8:46 on a Tuesday morning?
Paris brought memories of 9/11 back to many Americans.
The Media desperately does not want people to make that connection, lest they turn against Syrian immigrant policies, etc.
Trump makes the connection Big and Bright, and tosses in Controversy to bring it to the forefront -- right where the Media didn't want it to be.
Didn't need a telescope to see that coming.
Bring back the Guillotine.
I am Laslo.
"Saying Hillary is a bigger liar is not a good pro-Trump argument."
That may be, but it is important to draw the contrast between a harmless lie that is plausibly due to faulty memory, versus a deliberate lie central to advancing an agenda.
"My opponent baked pies for the Nazis" is an awful lie when the person in question actually baked pies for the Cub Scouts.
"My opponent baked pies for the Nazis" is a harmless lie when it turns out he actually baked croissants for the Nazis.
Trump is brilliant where the media is concerned. While the media is running with the meme that the American people are racist xenophobes by opposing bringing Islamist refugees into the USA, Trump has them talking about the 9/11 massacre and victims jumping from skyscrapers. It brings Paris home to America.
"The better argument for Trumpsters is that Trump isn't dishonest. Work on that."
Oh, he's plenty dishonest about a lot--I just don't think this instance is particularly damning.
-NonTrumpster
From one point of view it is all about Trump's ability to see, and name, and BRAND what other Politicians and Media King Makers do not want anyone to become aware of, or if they are,then to be ashamed of thinking it.
The Meme that Trump is a liar seems to be the agreed Journolist attack on Trump for this situation. Every sentence now in every establishment Media talking head is about Trump's lies and Trump's false statements.
Remember the Journolist operation is to simultaneously have dozens of comments and stories coming out on a picked false meme. That is designed to engender a sense that since everyone agrees, then it must be true.
We could see people jumping from the WTC from my office on 14th St. That's from a distance of 2-1/2 miles.
We couldn't see the people with the definition I later saw on TV replays, but we saw them jumping.
You didn't need high def to experience the emotional impact.
Trump has the media talking about people jumping out of 100 story windows because of radical Islamists.
Nice.
=============================
I mean undocumented Islamists.
That's what we should call them.
"Honest politician" is an oxymoron. Rather than try to defend a politician's honesty, I settle for comparing what they lie about. Whether someone actually witnessed something that really happened or not doesn't rise to the level of a little-known video caused Benghazi.
Donald Trump is proof you don't have to be comically poor to be a hillbilly. He is the ultimate hillbilly. Conservative, racist and now occupying the mainstream of the Republican Party.
Suck on that Trumpsters.
Why would CNN be dubious about that? They did in fact show footage of people jumping to their deaths, very likely on CNN. If you had a view of the wtc you might see that first hand, just like you might actually have seen the plane hit the wtc.
I was living in New York at the time, and while I didn't see the plane hit the building live, I certsinly saw it on the news. They simply wouldn't show the people jumping to their deaths. But there was footage.
Also, when walking to the train station I had a view of the Wtc, and you could see a huge crater in it that was at least 10 stories. I wasn't close enough to see people jumping to their deaths, but it happened. So, trump might have seen it.
Ann Althouse said...It's like putting up Romney against Obama when you want to use Obamacare against Obama.
Sounds like an argument that Trump is the perfect Republican candidate.
Trump has a heavy burden. He has to be exactly right on every thing that he says that he remembers. Trump has to submit a complete detailed written plan for every goal that he asserts. Trump has to apologize for playing gotcha better than the Gotcha industry does it.
Trump just has to go away. Otherwise he may actually make America Great again, which would embarrass the Party.
"Trump is a billionaire with the resources to get the best view."
Which makes me think that Trump would really serve America better more as a superhero, like Batman or the Green Arrow.
Best thing is he wouldn't even have to make up a new name.
"Terrorist! You've been Trumped! "Never mess with the Trump!"
"The better argument for Trumpsters is that Trump isn't dishonest"
I thought being dishonest was good. Dishonesty is the way the neo-gnostics feel superior. "He's clearly lying, but I know the real truth."
The real truth being that he has superpower vision. He also has laser eyes that can melt steel, but I won't go there.
In terms of whether it's a big deal. He's lying about an entirely inconsequential thing, no one really cares if he saw the scenes on television, and anyone who was going through that time would entirely remember the difference between live and on video. Which suggests he's a compulsive liar. Lying to make his story sound just a tad bit more impressive. That's fine as a salesman, that's what they do.
But, then you realize he's selling himself and will say anything to make sure you don't leave without buying the product. But sales and advertising works because people believe because they want to believe.
Trump also has a will tied up in court and needs your bank account information to free up the $21 million, of which you'll get 10% and all the illegal immigrants removed from your town.
"Some of the people who jumped went right by my window! Right by my window!
Some of them even waved at me. Because they were New Yorkers. New Yorkers know me. They love me. And they know I love them. It was amazing! Amazing! I'll never forget it." - Donald Trump remembers 9/11.
