September 4, 2020

"If he said it, I'm thinking it was in the spirit of genuinely hating the losses in war, and he is keeping us out of military adventures."

"It makes me think of the famous quote from General Patton: 'The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.' It makes me think of this song lyric that I heard over and over when I was young: 'Come on fathers, and don't hesitate/To send your sons off before it's too late/You can be the first ones in your block/To have your boy come home in a box.'"

Things written by me, just now, in comments to a post on Facebook, put up by my son John, linking to and quoting "Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’/The president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades, multiple sources tell The Atlantic."

215 comments:

1 – 200 of 215   Newer›   Newest»
Money Manger said...

Is it true ? Who knows. But it sure feels like, a compromising story on Nancy Pelosi ? Look over there: Donald Trump !!

Ken B said...

How sweet to refute the Atlantic story by quoting John Bolton's book.

https://twitter.com/ByronYork/status/1301851565465186311

As for Trump avoiding bad weather, the very next day he gave a speech at a different military cemetery in the rain with no umbrella.

Chris said...

This is the biggest lie yet. People who were with him deny he ever said those things.

Chris N said...

True or not (I can imagine it being true), it still strikes me as weak strategically.

If your long-term strategy involves supporting activists, critical theorists, anarchists and radicals who actually want to destroty this country, then you'll start looking around for the moral high ground.

As NPR and Slate talk about Sports, and nutty Leftists in Seattle talk about ART ART ART, I don't trust folks at the Atlantic to talk about war.

They have other ideas they usually hold more important, and they REALLY don't want to talk abou the consequences of those ideas, partially playing out right now.

Dave Begley said...

Ann:

What Trump supposedly said is absolutely false. This is part of how the Left works. Anonymous sources may or may not have given the "story" to the far left wing Atlantic. Then MSNBC, CNN, Twitter, NYT and WaPo amplify it. Vets are outraged.

This is all fake and manipulation.

This case is why the Press is the Enemy of the People. So, so dishonest.

tim in vermont said...

Multiple anonymous sources. God knows the WH is full of never Trumpers. I can imagine the question, “This is the kind of stuff I am looking for, do you have anything for me?"

Michael K said...

An obvious hit piece and Money Manger is probably correct.

rwnutjob said...

Marine one emails confirm weather cancelled the visit.

Kevin said...

multiple sources

Some say.

This is the "news" business today. Print the rumors, ignore the facts.

Achilles said...

Democrats lie.

They have nothing else to run on.

Joe Biden just claimed a black man invented the light bulb.

I am not joking.

At this point they are not even pretending to be decent people.

Ken B said...

Navy documents confirm the reason for the cancellation, refuting the Atlantic story.
The Atlantic could have checked this itself; Twitter was full of such refutations within 12 hours of the story.

I am so sick of unsourced stories. And unchecked stories.

wild chicken said...

Weren't we told long ago that WWI was waste of lives foisted on us by the evil Munitions Makers?

Whatever happened to that meme?

Ann Althouse said...

"What Trump supposedly said is absolutely false."

How do you know?

I agree that the press is unscrupulous and extremely biased against Trump.

I'm saying why I don't care. I assume the context would have been similar to Patton's use of "bastards."

Matt Sablan said...

So, is the thrust of reporting that Trump holds American servicemen in about as high regard as John Kerry did/does? If so... why am I supposed to be outraged?

Diamondhead said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
tim in vermont said...

Remember when our leftie trolls used to be against war? Turns out that they were only on the other side.

Ken B said...

Money Manger is probably wrong because this story has been in the works for a while, and its release matches the release of coordinated Democrat ads using the fake quote about losers. The lies aren’t spontaneous or impulsive, they are planned and co ordinated.

Achilles said...

Do you have the courage to tell your son he is spreading complete falsehoods?

He is trying to find reasons to justify voting for Biden.

This quest is going to reveal who your son really is.

rehajm said...

List bullet point campaign accusations against Trump....I'll start: *He called fallen troops "losers" and "suckers"

rehajm said...

