January 4, 2018

Green highlighter goes wild.


ADDED: That green-highlighted stuff (and Tur's furious greening of it) — is that fake news? If we're using the Allcott/Gentzkow definition, then probably not. It's not intentionally fabricated... is it??? How would I know?! It's a story that could be passed around and embellished. It's sexual rumor with a big dose of comedy.

Allcott and Gentzlow exclude "unintentional reporting mistakes"? But I don't know if that's a mistake, and what is really meant by "reporting"? If you pass along a good story without even including a phrase like "some people in a position to know said," then does this deserve to be called "reporting." It looks like great gossip that was too good not to monger. Maybe it doesn't deserve the label "fake news" because it's not presented as news. It just looks like trash. But the story may actually be true, in which case I'd call it "true trash." The author stumbled into passing along something that happened to be true.

I don't mean to be unfair to Michael Wolff. I don't have access to the full text of the book, and perhaps the sources and methods supporting this story are explained somewhere other than under the green slashings of an over-excited Katy Tur. I can see that 2 paragraphs up there's a reference to "A close Trump friend who was also a good Bill Clinton friend," but this unnamed person is not  said to be the source of the speakerphone story, only the observation that Clinton and Trump were "eerily similar" (except for Clinton's "respectable front").

The Allcott/Gentzlow definition also excludes "rumors that do not originate from a particular news article." This exclusion helps Katy Tur, who's only passing along something she found in a book. Her tweet — if we may call that a "news article" — did not originate the story. She found it in Michael Wolff's book. So her story isn't #1: Trump did X, but #2: a book says that Trump did X. Whether or not statement #1 is untrue, statement #2 is true, so Katy Tur is not within the Allcott/Gentzlow definition of fake news.

Now, I'd like to get out my highlighter and— in a different color (perhaps blue) — mark "Trump and Clinton... brand of harassing." I don't know what we'd read if we could turn the page — maybe something more Clintonesque — but what Trump is described as doing in that green-highlighted passage isn't anything like Clinton's modus operandi.

Bill Clinton allegedly made very sexual moves on women when he had them alone in a room somewhere. It was more the Harvey Weinstein tactic. Trump has the man in his room with him. And Trump isn't touching anybody, he's just talking in an exuberant, comical way about sex with this man. He's not trying to get sexual satisfaction from the person who is in his presence. He's fucking with the man. Meanwhile, he's a confidante to the woman, whom he has on the speakerphone, listening to what a scumbag her husband is. That's all very screwy, and I have no idea whether it's true. My point is: It's not like Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton did not use words to try to work his way into the woman's mind by staging some elaborate theater with her husband. Bill just lunged for the woman (if the stories are true).

But Bill Clinton had the more "respectable front"? That's interesting, considering that what Bill Clinton is accused of doing is criminal, and what Trump supposedly did was a lot of talk — sadistic and destructive talk, yes. But talking about sex and letting a woman hear that her husband is a cheater is more respectable than rape, groping, and exposing your naked penis to an underling and telling her to kiss it.

But "respectable" is just a word. And maybe Wolff or that "close Trump friend" gives the furtive behind-closed-doors physically aggressive guy a little pat on the head that is withheld from the exuberantly expressive man who talks about sex. That's fine with me as long as you say "respectable" in a very sarcastic way.

In the words of Emile Zola: "Respectable people... What bastards!"

124 comments:

Bay Area Guy said...

Who is Katy Tur, and why should we care what she thinks?

Oh yeah, she's a ditzy media figure at NBC with s green highlighter.

tds said...

names or it didn't happen

rehajm said...

Is there no distinction for reporting quotes and summaries of statements from unnamed or anonymous sources? Does rule #2 let them off the hook for being fake?

Matt Sablan said...

So... Trump is as classy as a morning shock jock? I won't be surprised if this is true.

Henry said...

Oh. The newlywed game.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

And? If the man takes Trump up on his offer, Trump was right. If he doesn't, his wife knows what kind of man she married (and Trump's seduction attempt fails.) Either way, it's not Trump making the decision.

If you can be persuaded to cheat on your wife that's on you.

Ann Althouse said...

"Who is Katy Tur, and why should we care what she thinks?"