Trump is not precise. That's his problem. But he's not a liar. He just isn't precise enough with his memories.
But take the story of the cheering Muslims in NJ. He wasn't totally wrong. He simply is misremembering two stories. One, being the cheering Palestinians (in Israel) which was broadcast at the time. The other being Muslims here cheering. They were. Just not thousands of them.
2001 was how many years ago? You may not have the most precise memories of events more than a decade later.
You will mix together things you saw in person, versus stories you saw on TV, versus things you heard. And it becomes part of your memory.
The media has actual footage. They can go back and look at the tapes. But laymen who are speaking off the cuff, may get some facts wrong if they go by memory.
Speaking of which, the media let the democrats express complete amnesia when it came to the threat THEY SAID sadaam Hussein posed prior to Bush taking office.
They let the Demi's run with the "bush lied" narrative, because they were pushing for no war. Very rarely did a journalist, upon hearing the dem say Bush Betrayed us! Go to the tape and say "say, you had a different storyline back in 1998, Al gore."
So, I take these trump gotcha moments with a degree of salt. Since the liberal media has been spreading the narrative for the longest. They are propagandists. Yes, trump is, apparently, misstating, or overstating facts. But he is right in the general sense.
this new gotcha is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Because it's established that it was actual footage you can't argue somehow it's a dubious claim that he saw it happen. Is the assertion that he's lying because he didn't see it live at the second it happened. I don't see how you could prove that, since the guy filming it was watching it with his camera. And if he saw it, then others saw it too. Trump may have been one of those people. But even if he didn't see it live, he saw it on the news or on the Internet. Because it happened.
I saw the footage too. I just remember that I saw it as footage, and not live.
"Ann Althouse said...
The better argument for Trumpsters is that Trump isn't dishonest. Work on that."
If the standard is absolutely perfect honesty about everything -- to oneself as well as others -- no human being has ever met the standard.
The comments about Hillary aren't about "They did it too!!" schoolyard stuff. They are about establishing the appropriate scale on which to judge the veracity of our politicians.
George Washington once told Martha that she hadn't aged a day. Woodrow Wilson ran an entire campaign on having kept the U.S. out of the war in Europe. Bill Clinton said he did not have sex with that woman.
Saying they are all liars is true. But it's like a Christian saying we are all sinners. It doesn't mean that the guy who once looked at another woman with lust in his heart is the same as the guy who abandoned his dying wife to have sex with a younger model. It doesn't mean that the guy who once lost his temper with a hammer in his hand is the same as the guy who murdered his wife.
Scale matters.
And there will never be a GOP candidate who the MSM will allow to be perceived as rigorously honest -- even if they have to make things up.
Maybe he saw something' like this:
http://youtu.be/JzKI9TBR-XQ
Now did he see it first hand with his eyes? Or did he watch the footage with his eyes? Does it matter? Those pushing this gotcha are almost trying to suggest that what he says he saw didn't happen because he wasn't precise enough in his recollections. But you know,,and I know, that what he says he saw actually happened. So why does it matter the precise truth of how he saw it?
"The better argument for Trumpsters is that Trump isn't dishonest. Work on that."
Ok, let me try that.
Trump takes a small incident and embellishes it, sometimes to a great degree.
That is extremely unusual in any political or media environment *cough*.
PS: I am a Cruzster, not a Trumpster. A Cruiser?
Trump has no honesty problem.
The MEDIA has an honesty problem.
And Trump is exploiting it. He isn't the one under the microscope.
That is the paradigm of this cycle. The people aren't going to allow a bunch of dishonest hacks make value judgments for them anymore.
Them days are over.
P.S. You could definitely see the Towers burning on 9/11, i.e., directly, not on TV, by looking down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. I saw them myself that day, as I fled my high-rise midtown office. Someone high up, like in Donald Trump's apartment, would have seen them even better.
CNN is picking nits. Whether Trump has a telescope or not (I'm leaning towards he probably has a real nice one) events - people jumping out of buildings and muslims celebrating in NJ and the ME, were being shown on television (and who knows what their local news was airing). Given his previous fears and warnings after the 1st World Trade Center bombing, he's internalized the events of that day and this seems a stupid thing to attack him over.
If they're out to get him, why not look into his business dealings? How many politicians has he bought? Did he take any money from foreign governments in exchange for favors while in a position of power and influence? Has he lied repeatedly to cover up his part in the deaths of others he sent out to do his bidding? Did he get someone jailed to deflect his continued covering up of his failure as a person of influence and power? Has he tried to destroy evidence after it was subpoenaed by congress? No? Then I find it dubious they are all that serious about fact checking anything.
As others have said: Trump may be lying but his lie is closer to the truth than the official lie. Maybe he watched it directly, maybe he watched it on TV. But you can be sure the press, and our hostess, would rather talk about Trump's eyesight and line of vision than they would about those human souls who chose flight instead of the inferno.
What makes Trump a racist?