He told people to illegally vote twice

rehajm said...

He had mailboxes picked up so ballots couldn't be mailed

Diamondhead said...

I could see the possibility of him saying something along the lines of "
Who decided to get involved in this bullshit war? Who were the winners? We know who the losers were..." This would be interpreted in the most obtuse, least charitable way.

Also, made me think of:

The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get

rehajm said...

He colludes with Putin/Russia

Ken B said...

Re AA's response to Begley (who wishes degenerative diseases on his opponents). It's EASY to imagine a misrepresented quote. Imagine Trump had shaken his head sadly and said “what a sad way to lose your life”. I absolutely believe he might say such a thing and I also believe his foes would twist that into him calling them losers.

Ken B said...

“ This quest is going to reveal who your son really is.”

Long known.

rehajm said...

He coerced Ukrainian authority using US tax money to drop criminal case against company that was paying his son

Achilles said...

Ann Althouse said...
"What Trump supposedly said is absolutely false."

How do you know?

I agree that the press is unscrupulous and extremely biased against Trump.

I'm saying why I don't care. I assume the context would have been similar to Patton's use of "bastards."


No.

You are refusing to come to terms with the fact your son is a bald faced liar purposely spreading lies and falsehoods so his political tribe can defeat their enemy because they are pushing for socialism and nobody actually wants socialism.

I had to tell my father he was a liar. It sucked.

But it had to be done.

rehajm said...

Got ya- that was Biden..

Mr Wibble said...

I'm going to assume that if they're pushing this in September, it's because the Dem internals are horrific.

Amadeus 48 said...

Give me a source that isn't anonymous. Goldberg can't do it. He probably interviewed Pelosi, Comey, Brennan, Kristol, and Schiff.

You really shouldn't dignify this dreck with comment, even if you are showing it to be irrelevant.

Remember when publications like The Atlantic, NYT, and WaPoo used to have standards?

hombre said...

Just when you thought the media couldn’t get any lower ....

Althouse 9:35: “How do you know?” Well, first, there is the use of anonymous “sources.” Next is the public admiration Trump regularly displays for our troops and our country. There is also the fact that the media has been proven to lie regularly about all things Trump. Why respond to this calumnious drivel in other than the strongest terms? They lied!

Charlie Eklund said...

There is no lie that will not be told about Donald Trump. These are just the latest lies; stand by for more.

Earnest Prole said...

Remind me again the burning reason why a hundred thousand American boys needed to die in World War 1.

traditionalguy said...

The military Generals and Admirals want a cut of the loot stolen by Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama. It’s only fair. That Bad Orange Man must be destroyed NOW.
Mop

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

the left-wing liars got a hold of it, and twisted it for their purpose.

Jim said...

I remember Billy Don’t Be a Hero. 1974 #1 song. Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods. “And as he started to go, she said Billy keep your head low. Billy don’t be a hero come back to me.”

Ambrose said...

Similar to what he said about McCain being a POW - so somewhat believable as an offhand remark. He has lots of offhand remarks that the media pretend to take as 100% literal until they realize no one really cares and they move on to the next one. Yesterday it was all "He instructed supporters to break law and vote twice." Today it's "He disrespects our noble vets."

rcocean said...

Goldberg is lying. He has ZERO credibility. His "Sources" are anonymous. Why should I trust or care what Press/Pundits say about Trump when they've lied over and over again? When he has NAMES to attach to "what trump said", and these NAMES are willing to come forward and give the WHO/WHAT/WHEN/WHERE and the CONTEXT, i will give them some credibility.

Until then, its without evidence and A LIE. Goldberg and Atlantic are STILL lying about what Trump said about "Fine People" and the Russia-Mueller hoax. They are LIARS until proven otherwise.

cacimbo said...

On the final night of the RNC at Fort McHenry the front row was filled with disabled vets. That fact does not mesh with Trump saying "no one wants to see that" about disabled vets in military parades. Who ya gonna believe? Your own eyes or anonymous sources.

Amadeus 48 said...