She's the 48th most influential person in media according to Mediate:

"In addition to her continued work as a go to correspondent for NBC News, Katy Tur also released a big book this year, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History. She also admitted in September that she had to endure a forced kiss from President Donald Trump at some point during said crazy campaign. This comes in addition to being branded “Little Katy” and a “third-rate journalist by the President and his supporters. Despite all of that, or maybe because of it, Tur continued to step up her game this year, continuing to be one of NBC’s most trusted journalists and regular fill-in on many MSNBC shows."

tim in vermont said...

Whatever. Let me know when he lures them into a private hotel room when they ask to meet in the lobby and forcibly rapes them. Consensual sex is, well, consensual sex. I don’t even care if this is true. Trump is doing a great job running the country, and apparently he did a great job running the cuntry, at one time.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Anyone had the thought that if the Devil was a politician he'd be much like Donald Trump?

dreams said...

"Who is Katy Tur, and why should we care what she thinks?"

She is an ignorant liberal dumb-ass however attractive.

Henry said...

Helter Skelter in the age of Trump. That's a very short ladder.

BarrySanders20 said...

And not one of these spurned women or friends, after Trump did this, mentioned it during the campaign. They saved it to be an anonymous source for this author. Plausible only for the credulous or those who just hope it is true.

rehajm said...

one of NBC’s most trusted journalists and regular fill-in on many MSNBC shows

Later today on CNN we will see these passages reported as fact because they are confirmed by trusted journalists continuing to step up their game.

gspencer said...

"Who is Katy Tur, and why should we care what she thinks?"

Wait until you get a load of her father,

https://www.google.com/search?q=Zoey+Tur&client=firefox-b-1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiLyNW_ur7YAhXBkOAKHdBgAsIQ_AUICigB&biw=1060&bih=957

dreams said...

"Who is Katy Tur, and why should we care what she thinks?"

"Wait until you get a load of her father,"

Hey, isn't that how we got Katy Tur via her mother.

rhhardin said...

It no longer works to just put it in the news. Nobody believes it.

virgil xenophon said...

Katy Tur was once Keith Olbermanns live-in girl-friend, so judge for yourself our gal Kates sense of judgement. YMMV

rhhardin said...

Show Tur the door.

Ray - SoCal said...

Book claimed Trump did not know who Boehner was...

Unfortunately Trump had even played golf with him.

Sounds like a hit piece of a mixture of fact and fiction. Similar to the Steele Dossier.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/01/if-its-too-good-to-check-it-probably-isnt-true.phpt

rhhardin said...

Katy bar the door. I wonder if she was named after that.

donald said...

She has spectacular tits.

dreams said...

You know if you add a d to Tur you get a ...

Oso Negro said...

So maybe the penultimate moment of the phony "Reckoning" is here.

virgil xenophon said...

So yes Dreams, you had it basically in a nut-shell..

donald said...

She also was involved with Keith Olberman, which is kinda sickening.

Michael K said...

Sounds like a hit piece of a mixture of fact and fiction. Similar to the Steele Dossier.

It sounds like a wish list for the left.

Has anyone heard Bannon confirm his quotes in the book ?

rehajm said...

A little insight into Michael Wolff, if you don't know his shtick:

Wolff Trapped.

dreams said...

"She also was involved with Keith Olberman, which is kinda sickening."

That is definitely a sick coupling.

dreams said...

"Michael Wolff"

Isn't he the one who has been known to cry wolf.

MacMacConnell said...

Anonymous friends say I have a beautiful cock and women in checkout lines constantly beg me to let them suck it in the parking lot. They also say I a wonderful lay with the face of a movie star and a body to dream of. They also say that for an outlaw I'm actually a wonderful human being.
I can not confirm or deny the rumor that I once greeted a neighbor with a kiss on her 60th wedding anniversary.

See how it works?

Hunter said...

It's occured to me that Trump has been fodder for tabloid gossip for literally decades. So I guess there's no reason it should be any different now just because he is president.

My left-leaning internet friends cannot get enough of this unsourced soap opera shit. They are all convinced Mueller has the goods on Trump and he is going to be impeached if not jailed as well over Russia. Just a matter of time. Drumf cannot possibly survive this. The dominoes are falling!

buwaya said...