Mexicans/ Hispanics are not a race even though their open borders loving leaders operate under a group named La Raza aka The Race.
Hey, that OnceWritten is here again with his "hillbilly" Why do progs hate white poor people? Is it because they aren't black and therefor have no excuse for being ignorant and poor? I think that is the position of the projecting OnceWritten, the hillbilly hater.
Hillary wasn't lying about the sniper. There were snipers in Bosnia at the time and she was in Bosnia and the snipers were shooting at people, and she's a person. She heard reports about snipers and she has such a profound imagination that it felt very real to her. So really she's telling the truth. You're a hater if you don't believe her.
#trumpislikehillary
And if a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass so much. Pleez.
Some people here feeling guilty about voting for Obama and trying to justify to themselves their support for Hillary! are accusing Trump of inventing things that never occurred. 9/11 did happen. People did leap to their deaths. There is no way to have the Syria refugees vetted. The borders are out of control. Yes Trumps uses hyperbole, which politician doesn't but unlike Hillary he isn't lying on the fundamental facts.
I thought the burden of proof was on the accuser, at least here in America.
A Republican is incapable of lying. Because media and Hillary.
Did Hillary lie about Benghazi being caused by a Youtube video?
Paddy O said...I thought being dishonest was good. Dishonesty is the way the neo-gnostics feel superior. "He's clearly lying, but I know the real truth."
Hmm, that's an interesting take--no one's likely to accuse Trump of Straussian deception nor of all of this being some "noble lie," but if he's really smart he could be tactically selecting the subjects about which he hyperbolically makes some claim in order to both signal to insiders and cause outsiders to attack on terms Trump prefers. That's giving him an awful lot of credit, though.
Recent example: President Obama's insistence that he "evolved" on his views regarding gay marriage. Most of the people on the Left assumed he wasn't really against gay marriage despite his insistence in a couple of different elections that he was. His claim to have recently evolved is facially silly, but if Republicans attack it as an clear lie then the argument will be on terms extremely favorable to Obama. At the time his position was assumed to be false and he didn't pay much of a penalty for it with insiders, and his lie about this position now is of a kind that makes it difficult for outsiders to attack him (either for the lie then or for his reason for abandoning the lie now).
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
The better argument for Trumpsters is that Trump isn't dishonest. Work on that.
Trump has shown he is perfectly capable of handling these things himself. I'm not inclined to defend him when he can do a better job.
On the other hand, I'm interested in how often you defend the lies of politicians vs call them out on it.
Is there any doubt you knew all along Obama was lying about his opposition to gay marriage? It's one of the reasons you voted for him. Because you hoped he was lying.
Ugh.
Easy fix for the Trump campaign: preface every unsupportable assertion about the opposition with "there are some who say;" problem solved.
"There are some who say people didn't jump out of those towers, that people didn't see that happen, that those images shouldn't be broadcast again because they might upset folks. Well, I say it did happen, we did see it, and the truth is more important than some people's political agenda or feelings."
You're welcome, Trumpeteers.
Well we're talking about him again. The MSM is doubling down on the only play in its playbook. Like a dog returning to its vomit. Over and over again. And Trump's poll numbers keep climbing. Not too long ago everyone was talking about Ben Carson overtaking Trump. Where is Carson now?
Every single right leaning person I know is for Trump, except for one friend who watches Fox regularly.
A year is a long time, but the way things are going with Obama doing his level best to encourage Islamic terrorism and global destabilization a Trump presidency seems almost inevitable.
Saying Hillary is a bigger liar is not a good pro-Trump argument. He's not the nominee yet. If the other party's nominee is vulnerable on honesty, you shouldn't want to put up a candidate who also has an honesty problem.
But what candidate can be found "truthful" in this press? Carson was deemed a liar about the hoax exam when people who weren't in the class and didn't know said they didn't remember it happening. Ditto his claims of violence in his youth.
Their bitching because he won't apologize for being incorrect. He won't apologize because apologies tend to only more problems and are useless.
Compare their treatment of this with how quickly they pushed Obama being a member of a bigoted church for 20 years onto the back burner (with CNN proudly stating they were a "Wright Free zone" as quickly as they possibly could.
Ann Althouse said...
Saying Hillary is a bigger liar is not a good pro-Trump argument. He's not the nominee yet. If the other party's nominee is vulnerable on honesty, you shouldn't want to put up a candidate who also has an honesty problem. It's like putting up Romney against Obama when you want to use Obamacare against Obama.
11/25/15, 8:25 AM"
Sorry to say it but your Romney vs Obama example is in of itself not entirely honest. Romney as governor was given by the Massachusetts Democrat legislature a selection of shit sandwiches to choose from but given the Democrats had the votes to override a veto he had only the choice to pick the one to crammed down his throat. Obama on the other hand created the shit sandwich, told us it smoked turkey and crammed it down our throats and is angry at us for hating the shit sandwich.