Stephen Kruiser at PJ Media has what should be the last word on this piece in The Atlantic:

"Goldberg pretends to be legitimately curious about Trump’s patriotism, but the thing reads like something a drunk BuzzFeed intern wrote after his daddy told him he was disappointed again."

rcocean said...

The center-right always reacts to these unproven lies about Trump in the stupidest way possible. Acting like an MSM attack on Trump is credible, when there's ZERO Proof (other than anonymous sources) simply plays the lying Press's game. In any case, even if there was something said, and people stepped forward and gave details, what difference would it make? What did Trump say exactly? what was the context? Was he joking, being sarcastic, or serious? Why would I trust someone who hates/dislikes Trump? And without a audio tape, there's ZERO way to determine if someone's characterization of a private comment is accurate. ZERO.

Right now, Leftists like Goldberg can lie about Trump and get headlines. We can't reward that scum-bag behavior.

Wince said...

A few thoughts:

That the Atlantic ran this October surprise article a month early tells me Biden needs immediate shoring up.

I can't imagine Trump looking that deep behind a World War I monument, even though the historical consensus is that WW I was futile European-made disaster of trench warfare.

When John Kerry as a presidential candidate "disparaged the intelligence of service members" with his "stuck in Iraq" gaffe, the story had to be sourced in complete context in public comments that were recorded. Whereas the obvious take away from Goldberg's unsourced article is meant to be certain words, undocumented, that can be repeated by other headline "news" outlets.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne aka Doug Emhoff's Pimp Hand said...

Who wants to lay money that Jeffery Goldberg has always spoken of America's war dead in "hushed, reverent tones"? Can we see a show of hands?

*crickets*

I thought so!

Butkus51 said...

yep, THIS time I believe "the media" /sarc

tim in vermont said...

"Whatever happened to that meme?”

The "War to End All Wars” that lead to “The Peace to End All Peace”?

Alive and well. We are still fighting that war due to the Treaty of Versailles. We obviously should have left the Ottoman Empire be. And we obviously should have stayed out of it. Eisenhower had been our only decent president on this score until Trump came along.

Achilles said...

Joe Biden is on tape saying absolutely racist shit multiple times. For example. Or this...

Joe Biden is on tape saying a black man invented the light bulb.

Joe Biden is on tape doing exactly what Trump was impeached for.

There are numerous democrats who are on record saying worse things about vets than these bullshit quotes.

The point is that democrats, and Jon Althouse Cohen, don't believe a damned thing they say they believe.

The only thing they care about is power.

Even better he would not allow this to be posted on his blog.

Mike Sylwester said...

Despite all such lies and despite all the voting fraud, Trump will win re-election decisively in November 2020.

Instead of wasting all their time and effort on such nonsense, the Democrats should have been acting as a loyal, civil opposition and should have been just debating the real issues.

Birches said...

I could throw Megan Mcardle's comment that John posted right back in her face. She often warns us to second guess an anonymous story that satisfies our priors, but she somehow never thinks that when the story is about Trump.

The reason the story is so suspicious is because it elides so well with the John Mccain war hero story. It's too pat.

MikeR said...

"If he said it". Probably didn't.

Banjo said...

I feel sorry for the readers of Atlantic who believe they are getting good value for their money. The people who write and edit the magazine, owned by one of the left-wing plutocrats who seem to control news and information these days (see the amazing transformation of The Drudge Report in the past year) are the same Ivy League products who infest the NYT, WaPo and the alphabet networks.

bleh said...

I don’t understand the brouhaha about anonymous or named sources. I get it that there’s skepticism and the writer could’ve just made it up. And it’s not like there’s any danger in going on the record. Anyone who publicly comes out against the President is feted in the media and given lucrative book deals and so on. So anyone could say anything, they can lie and no one would call them out on it, and they can make a good living lying about the President. Going “on the record” wouldn’t make it a bit more believable.

Named or unnamed, it doesn’t really make a difference. Not anymore, not in the year 2020. It’s all lies and fakery and propaganda. Nothing can be trusted.

