In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners’ plowing into the World Trade Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.Kessler shouldn't have missed that and his credibility is indeed undercut. You'd think someone with the fact-checker beat would guard his reputation much more carefully. But I was looking right at Trump, not through Kessler's analysis. And that old article doesn't support Trump's statement that he could have seen "thousands and thousands" of cheering people in Jersey City.
Kessler has tried to process what Power Line embarrassed him with. He makes the point about the article that I made in my comments thread, that "a number of people" doesn't amount to "thousands and thousands" and that they were only "allegedly" seen. Kessler adds this:
One man who said he walked up and down through Jersey City on 9/11 wrote: “At no time did I see anyone celebrating. It did not happen. Not thousands — not hundreds — not dozens — not one. At no time did I meet anyone who claimed to have seen any celebrations. It’s also worth noting that I saw no TV-news vans who might have shot footage of celebrations. They did not show up until the next day.”Jersey City is the second-largest city in New Jersey. It has a population of 247,597. One man walking around on one day doesn't get us very far toward proving a negative, that something didn't happen. You might say that if there really were "thousands and thousands" that he'd have seen some of them, but that would assume that such people were distributed evenly in the different neighborhoods. The claim, however, is that Arab Americans were celebrating, and Arab Americans are only 2.3% of the Jersey City population. Did the man say he walked up and down through parts of the city where this demographic group is concentrated? Also, the rumors were of rooftop celebrations, which would be difficult to see from the sidewalk.
Now, my commenter said "Trump likely was in New York on 9/11. Yet all claim the right to know what he saw," and I was going to say if he was in New York, he wasn't in Jersey City, but I thought again. Where was Trump on 9/11? In some high-floor penthouse in Manhattan? I presume he has telescopes to gaze out upon the glorious long views. I would guess that he did have sight lines that extended to the rooftops of Jersey City. Maybe he did personally watch celebrations.
I await clarification. It will be something if he says: I have the telescopic power to monitor Jersey City rooftop parties from my penthouse.
Posts
114 comments:
It's amusing that Trump draws critics like dog shit draws flies.
Trump's interview with Stephanopoulos indicated that he saw the celebrations on TV and that it was "well covered" in the news, so the personal observation via telescope wouldn't work to support all of his statements.
He said it was on television. Please stop with the snark about the telescope. It is beneath you.
You'd think someone with the fact-checker beat would guard his reputation much more carefully.
I'm amazed at the apppeal to authority and a willingness to accept the premise of his editorial column as news oriented fact checking exercise. Kessler and the Post have been abusing the imprimatur of fact-checking as a partisan weapon to push a left-leaning agenda.
Trump is playing the media, again.
Trump exaggerates. Did everybody just notice that?
I don't think this will have any effect on his poll numbers.
Some one in yesterday's thread pointed out that Trump's previous exaggerations got us talking about things that were not being talked about, or reported at all in the MSM. This is another example of Trump getting us talking about something we had previously ignored.
He's probably conflating what he heard with what he saw. Supposedly there are news accounts of celebrations in "Palestine" and elsewhere. I'd never want to watch that so I'm not checking.
But he's an old guy and they get muddle-headed sometimes. And they always want to turn up the thermostat but they never offer to chip in on utilities. Greatest Generation my arse.
I have no desire to defend Trump, it sounds like he is engaging in his usual hyperbole in which dozens of Arab Americans become "thousands and thousands." But I do remember in the first hours and days after 9/11 a report about some people in NJ celebrating, including a small group of Middle Eastern types who had actually set up a video camera across the water from south Manhattan and recorded the towers coming down. The were high fiving and celebrating, and their antics were documented by a local TV news channel who was there to record events. Never heard anymore about such things until Trump opened his yap about it.
Political hyperbole bullshit minutia. Next.
I don't understand why it's hard to fathom that celebrations occurred in Paterson. They occurred in Palestine, which was reported on TV and is not disputed. Paterson has a large Palestinian population. People claim they witnessed celebration. Local "community leaders" deny this. Well of course they do.
"TRUMP: It was on television. I saw it."
Trump, the classy Manhattanite, probably saw footage of cheering from Gaza and simply assumed this was Jersey City.
But he already has claimed he saw it, not with telescopes, but "on television," yes? He's lying through and through, demagoguing, and that's all.
I understand taking issue with the well covered bit. Contrast this with the fact check they did of Hillary's attempt to join the marines. That got 2 Ps. Trump's version of events is arguably half true as that and got 4 Ps.
At this point, what difference does it make?
I'm guessing there were no big celebrations in the U.S. that day, if only because anyone happy about it would have been suicidal to cheer openly. It took a couple years after that for the Lunatic Left to start cheering on people who were killing our troops in Iraq, but on 9/11 anyone cheering the attackers was likely to get pummelled.
But presumably some number of people in this country--Arab, Muslim or otherwise--thought the attacks were just what we deserved. People have the right to believe odious things so long as they don't act on them.
Meanwhile, the Post had some article today about a poll showing voters trust Hillary more than anyone else on national security. This is a dark time.
Famous Exaggerator Accused of Exaggeration
I watched the whole thing from the roof of my office tower in Queens. I didn't see any celebration in New Jersey. But here you have no idea what's happening just 3 blocks away, in ANY part of the city, at ANY time. The girl who cut my hair swears they were dancing for joy on Steinway Street, but she didn't see it. Nobody actually saw it.
But I did spend the next two weeks walking every neighborhood I love. It was just grim and somber everywhere. Still gives me the shivers.
Virtually all Americans watched the 9/11 on TV. 300 million. Surely, within all those millions, there were at least a few thousand who were thinking thoughts like: Good. America deserves this. Just walking to my office that morning, in the law school building, I heard someone say something very close to that.
But Trump says, emphatically, that he saw thousands and thousands celebrating. He's running for President. Are his supporters so out of whack that it's okay for him to be mouthing off like this. Those of you who like him and are insisting this doesn't matter are ruining your credibility.
A classic: Kessler on on Palin and the ACA's death panels:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/sarah-palin-death-panels-and-obamacare/2012/06/27/gJQAysUP7V_blog.html
Rarely has a 'fact checker' achieved such an extreme level of gibbering incomprehensibility.
"First of all, Palin is not quoting herself correctly . . ."
Trump did see a crowd of people cheering when the towers came down, but it wasn't Arab immigrants. It was NYC real estate developers.
For the record, the comment I heard in the law school was that this happened because of Durban. (The U.S. declined to attend The 2001 World Conference against Racism (WCAR), August 31 to September 8, 2001.)
"He's lying through and through, demagoguing, and that's all."
Well, he did used to be a Democrat !