I've seen this movie before. "Up" where the press are the dogs to be led around by their pavlovian instincts when it comes to anything non communist. "Squirrel! shouts this generation's T.R. And the dog's without a brain educated at the best schools can't help themselves. As a good "manager" and therefore strategist he probably has a list of unbelievable things that will go viral that are factually true that he'll unload whenever he needs to keep his name up in lights and remind the citizens of why they are outraged, and then post convention bring out the evidence, and probably do the inverse to the Clinton campaign when it starts. It'll be so good it'll make the campaign consultant industry dry up and blow away (as in "why didn't we think of that?"
Annie said...
CNN is picking nits. Whether Trump has a telescope or not (I'm leaning towards he probably has a real nice one) events - people jumping out of buildings and muslims celebrating in NJ and the ME, were being shown on television (and who knows what their local news was airing). Given his previous fears and warnings after the 1st World Trade Center bombing, he's internalized the events of that day and this seems a stupid thing to attack him over.
If they're out to get him, why not look into his business dealings? How many politicians has he bought? Did he take any money from foreign governments in exchange for favors while in a position of power and influence? Has he lied repeatedly to cover up his part in the deaths of others he sent out to do his bidding? Did he get someone jailed to deflect his continued covering up of his failure as a person of influence and power? Has he tried to destroy evidence after it was subpoenaed by congress? No? Then I find it dubious they are all that serious about fact checking anything.
11/25/15, 9:18 AM"
First really cogent argument against Trump I've seen on this blog (excluding the deaths comment which is at best rather dubious). What is on target is the influence and use of government officials to get his way (if there were any real improprieties). I suspect that since he is mainly in real-estate in Democrat controlled areas he must have a lot of those local officials in his back pocket and the MSM has a problem exposing them to bring Trump down. I always wondered why Trump never got a gaming license in Vegas even though he has a hotel there. However even if Trump is crooked he isn't going to rob me more than the Democrats already are robbing from me and they will increase their theft from me if they win next year. If given a choice I would prefer to have my pocket picked for $20 than have my car stolen.
While we're on the subject, we ought to revisit why the major broadcasters self-censored their video to take out the images of people dropping from the towers. Ostensibly it was "too upsetting" for violent Americans (who would take out their anger on innocent Muslims) but images of Americans mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib were broadcast because we could trust Iraqi fanatics to react calmly to that sort of provocation.
"Consider the possibility that Donald Trump has his own video, shot with his own equipment on 9/11, and he will eventually reveal it, after his antagonists have committed themselves to accusations of lying and delusion."
Considered and rejected. I think Trump is overplaying his hand on this one.
Think about what an ignorant, obnoxious, classist, bigoted asshole you have to be to throw around the term "hillbilly." Think about what a huge swathe of America you have to hold in utter contempt in order to use that term as an epithet. Consider how uninformed you have to be about rural America and how bone-fecking ignorant you have to be about the historical and cultural roots of these areas. Consider how much antipathy you have to have towards core American values like rugged individualism in order to feel like you could use words like this.
Consider how deficient your parenting and upbringing has to be to have grown up without having that corrected.
The mind boggles.
>>The better argument for Trumpsters is that Trump isn't dishonest. Work on that.
Obama voter tells R's how to vet their candidates.
"Consider the possibility that Donald Trump has his own video, shot with his own equipment on 9/11, and he will eventually reveal it, after his antagonists have committed themselves to accusations of lying and delusion."
I doubt that's the case. It would involve too much thought. Trump is used to saying whatever pops into his head and his supporters not caring if it's a flaming pile of dog poop.
I see no one's linked to today's Times piece: the NJ attorney general on 9/11, later to serve as counsel to the 9/11 Commission, investigated the rumors after 9/11 and found nothing. http://nyti.ms/1SiFrZ4 And he says he was in Jersey City on 9/11. Oh, and he's a Republican, appointed by Gov. Whitman.
Rule of thumb: whenever you have a choice between a plot and human error, choose human error.
Ann Althouse said...Consider the possibility that Donald Trump has his own video, shot with his own equipment on 9/11, and he will eventually reveal it, after his antagonists have committed themselves to accusations of lying and delusion
That's highly unlikely, but let's run it through. Say that happened, and Trump released his video--video proof showing him watching the tower on 9/11 and saying something about people jumping, say. What would be the result? Would the Media run retractions, or apologize? Would they defer to Trump's assertions more in the future, or work harder to find a mistake or exaggerations (to redeem themselves/prove they were really right all along)?
Consider their treatment of Dr. Carson and his stories from his childhood--I haven't followed it too closely but I think several people he grew up with came forward and corroborated at least parts of his story. I don't remember seeing mea culpae from the Media for their mockery/incredulity. On the flip side you've got Rathergate, of course, wherein the "proof" of the Media's case was shown to be an obvious and ridiculous lie...yet the Media themselves don't seem too apologetic for it--there's a major motion picture called Truth out now arguing FOR the Media's side!
I'm not sure truth, or even truth with proof, would make that much of a difference. That, of course, is an unpleasant thought.