If the devil was a politician he would sound like Pope Francis and be similarly esteemed. Or probably better than Pope Francis, as the old boy does make enemies and catches plenty of flak.

When looking for the devil it helps to be paranoid.

tim maguire said...

The time to discuss Trump the person was during the election. It was discussed and the voters made their choice. Now the issue is Trump The president.

Whether Trump is a good person is irrelevant, frivolous, unworthy of the time of any serious person.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

The fact that she is passing this on is an indictment of the MSM.

Never forget, reporters are dumb rich kids who couldn't get into law school.

MayBee said...

At some point, people will get over the fact that Donald Trump- Donald Trump!- is president, and will learn they don't need to keep reporting the weird stuff. We get it. We got it.

rehajm said...

A note of caution on Fire and Fury, from Katie Tur

In other words Believe It or Not, Ripley.

Henry said...

Well that kind of thing will increase hardcover sales.

dreams said...

"Who is Katy Tur, and why should we care what she thinks?"

And why does she spell her name without a d?

Etienne said...

Michelle Cottle called Michael Wolff's writing "a whirlwind of flourishes and tangents and asides that often stray so far from the central point that you begin to wonder whether there is a central point."

David Begley said...

How can we be sure that JFK and Bill Clinton didn’t do the exact same thing?

Oh, I forgot. They just did undergrads and interns.

dreams said...

"Michelle Cottle called Michael Wolff's writing "a whirlwind of flourishes and tangents and asides that often stray so far from the central point that you begin to wonder whether there is a central point.""

I hope this helps, just remember that Michael Wolff is the central point.

chickelit said...

“Behind The Green Tur (Highlighter)”

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

If the left cannot get him on phony collusion with Russia charges, they want to force Trump to step down over sex.

You know - like the left forced Bill Clinton to step aside over sex. Oh wait - no - they lectured us on how prude we all are that we didn't understand Bill's need to rape.

dreams said...

Oh, the stocks are up again this morning so it's going to hard to bring me down with liberal crap/tur.

MacMacConnell said...

Katy Tur's father's name is Zoey Tur, born Robert Tur? Kathy is a grad from the Brentwood School, a $40,00 tuition private high school. She made her mark as a "storm chaser".

All that is no big deal, but she dated Keith Olberman!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I like how the green highlighter leaves out when and where. The Colbert reader will assume Trump said these things yesterday.

pacwest said...

"Who is Katy Tur, and why should we care what she thinks?"

A previous nobody who had the good luck to be pointed out as a representative of fake news on the campaign trail. Jackpot! I think even she was surprised by the leg up that gave her at CNN, but give her credit for parlaying that into her present status.

pacwest said...

"Who is Katy Tur, and why should we care what she thinks?"

A previous nobody who had the good luck to be pointed out as a representative of fake news on the campaign trail. Jackpot! I think even she was surprised by the leg up that gave her at CNN, but give her credit for parlaying that into her present status.

mockturtle said...

So much talk about Trump and Bill Clinton and so little about JFK, who was the most sexually promiscuous President in our history and who had the least regard for women.

tim in vermont said...

Maybe it happened at an office Christmas party? Sounds like it would be great fun then! Not to mention that if she does sleep with Trump, well, that’s on her and between her and her husband.

bleh said...

Personally, I find what Trump supposedly did to his friends to be very disturbing — and unmanly. So deceitful, so manipulative. It’s what a conniving woman would think to do to a frenemy. I don’t like it one bit. If it’s true, I like him even less. That doesn’t mean I won’t vote for him in 2020, though.

Hagar said...

Sounds like a scene from an opera described in modern language.

mockturtle said...

The smoking gun! At last!

MacMacConnell said...

The only thing Trump might have done that I would never do, fuck around with married women. Anonymous friends say this is why there are so many disgruntled married women in checkout lines near my home.
An anonymous member of my parish reported that I was seen kissing an Arch bishop's ring. Also that I had an S&M fetish, the proof being that I on occasion talked in second grade so nuns would rap my knuckles with a ruler.

William said...