Ann, Trump is throwing red meat to the hillbillies that now make up the Republican primary electorate. It does not matter to them that it is true or not. You should know that with your Althouse a Hillbillies.
"Those of you who like him and are insisting this doesn't matter are ruining your credibility."
I don't like him and am amused at those who are trying so hard to make him go away. He is your conscience and he won't go away that easily. The Democrats are all Muslims now.
That will work well.
The only post-9/11 reference to "Arabs dancing in the streets" was to secondhand reports from TV newscasters about Arabs in Paterson NJ dancing in the streets, but it wasn't a firsthand account. So Trump may have a foggy memory of that from watching tv. Jersey City has more Puerto Ricans than Arabs, and they were most likely suffering just like everybody else.
The only person I ever saw who was happy about 9/11 was a crazy street person who I encountered walking from Newark Penn Station to an office across from Washington Park.
Dancing Arabs in New Jersey. Pre-planted explosives in the World Trade Center. The second gunman at Dealey Plaza. Sasquatch. Global warming. People will believe what they want to believe.
I have told you a million times not to exaggerate!
Trump may be lying or may be exaggerating ... or may be proven correct. I would be cautious about calling him a liar on this one because the video he claims he saw may appear. It's possible.
The real problem here is the exposure of the media's raw bias against Trump and Republicans in general. The fact that they let so many Hillary Clinton things slide while pounding on each Trump statement is telling. For instance, did you see the tweet Hillary sent out last week about all sexual assault voices must be listened to? Juanita Broadrick did. Katherine Willey did. Paula Jones did.
But media? Not so much.
dbp,
"Trump, the classy Manhattanite, probably saw footage of cheering from Gaza and simply assumed this was Jersey City."
Anyone- but especially Trump- could easily see scenes from Gaza and think it was Jersey City. I mean, we might think something like "hey, Jersey City looks a lot better than I remember it..." but it would be a very understandable mistake to conflate the two. Very understandable.
I don't know why Althouse is flogging this one, but her comment about someone saying that skipping Durban caused 9/11 was precious. How perfectly ivory tower. Only in an academic environment could a person faced with a gigantic disaster go looking for root causes in a skipped conference like the proverbial central American butterfly causing a hurricane with a flap of its wings.
Althouse. Of the few thousand "America deserved this" people you postulated, what percentage do you think were academics? I should think 50% would be the lower bound.
I doubt it was thousands. I mean, I have to limit the number of tailgaters on my roof once I get the truck up there.
If it was "it was well covered at the time," there should be video clips.
Are we also going to deny Palestinians cheered 9-11? Or that no one jumped from the WTC?
Just because the media is censoring the video doesn't mean reality changed.
Once written, twice... said...
Ann, Trump is throwing red meat to the hillbillies that now make up the Republican primary electorate. It does not matter to them that it is true or not. You should know that with your Althouse a Hillbillies.
I did factory work before I retired. I know a lot of blue collar union men that have never voted for a Republican their whole lives, and they are thrilled with Trump.
The move to destroy Trump's candidacy is interesting.
Hillary doesn't want Trump to be the GOP nominee, because she knows he would beat her. But she's going to wait it out.
The GOP doesn't want Trump to be the GOP nominee, because the GOP knows he's neither a conservative nor a friend of the GOP establishment. But the GOP doesn't think he can get the nomination, so they're waiting it out.
The MSM would kinda like Trump to be the GOP nominee, because it'd be fun.
Trump doesn't much care whether he's the GOP nominee or not, and he probably won't be, in which case he'll run as Ross Perot, throwing the election to Hillary.
So who really wants to destroy Trump's candidacy? Possibly Trump himself, most of all.
Hagar nails it. Trump saw a lot of celebration on TV. So did I. He knows of or saw celebrations in NJ. He is confusing memories. Happens all the time. Only a problem if he bases policy on it.
"Those of you who like him and are insisting this doesn't matter are ruining your credibility."
I don't like him, and I believe like usual he's running off at the mouth with no regard for whether anything he says is true, but this really doesn't matter. This is like the hundredth time he spewed exaggerations, rumors and irrelevant nonsense in this campaign, and his supporters love every bit of it. Nothing's going to change here--it's not as though he could say something wrong and they'd abandon him.
I just don't like that this is playing out like a slow-motion Hillary Clinton victory. This all couldn't be working better for her if she had set the whole thing up.
Trump misremembered some video seen 15 years ago at a moment of high emotion. This is way worse than lying about and imprisoning a crappie film maker.
Cruel. Neutral.
BTW,
JHapp @ 7:45 and Limited blogger @ 7:46 together have it exactly right.
Trump's demagoguery tends to be a discussion starter. Obama et al's demagoguery seems intended to shut discussion down.
I wonder if this is some sort of weird take on the supposed "Dancing Israelis" that truthers were tossing around circa 2006:
http://www.911myths.com/index.php/Dancing_Israelis
"Friday, September 14, 2001 "The New York Times reported Thursday that a group of five men had set up video cameras aimed at the Twin Towers prior to the attack on Tuesday, and were seen congratulating one another afterwards." - FOX"
Truthers back then were trying to claim that 9/11 was actually an Israeli operation to piss America off enough to where they'd attack the Middle East. Of course that's an exceptionally stupid delusion; it's absolutely flabbergastingly retarded to think Israel would be running an operation like 9/11 to gain the support of the US WHEN THEY ALREADY HAVE IT and do so in a way that would instantly lose them that very support once it were found out. But you can never say that a truther claim was too convoluted for them to attempt to convince people of it.
Now, what does that have to do with Trump's claim? That's just it; I don't know. All I'm saying is that the only claim I've ever seen of cheering taking place in the US was that truther claim from back around 2006 or so. I've never, ever heard of anyone else being accused of celebrating the fall of the towers while on American soil. That's why I wonder if it's not some sort of odd appropriation of that old claim.
That said, as others have pointed out: There was celebration in foreign lands. Perhaps the more likely scenario is that Trump's conflating here? I don't know.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/11/why_the_media_doesnt_want_to_talk_about_muslim_support_for_911.html
And, in case you don't believe me, or Donald Trump, there was a story in the Washington Post confirming this:
In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners’ plowing into the World Trade Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river.
I just like "George Stuffinenvelopes".
Surely, within all those millions, there were at least a few thousand who were thinking thoughts like: Good. America deserves this.
We know of one. The guy who was the current President's minister for decades and inspired the title for one of his books.
But Trump says, emphatically, that he saw thousands and thousands celebrating. He's running for President. Are his supporters so out of whack that it's okay for him to be mouthing off like this.
Obama said electing him would lead to the stop of the oceans rising. He said you could keep your insurance and doctor if you liked them. He said his proposal would save $2500 a year for families.