I don't believe for a second that Trump saw people jumping from the towers from his mid-town apartment, just as he didn't see "thousands and thousands" of people in New Jersey celebrating the attacks on the towers. We know he didn't see the latter...as it never happened; I don't believe the former as I don't believeTrump was standing at this window eyeing the goings-on downtown with a telescope.
Anyone who thinks Trump is some sort of master strategist of making journalists look ridiculous is fooling themselves; he's a pompous blowhard--who has, to be frank, spoken honestly of late about the complete sham that is our current corrupt political system--and the journalists are just corporate hacks who make themselves look ridiculous by focusing on trivialities. (If they were not hacks and if they did focus on important matters, they would not long be employed as corporate propagandists.)
I wonder if the term "illegal immigrant" is actually, factually a 'poor choice of words, as Hillary describes.
I'll withhold judgement until the fact checkers supply detailed analysis as to the veracity of that statement.
Oh, and he's a Republican, appointed by Gov. Whitman.
If the point of this is to say its more reliable because he is a Republican (otherwise, what is the point?) Then you've not been paying attention.
Republicans, especially of the establishment variety, hate Trump and have been looking for ways to get rid of him.
How you could read Althouse and be unaware of that is beyond me.
"While we're on the subject, we ought to revisit why the major broadcasters self-censored their video to take out the images of people dropping from the towers. Ostensibly it was 'too upsetting' for violent Americans (who would take out their anger on innocent Muslims), but images of Americans mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib were broadcast because we could trust Iraqi fanatics to react calmly to that sort of provocation."
They were not broadcast or published mostly to avoid further hurting the loved ones of those who perished in the towers, I'm pretty sure.
The (few) images of American soldiers mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib were reportedly among the most benign and least disturbing of the many more images that we have never seen. The question of how Iraqi "fanatics" might react--(is someone a fanatic because they're pissed-off and literally fighting-mad at foreign soldiers who have invaded and destroyed their country and taken one's family and neighbors prisoner?)--had to do with why the many worse images were not published, while publishing these torture-lite photos was a matter of allowing the American public to see just what we are doing to other human beings. That the American public at large was not sickened and enraged--that many took a "ho-hum" or even a "fuck YEAH!" attitude toward the pictures and what they revealed about our depraved behavior in Iraq--is a more dispiriting condemnation of who we are (or have become) than can ever be issued by any present or future analysts of the era when America went mad.
Saying Trump is a big liar is not a good pro-Hillary argument. She's not the nominee yet. If the other party's nominee is vulnerable on honesty, you shouldn't want to put up a candidate who also has an honesty problem.
-but that's not the way it works, is it? We're supposed to accept that of course the Democrat lies, of course the Democrat became a millionaire through politics, of course the Democrat cut deals with terrorists for personal political advantage, of course the Democrat is under investigation by the FBI, of course the Democrat went to the Supreme Court to fight against the First Amendment, of course the Democrat had a filmmaker thrown in jail to further a politically useful lie - the immense and varied moral, legal, and personal failings of the Democrat are taken for granted.
"I don't believe for a second that Trump saw people jumping from the towers from his mid-town apartment, just as he didn't see "thousands and thousands" of people in New Jersey celebrating the attacks on the towers. We know he didn't see the latter...as it never happened; I don't believe the former as I don't believeTrump was standing at this window eyeing the goings-on downtown with a telescope."
But if he says he saw it, he could be taking about seeing it on footage. Which is clearly available. At the end of the day, what does it matter how he saw it IF IT HAPPENED?
Do you want some footage of people falling to their deaths? Then you can see it too.
garage mahal wrote;
A Republican is incapable of lying. Because media and Hillary.
But what is the lie even about that you are getting your panties in a wad over? Not that people fell out of the WTC and were seen plummeting to their deaths. But rather, that he saw it with his naked eyes as it was happening as opposed to seeing it from footage that showed the actions.
It would be like caling him a liar because he said he saw the planes hit the WTC.
"Wait a second, sir ! Did you actually SEE the plane hit the WTC as you claim? I'm dubious and skeptical!"
We have established that the plane hit the WTC. so if he saw it directly or saw a video image of it a few minutes later HE SAW IT. Why then does it matter if he is 100% accurate as to HOW he saw it.
The issue with the people in NJ is, there is doubt that such an event took place - IN NJ. But there was certainly such footage amongst the Palestinians. I watched it again last night. The question there then is, is he correct in his recollections or is he assuming that he saw something that took place in one spot took place in another spot.
The issue with the seeing the people fall out of the buildings is even less consequential. since we all have access to that footage if we want to look for it. When was the first time you saw it? LIAR!!!!!!!
"Saying Trump is a big liar is not a good pro-Hillary argument. She's not the nominee yet. If the other party's nominee is vulnerable on honesty, you shouldn't want to put up a candidate who also has an honesty problem."
Saying Trump is a big liar is also not a good anti Trump argument. Since those attacking Trump didn't have this argument when Hillary was in fact lying off her ass. That standard works both ways for both candidates.