I have to say, though, that the passage from the Bolton book describing the same events is a compelling rebuttal. There’s zero chance, if Trump really said it, that Bolton wouldn’t have included it in his book.

mezzrow said...

So many people want this to be true so badly it probably won't matter if it's true or not.

In the end, it may be the equivalent of yelling "squirrel!" in a crowded theatre. We'll get to hear the tale as sanctified truth for the remainder of our days from the organs of the media. That's how things become "history".

Some day in the distant future you'll search for Dan Rather and Robert Redford's picture will pop up. You'll be referred to a replay of the movie to determine the truth of Rather's professional demise.

MikeR said...

Your son quotes McArdle: 'COUNTERPOINT: No one who doesn't already believe it would believe it simply because they went on the record; the people who are saying ANONYMOUS SOURCES right now would just shift to DISGRUNTLED EX-STAFFERS.' Apparently the people who already believe it don't care about reliable sources. They are all ready to believe it because it's against Trump.

Big Mike said...

@Althouse, I got about three or four paragraphs into the article, and realized that it was made up out of invented “facts” from start to finish. The evidence I see that tells me this article is dead wrong is that a Trump goes out of his way to show his support and affection for our troops, in marked contrast to his aloof (snooty) predecessor. And once you’re below flag rank (generals and admirals) the troops know it and appreciate it, and appear to my eyes to return the affection.

Static Ping said...

Stories based on anonymous sources without corroborating evidence are worthless.

Stories based on multiple anonymous sources without corroborating evidence is the equivalent of multiplying zeroes in the hopes that will help.

Given that multiple persons who were there and have gone on record saying this never happened, and all the actual evidence points to this never happening, the Atlantic better put up or beg for forgiveness by the end of the business day.

eric said...

We've gotten to the point now that the media can just brazenly lie without consequences.

Not only do I think they don't have four "anonymous" sources, I don't think they even have one source.

Or to put it another way.

Often times when the media interviews someone they twist their words to get them to say what the media wants them to say. And even then, when we know the source of the information, the media will dispute the pushback from the source when the source says, "But that's not what I said at all!" Or "that's not what I meant!"

But here we have sources we cannot confirm who are ostensibly quoting president Trump from two years ago (although they use a lot of weasel words it's unclear if they're quoting Trump or just familiar with his thinking) and we are just supposed to take the authors word for it?

Give me a break

I'd be more inclined to take Nancy Pelosis word for it.

Drago said...

We have seen this before from the marxists/dems/LLR's.

Dan Rather's hoaxed up National Guard forgeries against W dropped into the campaign with only weeks remaining. Thankfully it only took about 8 hours to expose the fraud by the "bloggers in pajamas", Powerlineblog and Little Green Footballs. (Yes, that event and that "insult" resulted in Pajamas Media)

The forged National Guard story was the 2004 equivalent to the media's waiting close to a year to launch the W drunk driving arrest story in 2000 with only weeks remaining in the campaign.

The dems pathetic smears against HW Bush in 1992 claiming HW, as a young Naval Aviator, bailed out of his stricken plane too early and left his gunner to die.

Same pattern used by the dems and their LLR-lap poodles every 4 years.

Notice how the dems and their marxistvLLR allies keep trotting out lies designed to target the strong Trump base voters in the evangelical and military communities. 2 communities the left and LLR's despise with a burning passion.

Birches said...

Bolton's book seems to be the nail in the coffin on that story being real. He would have put it in his book for sure if it was real.

The stuff about what Trump said about Kelly's son is probably true, but it's also true that Kelly had twisted the interpretation as a jilted lover. His first interpretation was probably correct.

I'm Full of Soup said...

What Achilles said at 9:39AM.

Mark O said...

Anonymous sources went out with the Russia hoax.

rcocean said...

There are rumors this lie was spread by "Mad-dog Mattis." I think Trump has been cured of his love for Generals. He thought they were patriotic tough guys, who only wanted to serve and respected the chain of command.