Which exaggeration is more damaging?
I remember videos of Arabs cheering. I just didn't know it was in Jersey City!!
"Anyone- but especially Trump- could easily see scenes from Gaza and think it was Jersey City. I mean, we might think something like "hey, Jersey City looks a lot better than I remember it..." but it would be a very understandable mistake to conflate the two. Very understandable."
Bobby beat me to it. But, it is unlikely Trump confused Gaza with Jersey City. Maybe Dearborn, but not Jersey City.
If Jersey city has 2.3% Arab Americans and a pop of 250k, then that's under 6,000 Arab Americans. I think it unreasonable that almost half would be partying to the attack.
Whether they did it or not, you know they were thinking it.
If you read all of Trump's comments, it's pretty clear he is conflating two concepts:
1. He "saw" or heard on the TV that there were celebrations going on in NJ (confirmed that there were accounts of this, including investigations of it)
2. He "saw" on TV that there were thousands celebrating 9/11 via video (confirmed, just not in NJ)
Regardless, why is it so suspect that there would be people in our own country celebrating 9/11? Of course there were - they are called "the side that helped support and conduct the enemy operation, which spanned peoples of many countries."
CWJ sez:
Althouse. Of the few thousand "America deserved this" people you postulated, what percentage do you think were academics? I should think 50% would be the lower bound.
Who was that Notorious Noble Native from Boulder? He called the victims "little Eichmanns."
Ward Churchill. Didn't end well for him, as I recall.
People keep forgetting that Tromp is running for political office. If political candidates were required to tell the truth, that would be the end of politics as we know it. Two big issues in the campaign are our porous southern border and the threat to our security posed by radical Islam. Now, with his typical disregard of American opinion, Pres. Obama has connected these two issues by announcing that he will allow 10,000 "Syrian" "refugees" into this country. You have one candidate who doesn't think there's any such thing as radical Islam, and another who reminds us that some Muslims hate this country. Sure, his specific example may be incorrect, but does anybody deny that there are Muslims who want to injure this country?
Tromp's politics are brilliant. I think that if he were actually elected he'd be a disaster as President, for much the same reason that Obama has been: Bullshit ain't policy.
I remember seeing video of large numbers of people dancing, but if I recall it was from Palestine and the West Bank. Then, if I recall, it was reported that their PLO leaders got to them and stopped the dancing because the optics were bad, and we didn't see many replays of the original videos thereafter.
Were they "thousands"? Hard to tell, the way camera angles and editing can show a crowd.
So I wanna know if Trump specifically tied the "thousands" to N.J., or if the press, in their usual fastidious attention to detail, did it for him, then attacked.
"Are his supporters so out of whack that it's okay for him to be mouthing off like this. Those of you who like him and are insisting this doesn't matter are ruining your credibility."
As between Trump and the MSM, for credibility I'll pick Trump every time. At the core of his exaggerations there is always a kernel of truth. Unlike, for example, that Banghazi was the result of an internet video. No lie could be more brazen or dishonest. The MSM continues to tell me that guys shouting Allahu Akbar while they murder Frenchmen are not muslims, why should I ever believe them?
I remember the news story about the NJ rooftop celebrations. They were discussed extensively on blogs because they suggested people in the US may have known about the attacks. I also remember that pretty much nothing came from the police investigations.
Trump says something not quite true that shows his biases and his penchant for self-aggrandizing exaggeration. There's enough truth in it that his defenders will be unmoved and enough falsity that the media will have another news day devoted to the orange-haired man. Another day that Hillary and Cruz and the rest of the field are ignored.
In the Palestinian Territories there were spontaneous, jubilant celebrations on 9/11. Arafat closed them down. He wanted the world to think that Palestinians were saddened by the event and opposed to such acts of terrorism. I find more similarity to Arafat's mendacity in Stephanopoulos than I do in Trump.
I'll say it again, Trump didn't "double down" on the statement there were "thousands". Show me in the transcript where he says that. You can't.
Trump's gaffe now has people talking about the FACT that at least some Muslims in this country are actively rooting against this country's fortunes -- at the same time as the current president intends to import tens of thousands of Muslims.
In what other context could a politician get Ann Althouse, WaPo and the rest of the MSM to talk about this uncomfortable fact that undercuts this president's policies?
I do not prefer Trump as a political candidate but I admire him this grudging respect: he knows how to play the press.
"Trump is playing the media, again"
Yes, he actually knows how this game is played. And the carping of thousands and thousands of pedants isn't going to change the minds of those who agree with his underlying point.
AllenS said...
Once written, twice... said...
Ann, Trump is throwing red meat to the hillbillies that now make up the Republican primary electorate. It does not matter to them that it is true or not. You should know that with your Althouse a Hillbillies.
I did factory work before I retired. I know a lot of blue collar union men that have never voted for a Republican their whole lives, and they are thrilled with Trump.
11/23/15, 8:48 AM"
That is why the Democrats are scarred of him. The Democrats can't win without them and they know it. If Trump doesn't self-implode he may very well pull of a Nixon 1972 landslide.
I can't testify as to what Trump saw, but I totally believe that many did indeed celebrate the attack on the WTC.
When Indira Gandhi was assassinated I was attending USC and living in an apartment with a Sikh from Indonesia and a Muslim from Pakistan. The night she was murdered they invited all of their friends over for a party, and literally cheered every time her death was mentioned on the news. The crowd was literally giddy with excitement.
Interesting that Althouse holds Trump to a higher standard of truth than the of the Democratic constellation of propagandists,grifters, enemy apologists and proven liars.
So Arab Palestinians in the ME whooped it up on 9/11, but Arab Palestinian immigrants in the US walked around with doleful faces?
Got it.
Didn't the Palestinian Arabs back Hitler in WW2?
The Soviets in the cold war?
Saddam in the Gulf War?
If we haven't figured out by now that Trump just says anything that pops into his head the moment before he opens his mouth, we're dumber than he is.
Here we are carefully parsing his words tor try to figure out what he was trying to say. Even he doesn't know what he's trying to say. Might as well read chicken entrails. Or more accurately, try to interpret the patterns in a squid's cloud of ink as communication.
What bullshit essentially misrepresents is neither the state of affairs to which it
refers nor the beliefs of the speaker concerning that state of affairs. Those are
what lies misrepresent, by virtue of being false. Since bullshit need not be false, it
differs from lies in its misrepresentational intent. The bullshitter may not deceive
us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts
to be. What he does necessarily attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise. His
only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he
misrepresents what he is up to.