Robert Cook said...Anyone who thinks Trump is some sort of master strategist of making journalists look ridiculous is fooling themselves;
Tangentially related, but does Andrew Sullivan still post "meep meep" brags about how President Obama's so smart his genius moves only look like they're dumb? I haven't ready Sullivan in a number of years so I don't know if he kept pushing that line (about things like Libya, Egypt, Syria for example).
People jumped out of the World Trade Center? Who knew? Remember that a lot of people voting next year were three years old at 9/11/01. Trump is making points for an audience that is likely completely unaware that American Muslims celebrated the collapse of the towers and that human beings took flight from the buildings to avoid burning to death.
Robert Cook
So being made to get in a naked pile is the same as jumping from skyscrapers?
20 some years ago, Trump was on Oprah. Watch this short video.
It's pretty good.
"They were not broadcast or published mostly to avoid further hurting the loved ones of those who perished in the towers, I'm pretty sure."
Amazing that in this one instance the media decides to self-censor such images. For decades, they show dead victims of all sorts of atrocities, from wartime casualties to the Jonestown massacre, all in the name of the public's right to know, but just now photos of unidentifiable people jumping from skyscrapers would be going too far because the families of the victims might somehow recognize their loved ones?
"(is someone a fanatic because they're pissed-off and literally fighting-mad at foreign soldiers who have invaded and destroyed their country and taken one's family and neighbors prisoner?)"
Someone is a fanatic if they are willing to kill innocent people to advance their backward religious views that belong in the 12th century. I can't speak to every person who fought our troops and massacred innocent people in Iraq, but the ones who fit the bill are absolutely fanatics and deserve not one ounce of sympathy. That may not justify the war, but don't for a minute be misled into thinking these were decent people.
"That the American public at large was not sickened and enraged--that many took a "ho-hum" or even a "fuck YEAH!" attitude toward the pictures and what they revealed about our depraved behavior in Iraq--is a more dispiriting condemnation of who we are (or have become) than can ever be issued by any present or future analysts of the era when America went mad."
As I recall, the guards and their superiors were brought to justice for abusing the prisoners. And what most Americans were aware of were the more benign treatments (putting them on leashes, human pyramids) which while humiliating do not rise to the level of what happens to one of our soldiers if they are caught by the enemy. Considering that, it's not surprising people weren't outraged by it.
Is this parody?
Peopled jumped out of towers.
Trump has eyes, isnt blind.
Therefore Trump isn't lying.
Again, Republicans are incapable of lying. They can only be misinterpreted by the media and liberals.
We had Obama tell us the Iran deal was vital to pass because it limits what Iran can do.
...but Iran isn't required to sign it.
...and it isn't legally binding.
THAT lie is far less important than whether Trump saw people trump from the WTC.
As I recall, the guards and their superiors were brought to justice for abusing the prisoners. And what most Americans were aware of were the more benign treatments (putting them on leashes, human pyramids) which while humiliating do not rise to the level of what happens to one of our soldiers if they are caught by the enemy. Considering that, it's not surprising people weren't outraged by it.
If I'm not mistaken, basic training is more painful and humiliating than what was done to the enemies.
garage mahal said...
"Peopled jumped out of towers.
Trump has eyes, isnt blind.
Therefore Trump isn't lying. "
I know garage is trying to be silly, but he did figure it out. CNN couldn't. Ann hasn't.
There are 2 points being made.
1. The media is talking about 9/11 while Hillary claims Muslims are peaceful.
2. Every time the media calls someone other than Hillary a liar they lose. Most democrats think Hillary is a liar much less everyone else. The media is calling trump a liar when at most he is exaggerating. But every time the word liar is spoken people think of Hillary.
The progs don't understand the corner they painted themselves into with Hillary.
"They were not broadcast or published mostly to avoid further hurting the loved ones of those who perished in the towers, I'm pretty sure."
So, did you know or are you "pretty sure ?" Did JournOlist exist that far back ?
Everybody, including Bush in one of his weak moments, was all worried about the A,rican public attacking Muslims, just because they attacked us.
The really impressive video was that one done by the French journalists who were doing a show about firehouses (as I recall) and went over to the WTC and shot video which was repeatedly interrupted by the crash of bodies hitting the canopy over their heads.
They got out safely before it fell and their video is staggering in its poignancy.
Garage mahal wrote:
Again, Republicans are incapable of lying. They can only be misinterpreted by the media and liberals.
no one is saying republicans are incapable of lying. If trump is in fact lying I will call him out on it. He's not my guy. I think he's a blow hard. But do you think that democrats are capable of lying about and/or misintereting republicans?
The key question is, what are they lying about. And what are the facts that determine whether they are lying. Are those facts testable or are we just supposed to take your word for it because you state the fact.
There's also a question of whether you are lying about things you do, versus lying about things you see.