She no doubt highlighted it to show how absurd and fantastical the accusations against Trump are. This demonstrates her keen investigative reporter instincts. You don't hand out with Keith Olbermann without learning a thing or two about truth and fantasy.......A katytur is the excrement a trained katydid evacuates before jumping through a hoop.

dreams said...

"Who is Katy Tur, and why should we care what she thinks?"

"A previous nobody who had the good luck to be pointed out as a representative of fake news on the campaign trail. Jackpot! I think even she was surprised by the leg up that gave her at CNN, but give her credit for parlaying that into her present status."

A perversion of the Peter Principle though the result is the same.

Hagar said...

The Hill: "Chelsea Clinton denies worshipping Satan."

Etienne said...

My first thought when reading that, was that I hoped it was published on recycled paper. I hate to think good Canadian tree's were consumed in the process.

Rusty said...



Blogger Michael K said...
"Sounds like a hit piece of a mixture of fact and fiction. Similar to the Steele Dossier.

It sounds like a wish list for the left."

I'd hate to be Inga's vibrator right now.
I'd like to sell her batteries though.

Chuck said...

Althouse, you seem to be presuming that Trump only engaged in verbal weirdness. Why? Why do you presume that? If you and I believe the 6 or 8 Clinton accusers (of harassment and physical sexual assault), why not believe the 10 or 12 Trump accusers (of harassment and physical sexual assault)?

I suppose I might agree (although I don't know all that much for sure), that on the scale of sexual depravity it goes something like Cosby>Weinstein>LouisCK>Roy Moore>Trump>Franken. But are you really just limiting your appraisal of Trump to what he's reported as saying? And somehow excluding what Trump is alleged to have done?I'd respectfully suggest that a modicum of consistency requires you to generally believe all of the women, or to generally denounce all of the women. If there are notable exceptions, I'd be willing to listen. But we'd include Trump's women on the same basis.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Mac McConnell said...
Katy Tur's father's name is Zoey Tur, born Robert Tur?"

Zoey Tur, who is built like a linebacker, put his beefy hand on little Ben Shapiro's neck and threatened to send Shapiro to the hospital because Zoey was offended by Ben's non-PC take on transsexuals. The rest of the CNN panel just sat there, undoubtably because they thought it would serve Shapiro right to get his ass kicked by Hulk Hogan in a dress. I myself thought Zoey was not being very ladylike.

So you can see Katy was raised by a very stable and sane parent.

chickelit said...

Blogger mockturtle said..."The smoking gun! At last!"

The green asterisk makes that quite apparent!

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Katy Tur was once Keith Olbermanns live-in girl-friend,

So she's another one that fucked her way to fame.

tcrosse said...

Tur's highlighting shows poor hand-eye coordination. Perhaps the other hand was busy elsewhere ?

tim in vermont said...

How is she going to find that asterisk after she closes the book? At least bend the page over, Gerry Studds (D- Mass) style!

tim in vermont said...

tcrosse is my fave commenter here. Just sayin'

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Where is the context? Do we have a when and a where?

Colbert watchers will assume Trump said it yesterday.

While it is plausible Trump said those things decades ago (perhaps?) he was a private citizen decades ago. Why just yesterday we were infomred by Vanity Fair how cool the wealthy elite tech giants are for their orgies - circa now.

Eh -this is why The left sacrificed Franken. They think Trump will be forced to do the same.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Clinton rape = don't believe it! All those women are lying!

SayAahh said...

At last...something bigger consider than Althouse commenters vs. LLR Chuck.
Oooh what relief!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Have you noticed that the media spends ZERO TIME TALKING ABOUT HARVEY?

MikeR said...

Huh - what Trump did with those husbands reminds me of what he and the Russians did with the DNC.

Anonymous said...

Wolff is a known fabulist.

If this can make Wikipedia, then how much more is there ? :

"In its review of Wolff's book Burn Rate, Brill's Content criticized Wolff for "apparent factual errors" and said that 13 people, including subjects he mentioned, complained that Wolff had "invented or changed quotes".[21]

In a 2004 cover story for The New Republic, Michelle Cottle wrote that Wolff was "uninterested in the working press," preferring to focus on "the power players—the moguls" and was "fixated on culture, style, buzz, and money, money, money." She also noted that "the scenes in his columns aren’t recreated so much as created—springing from Wolff’s imagination rather than from actual knowledge of events." Calling his writing "a whirlwind of flourishes and tangents and asides that often stray so far from the central point that you begin to wonder whether there is a central point.