This is the crux of the distinction between him and the liar. Both he and the liar
represent themselves falsely as endeavoring to communicate the truth. The
success of each depends upon deceiving us about that. But the fact about himself
that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct
apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something
he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the
other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to
him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the
truth nor co conceal it. This does not mean that his speech is anarchically
impulsive, but that the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how
the things about which he speaks truly are.
Henry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit
Poor Ann. She got played by Trump. Did Trump conflate events saying thousands and thousands of Muslims on TV celebrating? He did see thousands of Muslims celebrating on TV. He knew of the parties in Jersey city. They were not widely reported because the media has an agenda.
The best part is millions of people are talking about the fact that large numbers of Muslims celebrate death. More people read the Jersey city party story than read Kesslers BS fact check. Hillary is dangling out there with her obvious lie that Islam has nothing to do with terrorism.
You try so hard to deny reality. The thing that makes you angry about Trump is he throws it right back in your face. People who lie to themselves get the most angry.
Gabriel said...
"If we haven't figured out by now that Trump just says anything that pops into his head the moment before he opens his mouth, we're dumber than he is."
If you haven't figured out that his words were a masterstroke, you are dumber than he is. He said something that conflated two events. The left exploded and overreacted and is now discussing how stupid Hillary's "Islam has nothing to do with terror" comment is.
6 Republicans are beating Hillary now in polls. They can all thank Trump for that.
Althouse: "Are his supporters so out of whack that it's okay for him to be mouthing off like this. Those of you who like him and are insisting this doesn't matter are ruining your credibility. "
Obama voters are lecturing others on credibility?
Do they possess sufficient credibility to do so?
Based on what, precisely?
And this just a day after Hillary famously tweets that all sexual assault victims should be believed?
Well.
Birkel: "I do not prefer Trump as a political candidate but I admire him this grudging respect: he knows how to play the press."
Indeed.
People do like to read memetic brilliance into Trump's attention-grabbing exaggerations. Perhaps he's just buffeted by the same ideas+feelings that resonate w/ most folks. By having unprecedentedly less elite-conventional filter *and* nearly unkillable importance/exposure, he now and then stumbles upon something that earns him gratitude from people who've been told that these sympathies are shameful. These grateful few are well aware of who the shamers are. Trump would make an unstoppable 3rd party candidate - he'll have far more loyalty than Perot (who was similarly attacked, though probably less objectively outside-normal).
I hesitate to mention this only because it's orthogonal to the boring factual issue of whether Trump confused some footage of Palestinians or whoever for US muslims: you don't understand what religious extremism is if you can't believe that 1000s - at least 5% - of NY/NJ muslims felt strong stirrings of pride (that of course they were smart enough to not publicly voice). Perhaps a similar number of fundamentalist christians would have such a response to another abortion bombing, for example. So I think some of the "that's impossible" critics have really humiliated their common sense (again). Open celebration in a public square in the US, sure, impossible (for reason of self preservation).
re spongeworthy: "But he's an old guy and they get muddle-headed sometimes. And they always want to turn up the thermostat but they never offer to chip in on utilities. Greatest Generation my arse. "
Yes, us old guys get muddle-headed often. I'll accept Trump as definitely muddle-headed, and maybe as old, but "Greatest Generation"? No way. The Greatest Generation" fought WWII. He's not even my "Silent Generation". He's one of @##$$%% baby boomers (born in 46).
The WaPo article does not say that the celebrations were limited to rooftops, only that the tailgate-style parties were. Maybe the writer meant to convey the former; it is not clear. However, done celebrations in the street would be entirely consistent with the 2001 report.
Obama said electing him would lead to the stop of the oceans rising. He said you could keep your insurance and doctor if you liked them. He said his proposal would save $2500 a year for families.
Which exaggeration is more damaging?
I think someone really needs to create a new Donald Trump meme with a picture of him and a quote from Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama written as if Trump were the one saying it. It seems to me that Clinton and Obama have said an awful lot of “colorful” things over the years without nary a response from the MSM (other than to cover criticism by their opponents) and it would be fun to see how people react differently if they thought Trump was the one said those things. Start with the quote about the oceans and work your way to Trump’s grandmother being a “typical white person.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjO8Qc5s1fY
Obama says 10,000 people die in Kansas tornado. Actual count:24.
Trump can see for miles and miles....
I was mostly offline this weekend so I missed the whole flareup. This morning on NPR, though, Cokie Roberts said that it'd been repeated refuted that "Arabs celebrated after the 9/11 attacks." Even from what little I'd heard I knew Trump was talking about people in NJ (presumably Muslim and/or Arab-Americans in NJ) and that his claim was almost certainly wrong. But the claim Cokie was so disdainfully batting down, that "Arabs" celebrated after 9/11, is 100% true! There were AP photos of Palestinians whooping it up, and I remember reports of some other groups in that part of the world taking a celebratory/laudatory attitude ("serves 'em right, chickens coming home to roost," all that jazz).
So in the process of pointing out how wrong Trump is Cokie makes an equally-incorrect assertion, in a disdainful way. This is informed debate in 2015, and it's pathetic.
Ann Althouse said...For the record, the comment I heard in the law school was that this happened because of Durban. (The U.S. declined to attend The 2001 World Conference against Racism (WCAR), August 31 to September 8, 2001.)
I condemn the bigotry and racism of people who deny certain groups have any agency of their own to commit crimes and horrible acts. These super-tolerant liberal folks really do think that "America created ISIS" (the FB meme going around, although actually it's just Pres. Bush & VP Cheney apparently) or that Osama only attacked us 'cause we didn't go to an antiracism conference--it wasn't their doing, really, we made them. They'e not capable of carrying out their own plans, following their own agendas, taking actions that other nations don't agree with, no; they're too stupid or weak willed or just too backwards as a people to pursue their own goals on the world stage--it's all America's fault. Ugly.
I don't care for Trump and won't defend him. I will attack Kessler's fact-check because he employs some of the same things that Trump is doing. Look at the quotes he uses:
"Fulop, who is a possible Democratic candidate for governor in 2017, said in a statement that Trump was “shamefully politicizing an emotionally charged issue.” He added: “No one in Jersey City cheered on Sept. 11. We were actually among the first to provide responders to help in lower Manhattan.”
- Fulop (D) uses absolute language like "No one". Really, not a single person. The Washington Post article may indicate otherwise.
“That is totally false. That is patently false,” Speziale said. “That never happened. There were no flags burning, no one was dancing. That is [barnyard epithet].” He said the main concern after the attacks was that the U.S. Muslim population would face retaliation, and so law enforcement officials worked with the community to ensure that did not happen. “They’ve been very helpful and law-abiding.”
- Speziale also uses absolute language like "never" and "no one".
At least Christie and Pataki qualify there language.