If for example you see KKK members on the Missouri campus, and they are not in fact roaming the campus trying to kill blacks. It may be a lie if you say they are there . But it may also be based on a misunderstanding of what you think you see. We'd have to test it.
What trump LIED about, is something he says he say more than ten years ago on TV. Do you remember everything you saw 10 years ago on TV? The lie you say he did may in fact be a false memory. Which is not a lie.
For example:
http://science.time.com/2013/11/19/remember-that-no-you-dont-study-shows-false-memories-afflict-us-all/
I can't imagine anybody regarding the mainstream media with more suspicion than I do.
And I can't imagine anybody more interested in avoiding a Democratic president in 2016. I am as staunch a Republican as there is here.
I take my personal war with the liberal media seriously enough, that I don't want anybody screwing up the case against them.
And so I am beyond uncomfortable, with Donald Trump's reckless falsehoods and personal fabulisms. My hero Bill Buckley had to forcibly take conservatism away from the Birchers and their ilk. I feel like the Trump crowd is moving back toward Bircherism.
Chuck, right.
"I feel like the Trump crowd is moving back toward Bircherism."
Can you provide an example?
I can provide examples of the opposite, that Trump attracts moderates and independents in addition to conservatives, unlike John Birch who repelled moderates and independents which is why Buckley wrote non-violently about separating the GOP from Birch, and this would mean the Trump crowd has nothing to do with moving toward or away from Bircherism but if one were determined to conclude otherwise it seems to me the "away" side wins.
How do you feel about Buckley's support of Joe Lieberman vs. Lowell Weicker?
Can you see any semblance between Buckley's feelings about Republican Weicker and Trump's crowd's feelings about Bush or Christie or Walker or Jindall or Rubio or Kasich or Romney or McCain?
Did Buckley embarrass you when he formed the Horse's Ass Committee to help remove Weicker from Congress? That's sounds like it would be too brash and hillbilly-sounding to a man of your standards. Can you imagine Trump doing the same thing and thinking less of him because you are biased against him?
Blogger sean said...
P.S. You could definitely see the Towers burning on 9/11, i.e., directly, not on TV, by looking down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. I saw them myself that day, as I fled my high-rise midtown office. Someone high up, like in Donald Trump's apartment, would have seen them even better.
11/25/15, 9:12 AM
Yep -- From 30th Street south, the Hudson River shoreline in Manhattan takes a more easterly turn, so that while the World Trade Center was built on the shoreline of the Hudson downtown (at least, until they used the dirt removed from the pit to build Battery Park City), in the downtown area, the the Hudson River shore lines up perfectly with Fifth Avenue, so that anyone looking south couldn't help but see the Twin Towers in the background.
That doesn't mean Trump actually saw people jumping from the towers. Just that logistically, it means he's not claiming to have the ability to magically see through other skyscrapers from his penthouse in order to have seen the World Trade Center on 9/11/01
"And so I am beyond uncomfortable, with Donald Trump's reckless falsehoods and personal fabulisms. My hero Bill Buckley had to forcibly take conservatism away from the Birchers and their ilk. I feel like the Trump crowd is moving back toward Bircherism."
If you hadn't noticed the GOPe, after fighting Buckley tooth and nail, coopted his following and went back to their WASP progressive ways. Republicans like Nixon are responsible for half the federal bureaucracy.
Trump is the result of a GOPe party that has repeatedly screwed its' base. He isn't moving back toward anything. We are moving forward without the DC establishment.
Trump obviously can't tell the difference between real world and a TV screen. I hope F Troop doesn't have re-runs.
"We are moving forward without the DC establishment."
Hope and Change!
We want to believe!
The DC establishment is where the money comes from, where the power comes from, where the influence comes from.
What has Trump been interested in his whole life? Moving past the establishment in an attempt to help people? Or using the establishment to help himself?
His followers are his leverage, but the deal is going to be with DC establishment. He'll send you a nice thank you card, however, from the Trump House while he's wining, dining and making his next $100 million through government deals.
My 39th floor apartment, at 51st and 10th Avenue, had an unobstructed view of the towers. I saw the second plane hit and could discern objects, which I knew from the TV coverage to be people, falling. I could not have told what they were otherwise.
It's not as though seeing it personally adds anything to his narrative.
It's way of arguing he's personally affected by it, and also emphasizes that he was in New York City -- in Manhattan even - close enough to actually SEE falling bodies - maybe at some risk himself - at the time od eh september 11, 2011 attacks. It gives him some status.
If this was in isolation, I wouldn't think this amounted to too much, and could be a mistake, or maybe a mistake in speaking. (But if Trump meant he saw them, or at least he saw one person jump through his telescope, he could, and you would think would, SAY that, at least after a while.)
But I think it's just more likely Trump is making things uup and saying things thathe thinks people could believe is true.
I say this because of two other lies he told which can't be true:
1) That he got to know Vladimir Putin very well because they were on the same episode of 60 Minutes.
http://time.com/4107636/transcript-read-the-full-text-of-the-fourth-republican-debate-in-milwaukee/
….as far as Syria, I like — if Putin wants to go in, and I got to know him very well because we were both on 60 Minutes, we were stablemates, and we did very well that night.