Bob Boyd said...

None of this really matters.
What matters is saving the country from the Dem project to use legal and illegal immigration and chain migration to turn FLA or Texas blue and and thereby make it impossible for the Republicans to win the White House ever again.
A permanent, one party majority controlling the Executive and Judicial branches, that's what we were a whisker away from in 2016. And it's not over yet. We got a reprieve. Trump, sleazy or not, was the only guy who could throw a wrench into that Dem plan.
Let's not lose sight of the big picture.

tim in vermont said...

Have you noticed that the media spends ZERO TIME TALKING ABOUT HARVEY?

And Glenn Thrush got his job back at the New York Times. It pays to do favors for the Clintons.

steve uhr said...

Not a nice way to treat your friends. If true I would expect one of them would come forward.

GWash said...

MAGA one lawsuit at a time!... we voted for it and now we own it... enjoy!!!

Watch you wallets they are now stealing you blind.. (unless of course the bloggers here ware in the top.1%... or are looking at pass through loop holes.. )

buwaya said...

It actually is a scene from an opera I think.
I will have to think, but theres bound to be one.

Similar sort of plot. Schemer, after the girl, uses wiles to raise doubt and jealousy between the lovers. The scene engineered so that one listens from behind a curtain as the villain tempts the other.

A scene that should be familar to early-modern European comedy and drama. Shakespeare did stuff like this.

tim in vermont said...

About once a month, on a Friday or Saturday night, the Silicon Valley Technorati gather for a drug-heavy, sex-heavy party. Sometimes the venue is an epic mansion in San Francisco's Pacific Heights; sometimes it's a lavish home in the foothills of Atherton or Hillsborough. On special occasions, the guests will travel north to someone's château in Napa Valley or to a private beachfront property in Malibu or to a boat off the coast of Ibiza, and the bacchanal will last an entire weekend. The places change, but many of the players and the purpose remain the same.

See, Trump is in the wrong business. He should have been in Silicon Valley and given big money to Democrats!

tim in vermont said...

Der Fliedermaus? That was a pretty funny opera with a lot of innuendo. Haven’t seen it in a while.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Tim at large said...
About once a month, on a Friday or Saturday night, the Silicon Valley Technorati gather for a drug-heavy, sex-heavy party. Sometimes the venue is an epic mansion in San Francisco's Pacific Heights; sometimes it's a lavish home in the foothills of Atherton or Hillsborough. On special occasions, the guests will travel north to someone's château in Napa Valley or to a private beachfront property in Malibu or to a boat off the coast of Ibiza, and the bacchanal will last an entire weekend. The places change, but many of the players and the purpose remain the same."

They had a lot of great parties at Versailles too back in 1788 or so.

tim in vermont said...

Huh - what Trump did with those husbands reminds me of what he and the Russians did with the DNC.

Which we all know is true because the DNC allowed their servers to be examined by law enforcement! Right? Right? But in a general sense, yes, somebody did that. The evidence points to a disgruntled Bernie supporter though. Donna Brazille’s book provides plenty of evidence that many such disgruntled Democrats existed at the DNC.

Anonymous said...

This apocryphal anecdote has the elaborate, fabulistic, and salacious feel to it that the GPS Trump/Russia tale had.

Same author?

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

I read a story yesterday about Silicon Valley execs paying up to $60 a gallon for raw water from mountain springs. Drinking Perrier and Evian water conferred status once, but even proles now drink bottled and filtered water, so the elites have moved on to untreated water. I daresay plenty of North Koreans also enjoy the pleasure of drinking water that comes to them straight from rivers.

The problem of decadent and corrupt elites might just solve itself.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

9:37 Tim -

Thank you.

tim in vermont said...

Watch you wallets they are now stealing you blind..

Sure, whatever. BTW, thanks Democrats for offering Hillary Rodham FUCKING Clinton as the alternative. Who are bing robbed are liberals who took the money fair and square from the people who earned it to use it to impose more and more controls on our lives for our “own good.”