It's pretty definitive if Kessler claims one anonymous "guy" for his proof, being the certified fact-checker and all. I mean, if you can't trust the WaPo, who can you trust? So it's settled: There were no Muslims in America celebrating the 9/11 attacks. Now, about all those Jews who called in sick that day...
For the record, the comment I heard in the law school was that this happened because of Durban. (The U.S. declined to attend The 2001 World Conference against Racism (WCAR), August 31 to September 8, 2001.)
This is the only 9/11-related memory of someone's that has made me laugh.
Trump says outrageous things all the time. I don't know why he's in the race. He's a font of wild comments. The idea of seeing literal thousands of people together celebrating 9/11 in the United States seems impossible to believe.
According to Wikipedia, "4.2% of religious adherents in Jersey City" are Muslims, though I don't know where that number came from because it's not on the page they cite. That's now, not in 2001, and supposedly that population has grown since 2001, but we'll go with it. In 2000, the population was 240,055. So that's about 10,000 Muslims. If Trump saw literal thousands, that would have to be at least 2,000, and that would be 1/5 of the Muslims in Jersey City. One fifth were inclined to publicly celebrate an attack on their own country?! There would need to be a more evidence than a wild man's word to believe that.
Plus, thousands of people celebrating that day would likely have caused a riot, and I don't remember any famous Jersey City riots of 9/11.
"Fulop, who is a possible Democratic candidate for governor in 2017, said in a statement that Trump was “shamefully politicizing an emotionally charged issue.”
President Obama, press conference in Indonesia last week:
And the media needs to help in this. I just want to say -- during the course of this week, a very difficult week, it is understandable that this has been a primary focus. But one of the things that has to happen is how we report on this has to maintain perspective, and not empower in any way these terrorist organizations or elevate them in ways that make it easier for them to recruit or make them stronger
President Obama, Oct 2015:
And, of course, what’s also routine is that somebody, somewhere will comment and say, Obama politicized this issue. Well, this is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic. I would ask news organizations -- because I won't put these facts forward -- have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who’ve been killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade and the number of Americans who’ve been killed by gun violence, and post those side-by-side on your news reports.
Consistent standards: how do they work??
I can't get why the hell we're talking so much about the facts and figures at play here. Where's the empathy? Where's the respect for people's feelings?
Trump is tapping into FEELINGS--feelings people have about threats, feelings people have about foreigners, feelings of distrust people have for their government. I thought FEELINGS were the most important thing, and here we have a politician whose surprising popularity is based almost entirely on his attitude and how me makes people FEEL and all anyone can do is talk about how some of his pronouncements--pronouncements designed to elicit strong FEELINGS mind you--aren't 100% accurate.
Inexplicable.
I think he saw as many Americans of Islamic faith celebrating as Bill Clinton saw black churches being firebombed. Remember that lovely little lie?
Yes, Donald Trump was in the New York City metropolitan area on September 11, 2011.
But so were 25 million other people!
Hillary Clinton does not lie so carelessly and unconcernedly.
Carly Fiorina is not so brave.
Ann Althouse said..But Trump says, emphatically, that he saw thousands and thousands celebrating. He's running for President. Are his supporters so out of whack that it's okay for him to be mouthing off like this. Those of you who like him and are insisting this doesn't matter are ruining your credibility.
That's a little concern troll-ish, isn't it Professor? I don't support Trump and I don't think it's okay for him to be mouthing off like this. As boring as you may find it I still think it's worth pointing out that many of the people claiming those who don't attack Trump for this will "lose credibility" had no problem accepting assertions without factual basis and bald-faced lies from Dem politicians in recent years. I don't even mean the Candy Crowley debate assistance, by the way--think back to John Kerry. Did anyone in the MSM (other than Taranto) ridicule Kerry for his magic hat ("I have the hat to this day")?
It's a strange game where the rules only apply to one side, and although you've mentioned several times you consider it whining to point it out repeatedly, the fact that it needs to be pointed out over and over again informs the reactions those of us not on the Left have to episodes like this. Trump's wrong, Trump should be held accountable. Obama was wrong, and Kerry, and H. Clinton, and they should be too, but they're not. Repeat that process enough and lots of people figure out that the Media really isn't interested in holding EVERYONE to account, just certain folks--and that it's a harmful waste of time to pretend otherwise.
Note that I don't posit some vast Left wing conspiracy, by the way. Simple laziness and the large leftist bias explains almost all of it; self-interest and mood affiliation bias explains the rest. I mean, there are Journo-listers out there, but they're a small minority and rooting them out wouldn't solve the problem.
We don't trust the Media, Professor, we don't think they play fair and we don't trust their judgment. That shapes how we react to situations like this one, when the Media might actually be correct.
"This is the only 9/11-related memory of someone's that has made me laugh."
It wasn't very funny on the morning of 9/11, but it did suddenly break my usual barrier of listening to my colleagues and taking even far-out ideas seriously. I was unable not to just say "no" with undisguised rejection of plain idiocy.
rcocean said...
I'll say it again, Trump didn't "double down" on the statement there were "thousands". Show me in the transcript where he says that. You can't.
11/23/15, 9:53 AM
rcocean, I actually had a comment written in yesterday's post about this, contrasting your incredulity and Althouse's statement that Trump said "thousands cheered". I said it was easily proven or disproven, and asked if anyone had video. Then I decided to look myself, googled 'Trump says Americans cheered 9/11 attacks', and the video from an Alabama speech came up among many. Didn't bother posting the comment after that. Long story short, Trump said that "thousands and thousands cheered" in New Jersey. Course, he may have been referring to the Princeton campus...
I think the key thing missing is WHY Trump would exaggerate about this? It seems obvious; He wants to push the narrative that Muslim Americans are not loyal and are not to be trusted. It fits in with the current xenophobia and anti-refugee rhetoric which has catapulted him to the top of the polls about [mainly] white conservatives. Anything to keep him atop the polls....
Professor, regarding credibility. Trump's supporters could not care less about "credibility." The left and the MSM has long since given up any serious claim to credibility on their own, so many on the right have decided not to play their game. They understand that "credibility" is a card played only against right-leaning politicians, never left-leaning ones, and only by the elite.
Moreover, a great many people in this country are sick and tired of milquetoast political campaigns where nothing of substance is ever said unscripted, where every word is carefully measured and calculated by consultants and specialists. They value the unscripted guy who, like them, says what he thinks, even if the specific facts and details may be a bit fuzzy.
Thanks for the explanation, PatHMV. I see that Trump supporters have gone mad and don't care about convincing nonbelievers. You guys are a cult, apparently. Maybe I just shouldn't waste my time.
Sammy Finkelman said...
Yes, Donald Trump was in the New York City metropolitan area on September 11, 2011.
But so were 25 million other people!