Noww everybody has watched 60 Minutes, and they do live interviews and don't have agreen room. Never mind, that if they did have a green room, it wouldn;'t mean that he got to know Putin very well.
2) He put up a little memorial of sorts, a marker, to dead Civil War soldiers - that's completely fake!!
And wouldn't acknowledge anything was possibly wrong with that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/us/politics/in-renovation-of-golf-club-donald-trump-also-dressed-up-history.html?_r=0
He said about the historians who disputed the alleged bloody battle on the site of his golf course: "Were they there?"
He said it would be reasonable for that to have happened. He said soldiers could have crossed the river there.
“That was a prime site for river crossings,” Mr. Trump said. “So, if people are crossing the river, and you happen to be in a civil war, I would say that people were shot — a lot of them. ”
And maybe they did cross, at least nearby, but unopposed.
He said he got his facts from "numerous hisorians" but would not give their names.
Finally, the New York Times backed him into the position that "his people" had been told that, but he wouldn't give their names so they could ask them for the names of the historians where they got it from.
One person had even written to Trump's people and offerd to write something that would be true. There was no interest in that. Nor did Trump seem at all interested now in checking this out.
(It obviously was his idea of decoration, or maybe it would get the golf course talked about a little bit more.)
The New York Times article finishes:
One member, [of the Trump National Golf Club] a former history professor and a co-author of four Civil War novels, called the monument merely “strange.”
Much more important, he said, were the much-needed renovations Mr. Trump made to the golf courses.
“I am not going to lead a demonstration over this,” said the member, Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker. “It’s a country club with a golf course, for Pete’s sake.”
The New York Times reports, in an aside about Republican negative researcers, taht Hillary Clinton is still saying (she said it again in New Hampshire) taht she tried to join the marines in 1975.
While you might think this might have been a way of testing them, which she doesn't say, I read a comment somewhere on a blog to the effect that the Marines would have been happy to have a lady lawyer at that time.
There are only two semi-plausible reasons Hillary Rodham could have approached the Marines in 1975 inquiring about joing them:
1) It was a test.
2) She wanted to get far away from Bill Clinton.
Humperdink said...
I have to chuckle at the term political hillbillies. Hillary and Bill from Dope ... er.... Hope, Arkansas
No, they are not. They were not hillbillies - they were wise guys.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wise_guy
That Bill Clinton was from Hope, Arkansas was one of his BIG LIES.
He was born there, true, and he spent the first six years of his life there, but that was because it had a little association with Hot Springs, and that's where people associated with the political machine in Hot Springs, Arkansas went to during their exile after the "GI Revolt" of 1946.
The machine came back later, and supported Orval Faubus - and probably contrived the Little Rock school crisis in 1957 so that Orval Faubis could run for an unprecedented third 2-year term!
After that Faubus kept on getting re-elected until 1966, when Winthrop Rockefeller won on his second try.
Orval Faubus was brought back in 1984 as a candidate against whom Bill Clinton could win.
1966 was the year after the founder of the Hot Springs, Arkansas, political machine, Owen Vincent "Owney the Killer" Madden, whom Jimmy Breslin described as the founder of organized crime in America, had died of emphysema. Is that sentence poorly constructed?
11/27/15, 8:22 AM
Oops. I meant to say:
Now everybody has watched 60 Minutes, and they do NOT DO live interviews and don't have a green room.
Carly Fiorina took Donald Trumps claim to have met Putin, courtesy of 60 Minutes, as fact and told her own lie. That she also had met Vladimir Putin but not in a green room on a show but in a private meeting.
But on the Tonight Show she had said she had meet him in 2001 in a conference in Beijing where they both were scheduled to give speeches one after the other. Which is very much like a green room.
Marco Rubio couldn't TRUMP either of them, so he said that while he hadn't met Vladimir Putin he understood what he was.
Nobody challenged Donald Trump on his 60 Minutes claim. (Jeb Bush challenged him, or, better, attempted to correct him, on the idea that Putin was fighting ISIS.
Donald Trump responded:
TRUMP: …They blew up — hold it….
BUSH: (INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: …They blew up, wait a minute…
(AUDIENCE REACTION)
TRUMP: …They blew up a Russian airplane. He cannot be in love with these people. He’s going in, and we can go in, and everybody should go in. As far as the Ukraine is concerned, we have a group of people, and a group of countries, including Germany — tremendous economic behemoth — why are we always doing the work?
"My 39th floor apartment, at 51st and 10th Avenue, had an unobstructed view of the towers. I saw the second plane hit and could discern objects, which I knew from the TV coverage to be people, falling. I could not have told what they were otherwise."
From 51st street, you could not have seen people falling from the towers, unaided by a very powerful telescope. What you saw was larger debris from the plane or from the building. At that distance, people would have been so tiny as to be invisible.
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