Whatever. Maybe blue states can make up the difference by not whining about deducting the mortgages on thier expensive houses! It’s what you guys believe in, after all!

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

A person who highlights like that ~ frantically, missing entire words and phrases with the pen, an entire paragraph rather than a few key phrases ~ is an unserious and not bright person.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Seth Rich is still dead.

wildswan said...

The WaPooperScoop had a long story today on Wolff's history of lying - e.g., Wolff said Trump didn't know who Boehner was when Trump had golfed with Boehner. But why is the The WaPoop refuting left fables about Trump? Maybe because, if Post readers start spreading around these easily refuted fables by Wolff then PoopScoop readers will be seen as credulous. Then when "the best and the brightest" PoopScoopers are needed to spread Mueller's fables they'll be seen as what they are - DimKaty Turs staggering home from HarveyPaw parties to vomit and "report" Facebook fantasies. One thing is sure - The Swamp is churning. And why? The tax bill. NY, NJ, Chicago, CA - they're all woke to the fact that now they have to pay the taxes they voted for. AIEEEE. They are mindful of the fact. And deplorables!!!! Because, Trum*&&&@#$#@$, because him **&&^**&^^^, Deplorables in flyover and upstate NY and downstate IL got bonuses!!!!!!!! At Christmas!!!!!!!!!! *&^**&^^ while WEEEEE... AIEEEEEEEE.

Oh, the humanity.

Bay Area Guy said...

Funny clip from Katy Tur interview of Trump:

Try getting it out!.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I read a story yesterday about Silicon Valley execs paying up to $60 a gallon for raw water from mountain springs.

I saw that. I especially liked the part where the guy who owned the company selling the water said it was important to drink the water within 30 days or it would turn green, unlike "dead" water.

tim in vermont said...

Seth Rich is still dead.

What really bothers me about that is that if, as reported, the stuff was most likely copied to a thumb drive, Democrats must have cameras and key card data, security logs of logons, at the DNC that would tell them exactly who leaked the emails. Then a guy who could have done it turns up dead. The police call it a robbery because it must have been, on account of they didn’t have any evidence of who it was, or why it was done. It’s like that Ancient Aliens guy: “I don’t know, so it must be aliens!”

He could have run because they were questioning him about the leak, for all we know. We don’t know anything, so shut up, because reasons.

Imagine if this were somehow connected to a leak from the Trump campaign. But blaming the Russians is really paying off for them in voter enthusiasm, so don’t expect it to change.

tim in vermont said...

$60 a gallon might as well be a nickel a gallon to them. They don’t care, the guy could probably charge $120, except he would attract too much competition.

Michael K said...

Bannon has a new friend.

This gets more and more strange.

I have no idea what is going on but it seems to be more of a side show.

MacMacConnell said...

"Seth Rich is still dead."
Organizations have killed people for far less.

Wince said...

virgil xenophon said...
Katy Tur was once Keith Olbermanns live-in girl-friend, so judge for yourself our gal Kates sense of judgement. YMMV

Presumably, they lived-in together at Trump Palace in Manhattan?

Gone, too, is Olbermann's luxury apartment in the Trump Palace in Manhattan. With typical bluster, he announced that his downsized lifestyle was due to his hatred of Donald Trump, during the 2016 campaign for the GOP nomination. The video segment on ABC's The View is worth watching for its nastiness ("I ran out of spit" when walking past the building's name) and political cluelessness – Olbermann dismissed the possibility of Trump getting the GOP nomination, much less winning the presidency.

mockturtle said...

Funny clip from Katy Tur interview of Trump:

Try getting it out!.


Love it!

walter said...

I met her on the campaign circus trail..seemed pretty down to Earth, showed humor about the whole thing.
That was before her book came out..and this tweet..which does seem odd, given the lack of attribution. I could see her thinking it something to "investigate"..not throw to the ...wolves via twitter.
Well..I guess she's no longer reporting.
She is lucky her first and middle names weren't reversed..
‘You Can’t Rattle Her’ Katy Tur on the Rise

Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, sizes her up: “She’s a quick study, handling hard news in a conversational tone. She stumbles over names and words, but I don’t see that as a liability. It makes her human, and she brings also a sense of earnestness and candor.”