11/23/15, 1:26 PM
The entire population of New York state is less than 20 million. There are a little over 8 million residents of NYC. Is Sammy Fink asserting that 17 million people commute to NYC every day, or is he just pulling #'s out of his male uterus? Who's more full of shit- the guy who says thousands of New Jersey muslims celebrated the attack on America by muslims, or the guy saying that 25 million people are in NYC every day?
How does that comment follow from what Pat said?
It's the Trump supporters, plus a whole lot of conservatives who don't support Trump, who have given up on trying to play the liberal games which are rigged against them. So every time you express this concern about how they (we, as I'm a member of the latter group) come across to liberals, we are quite simply beyond caring.
There's nothing cultish about that, it's just rational behavior. Liberals like your colleague that you quoted above are never, ever, ever, ever going to have a more favorable impression of Republicans, and they will consistently nitpick every statement from a GOP candidate while ignoring egregious lying from Dems. It's like you are constantly criticizing conservatives for refusing to play games with carnival hucksters. The shell game is rigged, we all know it, and the only winning move is not to play.
This, of course, is a large part of Trump's appeal although I don't like it. I can certainly understand why people find it refreshing that he isn't cowed by the lying fact checkers.
And good grief, can you show me one example in the past 8-10 years of a progressive who cares about trying to convince conservatives instead of declaring the debate over? Why is his an indication of madness on the right when it is endemic to the left as well?
It is possible that Jersey City is now the largest city in the state, for whatever trivial value that is. We won't know until the next census. JC has been growing faster than the largest city of Newark and Newark was not much larger to begin with.
I can also vouch that there was a bit of an issue at my workplace with a person of a certain religion making certain statements, perhaps misconstrued but still inadvisable, that had him sent home for his own safety.
As several others have pointed out, Barack Obama sat through a church service in which the 9/11 attacks were referred to as "America's chickens coming home to roost", as well as one which began with the righteous imprecation, "God Damn America!". Presumably he clapped politely, or perhaps just tossed a couple bucks in the collection plate.
Althouse: "Are his supporters so out of whack that it's okay for him to be mouthing off like this. Those of you who like him and are insisting this doesn't matter are ruining your credibility."
Credibility? White Americans who are not ashamed of being white Americans don't have any "credibility", at least not the kind you are talking about. The MSM, and your colleagues in academe, regard us as atavistic subhumans. The people who have "credibility" are chucklehead clowns like your law school buddy, with his peculiar theory of what motivates Muslim terrorists. You may have said "no" with undisguised rejection of plain idiocy, but did you reject the plain idiot? Was his "credibility" undermined? I'm fairly sure he is still making a handsome living off the taxes paid by his betters.
Trump is a loose cannon. I doubt he would make a very effective President. But it is a real pleasure to watch him making all the little dogs bark.
Matt said...It fits in with the current xenophobia and anti-refugee rhetoric which has catapulted him to the top of the polls about [mainly] white conservatives. Anything to keep him atop the polls....
In the interest of accuracy, Matt, does it make sense to say that "anti-refugee rhetoric" catapulted him tot eh top of the polls when he lead those polls well before most people were talking about refugees at all? To "keep him atop," that's a different story, but Trump's rise is commonly talk about as being due to his rhetoric about closing the southern border and/or deporting illegal immigrants from Central and South America. Let's be precise in defining others' xenophobia.
Ann Althouse said...I see that Trump supporters have gone mad and don't care about convincing nonbelievers. You guys are a cult, apparently. Maybe I just shouldn't waste my time.
Calling people with whom you disagree "a cult" is othering, Professor. Besides, I thought "appealing to one's base while demonizing the other side using ridiculous strawmen and over the top rhetoric" was the way to go these days--Trump turns it up to 11 but it's not qualitatively different from the way our current leaders comport themselves. Our President's pretty quick with a "there are those who say..." after all.
Sorry, it took me a while to get back to this. Life (exercise, dog walks and dental appointments) intervened.
First off, I'm proud to be the instigator who actually caused Ann to reverse, however slightly, her devotion to the notion that Trump is lying, by offering some reasonable doubt.
Trump is not my guy, he's not even high on my list of maybes among the Republican field, surpassing only Santorum and Huckabee. And his bombastic manner, and exaggerated stories like this are part of the reason. And yet he's still miles better than Hillary or Bernie. I suspect, as suggested by other comments, that he is conflating TV reports of some Muslims in the US celebrating openly with reports of mass celebrations in the Middle East. It's been 15 years now, and the reliability of human memory and eye witness testimony is known to be highly fallible over such times. And the ability to judge the numbers of crowds is notoriously bad (and partisan); consider the various estimates of pro-life and civil right marches.
However, something is going on here that needs to be pointed out. Trump's comments were designed to point out the fact that among the immigrants and refugees from the Muslim Middle East are many who are not exactly wholehearted supporters of the US, and a few that are downright inimical. After 9/11 and Fort Hood, there is simply no denying that. Democrats, including Stuffinenvelopes and Kessler, are trying very hard to suppress that knowledge, and at the same time, turn the story into a "Trump lied" gaffe. But they would do the same to any Republican.
It is a Republican belief that we should be careful who we allow to enter, both to avoid increasing the number of people on the dole, and to exclude the criminal and/or terrorists. Democrats, on the other hand, seem to have gone whole hog on the "open borders" game of packing the country with potential democratic voters, or at least their parents regardless of other consequences. On this issue, more Americans align with Republicans than the Democrats, so it is necessary to attack the meme from another perspective.
Kessler seems to have decided ahead of writing his column that open celebrations of the 9/11 in the US did not take place, and built his column around that "fact" without actually checking it. This gets to a rather common failing in his, and partisan "fact checking" organizations in general. They go in with a preconceived notion of the truth, and then build a story to support it. Kessler will take an obvious falsehood by a democrat (say Hillary's story about dodging sniper fire), and then by considering motives and other tangential information and come up with two Pinocchios, grading by effort rather than actual fact. And when a Republican utters an obvious but unpleasant (to democrats) truth, he can find within the same penumbras and emanations enough reason to claim it as shading the truth, and award it two Pinocchios as well. I've seen this pattern often enough that I simply deduct two Pinocchios from any Kessler rating of a Republican, and add two to any democrat's. This occasionally results in 5s on a scale of 4 or negative numbers, but produces more sensible result in general.
As for Stuffinenvelopes (I use that because I don't respect him, and because I can't ever spell Stephanopuolos the same way twice without googling him), he is simply a democrat hack thinly disguised as a journalist. He was Clinton's Press Secretary, after all and a grateful contributor to the Clinton money machine. Does anyone seriously believe he suddenly became objective? He's simply out to hurt any potential Republican challenger to Hillary as much as possible before the actual battle begins in earnest.