But she showed mastery of issues recently when she was a guest on “Charlie Rose,” handling with ease his questions on the Trump presidency and foreign policy.

Her cutting wit, which she underscores with a sharply raised eyebrow, comes through occasionally. When the White House press secretary Sean Spicer, on the receiving end of a barrage of questions, blurted, “You guys have an NBC thing,” Ms. Tur hissed back on-air: “Yes, we do. It’s called journalism.”

Though she spends hours talking about Mr. Trump and laboring over a book about his campaign, she has not met with the president, on or off camera, since the election. But she’d like to sit down with him again. If he had wanted to scare her off, he miscalculated. “You can’t scare me like that,” Ms. Tur said. “I grew up with my mother hanging out of a helicopter. I mean, my parents got death threats when I was a kid. Maybe it’s because I’m jaded, but not a lot scares me.”

Katharine Bear Tur was born Oct. 26, 1983, in Los Angeles County. Her parents, Bob Tur, a pilot and reporter, and her mother, Marika Gerrard, a photographer, founded the Los Angeles News Service to cover police raids, fires, plane crashes and chaos there. From their helicopter, they scored some of the first TV images of O. J. Simpson’s Bronco chase in 1994 and the beating of Reginald Denny, a truck driver, whose assault loomed large in the Los Angeles riots of 1992, which began with the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King.
<
Last July, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Zoey Tur claimed that Katy Tur had been estranged since her gender transition. “It’s not that she’s transphobic,” Zoey Tur said. “It’s that her hero father has become this. And it’s fear of not fitting in. It’s the pressure of being on network television.”

When I brought up her father’s remarks, Ms. Tur went silent. After a pause, she disputed the accuracy of her father’s version and said that their rift had nothing to do with her father’s transition, and that they are speaking now. “We were not on speaking terms for a little while,” she said, “but that’s not because of the transition.”

bridgecross said...

So he enjoyed having the wife on speakerphone while talking with the husband about fucking her. But he didn't actually touch anybody. That's still quite a pretzel to go from "behavior not as bad as Clinton" to "should be President of the United States."

Drago said...

LLR and "Accidental leftist" Chuck: "Althouse, you seem to be presuming that Trump only engaged in verbal weirdness. Why? Why do you presume that? If you and I believe the 6 or 8 Clinton accusers (of harassment and physical sexual assault), why not believe the 10 or 12 Trump accusers (of harassment and physical sexual assault)?"

Then this: "I suppose I might agree (although I don't know all that much for sure), that on the scale of sexual depravity it goes something like Cosby>Weinstein>LouisCK>Roy Moore>Trump>Franken."

Gee, who could have guessed that LLR Chuck would have "forgotten" (wink wink) to include in his little "scale" one Billy Clinton?

If your answer to that question is "every single person alive", then you might be close to the correct answer!

mockturtle said...

Walter, your post at 11:09 is a fine example of the aforementioned 'satire is dead' theory. One simply cannot satirize the outré behavior that has become our cultural norm.

Christy said...

Seducing the wives of friends/ rivals? Wasn't that a Julius Caesar move?

veni vidi vici said...

"Liked to say..."

Yeah, whatever. Michael Wolffffff, furtively masturbating behind a potted plant in a corner, dreaming of the tales he'll tell after they finally realize he's been couch-surfing the White House lounges without authorization all that time...

From what I read in NYMag, most of the allegations just seem too stupid to be true. Too uncouth; as though they're consciously written for an audience of Trump haters who are desperate to believe the "Trump is a big fat idiot" caricature is true.

That sort of enhanced-reality nonsense holds no interest for me.

walter said...

veni,
I'm certain these were thoroughly substantiated..like pissgate.

walter said...

mock,
I can't remember where you live.
There's a Madison talker who uses the phrase "Beyond parody".

mockturtle said...

Walter, I'm formerly from WA, now in AZ.

Robert said...

If Donald Trump ever scored with a wife who knew he and her husband partied with chicks from LA, he is either the greatest seducer known to history or his friends have wives from another solar system. This tale could only be believed by a moron.