Ann Althouse said...
"Thanks for the explanation, PatHMV. I see that Trump supporters have gone mad and don't care about convincing nonbelievers. You guys are a cult, apparently. Maybe I just shouldn't waste my time."
I can't speak for Pat, but I think you are missing the point about "Trump supporters". How Trump could be any more of a "cult" than Hillary Clinton is beyond my ken, but one major reason that Trump resonates is that we are tired of being lied to by slick weasels like Ryan and Rubio who push our buttons in their fund-raising e-mails and then sell us down the river for a mess of pottage. Again, I don't think Trump would be a very effective President. But I have ceased to have many positive expectations about the institution of the Presidency.
But yeah, if you are hoping that I will come to my senses, and support Rubio, who is doing his level best to give my job to a Chinese grad student, in order to please the tech billionaires who fund his campaign, or Jeb!, the leading Democrat in the Republican field, or .... yeah, you're wasting your time.
You'd appear to save time by not responding to those who would engage you, but you then waste the time again by obliging yourself to pre-approve every remark whether you will address it or not.
PatHMV said... They value the unscripted guy who, like them, says what he thinks, even if the specific facts and details may be a bit fuzzy.
That's just about the definition of "fake but accurate" though, and it's stupid.
I mean, the Media wouldn't put up with that; we as the American people have to reject it.
Hey, unrelated, did anyone see that movie "Truth" recently? Robert Redford, good reviews.
Kessler: that "a number of people" doesn't amount to "thousands and thousands" and that they were only "allegedly" seen.
Hinderaker, at Powerline.blog: Kovaleski (at WaPo) indicated that his information had come from the Jersey City Police Department, and that he had comfirmed the JCPD's information via interviews of eyewitnesses of the celebration.
Half a dozen Pinocchios for 'fact checker' Kessler. He, and NPR and NYT and the AP, went out of their way to deprive the public of verified news of the domestic Islamic celebration of 9/11.
A lot of people have made comments about things that were seen or known about 9/11. And persist in believing it to this day. Ask any truther if they renounce their arguments about it being an inside job and they will double down. THey are convinced.
People are still convinced the jews knew about it ahead of time and got all the Jews out of the building.
I vaguely remember what Trump is talking about. There were reported incidents showing crowds of people cheering. However, my recollection was it was amongst the Palestinians, and not in Jersey. I do remember seeing the footage. So, he may, again have remembered that footage, and also remembered reports of people in Jersey cheering, and simply combined the two.
But how is he different than truthers?
Maybe I just shouldn't waste my time.
Lord, no! Instead you can tell us more about HAIR CARE! And FASHION! And PUPPIES! And your ART!
That'll pack the house, all right.
Why do you blog again? Maybe your blogging is the true waste of time.
I actually had an argument with my mom about a month ago concerning 9/11. I forgot how it came about. I think it had something to do with the whole brouhaha when Bush said his brother kept us safe AFTER 9/11.
And then the whole issue of the memo that said they were determined to attack us came up. I mentioned how there was nothing actionable in that intel and everyone knew they had designs to attack us, but if you dont' know how, when or where it's useless as intel.
My mom then said she was convinces Bush knew ahead of time and this was her argument"
On the day of 9/11 she happened to be in a restaurant and on tv they had just reported that the plane had hit the WTC and they thought it was an accident. or reported that it might be an accident. Then someone in the restaurant got up and said "My husband works with the FBI and he let me know that it wasn't an accident but was a terrorist attack. So they KNEW already'
I had to then point out to my mom how the media works. THey get info, they broadcast it. Its a few minutes behind the times. And they might report something that gets changed moments later with updated info. So, just because CNN hadn't yet reported it was a terrorist attack at 8:07 doesn't meant that people behind the scenes don't know at 8:07 that its a terrorist attack. It just hasnt' gotten to the news yet.
And further, if the persons husband is directly involved in FBI related activity he probably has much more accurate info than Wolf Blitzer.
That doesn't mean though that just because they knew it at 8:08 and it wasn't reported yet on CNN, that they knew prior to 8:00 AM that an attack was coming.
Long story short, Trump is doing the exact same thing as my mom. He only has a few facts, and he is extrapolating a whole narrative that he probably even believes based on facts which may be incomplete or not accurate at all.
He's not the only person who has done such things when it comes to 9/11.
The problem I have with Trump is he is SO imprecise with his wording. WHen he might actually have good points if he weren't so engaged in using broad strokes.
I can forgive him getting the stat wrong and misremembering; but he is getting himself in trouble by being so emphatic about his recollections.
he should say something like "I remembers seeing people on the tv cheering. Let me look into it as, maybe I'm remembering incorrectly".
Harry Reid stood up in the US Senate and said that he knew for a fact that Mitt Romney had not paid any taxes for a decade. That was 100% demonstrably false - it was a calculated and knowing lie. It also implied that Reid had been given improper access to confidential IRS records, but I guess we now know that the IRS is just another arm of the DNC.
Since Reid uttered these lies in the Senate, he was legally protected by legislative immunity. Since he's a senior Democrat, he was given political immunity by the lick-spittle press.
Not only is Reid not repentant, he thinks what he did was good and just, and a little bit funny.
So I think the takeaway is that there are no rules, and no absolute truths. Trump can spin whatever crazy yarns he wants. Who really cares?
So Althouse calls the supporters of Trump members of a cult. Stunning.
This from a supporter of a man who promised to lower the waters of the oceans.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1494648/One-in-four-Muslims-sympathises-with-motives-of-terrorists.html
Following the London subway terror attacks, the Brits found that about 1 in 4 Muslims in the UK supported the motives and aims of the terrorists. About 6 percent reported to pollsters that they though the attacks "fully justified."
This is roughly similar to other polls I happened to look at recently following terrorist attacks in Europe, though not Friday's Paris attacks, specifically. About 1/4 to 1/3 of European Muslims are jihadist sympathizers, and between 5 and 10 percent in poll after poll are even more supportive of Al Qaeda types.
If there were 10,000 Muslims in Atlantic City in 2001, and U.S. Muslims aren't very different than European muslims, then that would get you to a couple of thousand sympathizers and about 600 people who were even more supportive of the attacks.
I think we have a better class of Muslims in the U.S. than they do in the UK and the rest of Europe. That's in part, because we don't just let anybody in. Theirs go on the dole. Ours start businesses.
Why are we quibbling on this, Dr. Althouse? To Trumpa and his supporters, the facts, while interesting, are irrelevant. What matters is what they feel, what they think, what they "know" in their hearts. Trump isn't asserting that something actually happened. He's making a rhetorical point. He's signaling to people who think Muslims are fundamentally disloyal to the country.