Seeing Red said...

I have better things to do with my time.

I don't care.

I didn't read Obama's either.

Seeing Red said...

So, what's the market today?

gadfly said...

"A close Trump friend who was also a good Bill Clinton friend ..."

Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein perhaps?

He's pals with a passel of Nobel Prize–winning scientists, CEOs like Leslie Wexner of the Limited, socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, even Donald Trump. But it wasn't until he flew Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, and Chris Tucker to Africa on his private Boeing 727 that the world began to wonder who he is.

"I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

gadfly, I've linked to that story before. If Trump was fooled by Epstein, so were an awful lot of other NY celebs and tycoons - not to mention distinguished scientists:

"But it is his covey of scientists that inspires Epstein's true rapture. Epstein spends $20 million a year on them -- encouraging them to engage in whatever kind of cutting-edge research might attract their fancy. They are, of course, quite lavish in their praise in return. Gerald Edelman won the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine in 1972 and now presides over the Neurosciences Institute in La Jolla. "Jeff is extraordinary in his ability to pick up on quantitative relations," says Edelman. "He came to see us recently. He is concerned with this basic question: Is it true that the brain is not a computer? He is very quick."


Then there is Stephen Kosslyn, a psychologist at Harvard. Epstein flew up to Kosslyn's laboratory in Cambridge this year to witness an experiment that Kosslyn was conducting and Epstein was funding. Namely: Is it true that certain Tibetan monks are capable of holding a distinct mental image in their minds for twenty minutes straight? "We disproved the thesis," says Kosslyn. "Jeff was on his cell phone most of the time -- he actually wanted to short the Tibetan market, because he thought the monk was so stupid. He is amazing. Like a honeybee -- he talks to all these different people and cross-pollinates. Just two months ago, I was talking to him about a new alternative to evolutionary psychology. He got excited and sent me a check."






Epstein has a particularly close relationship with Martin Nowak, an Austrian biology and mathematics professor who heads the theoretical-biology program at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Nowak is examining how game theory can be used to answer some of the basic evolutionary questions -- e.g., why, in our Darwinian society, does altruistic behavior exist? Epstein talks to Nowak about once a week and flies him around the country to his various homes to deliver impromptu lectures. Over the past three years, he has written $500,000 worth of checks to fund Nowak's research. This past February, Epstein had Nowak over for dinner at the 71st Street townhouse. It was just the two of them (not including the wait staff), and Nowak, making use of a blackboard in the formal dining room, delivered a two-hour highly mathematical description of how language works.

walter said...

Lack of attribution gives gadfly an in!
Go gadfly!
"Hands clean!"

tim in vermont said...

But it wasn’t until he flew Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, and Chris Tucker to Africa on his private Boeing 727

Lolita Express indeed. Don’t forget Bob Menendez - D New Jersey. Haven’t been hearing much of a hue and cry from Democrats to get him out of the Senate.

walter said...

Actually, rereading the Tur drop, the friend who sees similarity to Clinton is not necessarily the source for the spousal entrapment schhtick.

It's all worded murkily.

walter said...

As is the phrase " here's Trump on his friends' wives"
Reads like it would be a Trump quote.

walter said...

From the twit feed:

Kimberly
‏ @kimweintraub
22h22 hours ago

He’s the worst person on Earth.

walter said...

IMLIBERAL
‏ @imliberaldotcom
17h17 hours ago

Why, oh why don't people source quotes?

Jim at said...

She's the 48th most influential person in media according to Mediate:

No wonder I don't know who in the hell she is.

walter said...

When unspecified, assume Brian Williams as the source.

n.n said...

Clinton and others over the trimesters, who were granted moral authority by female chauvinists pursuing political progress. Some women, men, and babies, will be sacrificed, selectively, for their cause.

walter said...

Tur cautions re book/author

n.n said...

Toxic green liberal, full of innuendo, allegations, and hearsay, signifying nothing.

Freeman Hunt said...

If Trump calls you to listen in on a prank, you hang up. If law enforcement closes you in a room with Clinton, good luck to you.

Similar only in a mind twisted by partisan love.

William said...

I bet Katy had trouble coloring inside the lines when she was a kid.