Althouse will pick apart one line in a speech from Trump but ignore entire years from the life of Hillary.
Which is the sort of thing that will allow Hillary to win, of course.
Althouse actually believes that she and people like her are worth the time and effort it would take for a candidate like Trump to woo. She has an exaggerated idea of herself and the kind of people she represents. I think that the correct term is a pimple on a gnat's ass.
Jason: Trump was referring to Jersey City, which is across the Hudson River from southern Manhattan. Atlantic City is on the other side of the state and is rather small by city standards (pop. 39K). Jersey City is essentially an extension of New York City (hence the name), while Atlantic City is best known for casinos (now struggling), Miss America (which left), Monopoly street names (some of which no longer exist), the boardwalk (first in the United States), and very corrupt politicians (alas, ever present).
Trump has a great imagination. You can see an image here and an image there as he uses words to create images. That puts him right up there with FDR and Reagan who both lead us to victory in a World War using Leader's words that created loyalty among men to follow those images.
Trump is most likely either conflating several different events into a non-existent event, or he's just being over-the-top. I would submit however, that the real importance of this episode is not the veracity of Trump's statement, it's how it plays with the public in general.
The trouble is for more than a decade, the American public has been told over and over again that Islam is a peaceful religion, that Guantanamo is a disgrace, that terrorism fears are overblown, and seeing much concern about Islamophobia from the usual sources. If the public feels it's being lied to on this topic and decides the voices of concern and moderation are no longer worthy of trust in the face of renewed terrorism, those voices of moderation may well bring on the unintended result of causing the public to shift to the extreme view that it has not held up until now.
I don't know what the public's breaking point is on this. I do think, however, that if ISIS manages to continue making successful attacks, particularly if it succeeds in something big over the Thanksgiving/Christmas travel season or something on US soil, trying to be rational could well be a career-ender in 2016, while being an over-the-top zealot may well be the ticket to winning. In such an environment, whether Trump is right or not will not matter, what will matter is that he is the one voicing an opinion that resonates with the public. Think of all wartime propaganda - it is not effective because it is true and sober, but because it effectively plays on human emotions.
Oh, looks like the Trumpeteers are gettin' mad. Or perhaps they are truly mad, because only someone removed from reality could say they support Trump because they've been "lied to" by other politicians. How is it Trump's lies ring as truth to them? Thousands and thousands on rooftops celebrating 9/11, get a grip. You honestly think this buffoon could run this country? If Republicans don't give him the nomination, he'll run third party, that would serve you Trumpeteers right.
holdfast said...
Harry Reid stood up in the US Senate and said that he knew for a fact that Mitt Romney had not paid any taxes for a decade.
He didn't quite say that. He said he had a good source - which would only sound like a good source maybe to someone with hazy knowledge of the facts. He pretty much demanded Romney disprove it, which he did. But the idea of course was to make his tax returns public so that they could find something to accuse him of.
Remember:
Republicans are guilty until proven innocent, and invidious conclusions can be drawn based on the flimsiest or even non-existent (read Cheney and Halliburton) conflict of interest.
Democrats are innocent until proven guilty, especially Bill or Hillary Clinton, and you should not engage in negative campaigning and personal destruction and make accusations you cannot prove. They should nver be rased until proven.
Sammy Finkelman said...
Yes, Donald Trump was in the New York City metropolitan area on September 11, 2011.
But so were 25 million other people!
11/23/15, 1:26 PM
averagejoe said...
The entire population of New York State is less than 20 million. There are a little over 8 million residents of NYC. Is Sammy Fink asserting that 17 million people commute to NYC every day, or is he just pulling #'s out of his male uterus?
I'm talking about the people living in the New York metropolitan area. That includes people in northern New Jersey, but not all of New York State - basically those watching New York television stations.
Trump wasn't saying he had a telescope and looked into New Jersey. He said he saw it on television.
that 25 million people are in NYC every day?
I didn't say that. I said 25 million people were there. Which means could have had access to the New York area media. Give or take a few million or so. The number in lower Manhattan or within visual distance was much lower of course.
http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t3/tab03.txt
Table 3: Metropolitan Areas Ranked by Population: 2000
.....
Code | Rank | Area Name | April 1, 2000 | April 1, 1990 | Number | Percent
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5602 1 New York--Northern New Jersey--Long Island, NY--NJ--CT--PA CMSA 21,199,865 19,549,649 1,650,216 8.4%
OK - it's more like 20 million. I thought 25 million was a good estimate. Maybe it is, for television coverage.
Fritz - So fake but accurate is bad when it comes from Rather but kinda sorta OK when it comes from Donny, because he knows how to stick it to the Man? Sorry, not buying it.
To all you Trumpkins out there - I haven't voted for a Democrat, at any level of government, since 1976, but there is no way I would ever pull the lever for Donny, no matter who he's running against. I'll stay home, or vote third party, but he's not getting my vote. I won't bother listing all the reasons, you've read them before and don't care, but if little Donny gets the nod, don't bother soliciting me.
Ann Althouse said...
"Thanks for the explanation, PatHMV. I see that Trump supporters have gone mad and don't care about convincing nonbelievers. You guys are a cult, apparently. Maybe I just shouldn't waste my time."
Ann looks down from her window in the ivory tower and passes judgment. But you can't hide from the fact that Large numbers of Muslims celebrated 9/11. In many locations. Even the ones in the US.
I have had infinitely more experience dealing with muslims than you have in your little bubble. You voted for a guy in 2008 that claimed he was going to lower sea levels. Cult? Your ignorance should shame you.
Mike said...
"Why are we quibbling on this, Dr. Althouse? To Trumpa and his supporters, the facts, while interesting, are irrelevant. What matters is what they feel, what they think, what they "know" in their hearts. Trump isn't asserting that something actually happened. He's making a rhetorical point. He's signaling to people who think Muslims are fundamentally disloyal to the country."
Muslims in the US are fundamentally disloyal. They believe in sharia law. Sharia law is fundamentally antagonistic to the foundation of this country. You cannot support sharia law and freedom at the same time. It is impossible.
.
Althouse: "Are his supporters so out of whack that it's okay for him to be mouthing off like this. Those of you who like him and are insisting this doesn't matter are ruining your credibility. "
Tell me something, Ann. How well did YOU vet our current resident when you voted for him in 2008?
There were alot of people telling you a lot of good information about what type of person Obama was and is.
So lets not cast aspersions on other peoples credibility over what Trump recolects.
Compared tp the whoppers the White House, Hillary, and the dems have been pushing this is nothing.
New Jersey is a beautiful state. There's a reason why they call it the Garden State. Don't tell anyone.
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