What he found out, is they - US Generals - are mostly politicians in uniform, full of ego, with a love for favorable publicity, and grandstanding. I'm sure Trump was shocked at how incompetent they were, and how sensitive they were to negative press. Its amazing how many of them refused to defer to the President's judgment, and were always threatening to resign if they didn't get their way.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Althouse has a YUGE blind spot - she thinks her son's blog is interesting.

Owen said...

Ken B @ 9:39: "...planned and coordinated." I think one of the biggest handicaps for Republicans/conservatives/moderates --I struggle for a descriptor of "people who favor data and logic"-- is their tendency to assume that the other side is playing by the same or at least similar rules. That they too are presenting data and using logic to support their claims. WRONG.

This is an information operation. Or rather a disinformation operation. A raid on our intellectual and cultural foundations. They are placing charges at carefully chosen sites in order to loosen and break away big chunks of what we believe, or force us to defend some things at the expense of others because we are distracted or spread too thin.

MikeR said...

Michael Tracey agrees: https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1301663606971527168 'That story reads like snippets of Trump expressing derision toward the idea of US troops getting sent off to die in pointless wars, such as World War I, which when filtered through the prism of neocon-lite Jeffrey Goldberg becomes a “Trump mocks US war dead for some reason” story'

Dave Begley said...

Ann:

People who were with him on that trip said Trump said no such thing. These people are on the record. And check out Mollie Hemingway's twitter feed. Bolton didn't bring it up in his book.

The Press will lie at will about Trump.

rcocean said...

Trump had a funny, but true line about McCain. He truthfully was not a "war hero". Heroes rescue wounded comrades under fire, single-handedley take our machine gun nests, shoot down numerous enemy planes while being outnumbered, etc. IOW, they save comrades or help win the war.

McCain was shot down due to his own incompetence, and refused to snitch to the Captors. That's admirable, but not exactly Heroic. And Trump had every reason to despise McCain, since McCain was up to his lying ass in spying on Trump and the fake dossier. We now know his aides, were peddling fake dossier extracts to the Press in order to hurt Trump.

JMW Turner said...

Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and Joe Biden are older than me, but, like millions of other young American men, we all faced the draft during the decade plus Vietnam war. It wasn't fair to those who were sucked into the war machine simply because they couldn't or wouldn't obtain a college or medical deferment. One of my fraternity brothers made a comment of attending a military funeral of a cousin killed in action during this useless war after the cousin volunteered to serve. His cousin's family was, of course, distraught, but, my frat brother responded in an exasperated tone that he couldn't feel as sorry as his family. After all, his cousin put himself in harm's way by joining officer's training. During the Vietnam war period, not avoiding the draft was seen by many of us cannon fodder candidates as pointless and stupid. It was the prevailing attitude and shared across the board by many guys and their women, particularly in school. To use the common avoidance of the draft as a political weapon is disingenuous at the least, dishonest at worst.

Gaius Gracchus said...

Goldberg used true Trump criticisms of McCain, intelligence staff, and generals (the warmongers mad Trump opposes war) and mixed it with a false story about the cemetery.

WWI, like all wars, was for bankers and industrialists. We should honor the soldiers, but the leaders like Wilson should be criticized. No US soldiers should have been killed in WWI. WWI was a disaster for all the countries involved and directly led to WW2.

Goldberg's 4 sources likely misrepresented statements to him and he likely twisted them even more.

This appears to be an orchestrated campaign story. Trump has consistently shown respect to veterans, which is why this story rings false even without the documented evidence debunking it.

Bay Area Guy said...

"Multiple anonymous sources"

Hah!

We've seen that movie before, no?

Once again, The Atlantic writes a story attacking the President, without evidence, about a cancelled trip to a French Cementary ....blah, blah, blah.....

For some reason, The Atlantic and its leftist bootlickers can't seem to simply state and evaluate the public policies adopted by this Administration, such as cutting taxes, cutting regulations, not going to war, reworking Trade deals with Mexico, brokering peace deals between UAE & Israel, etc, etc, etc,.

Wince said...

On Facebook Ari Teman commented...
Anonymous sources magically seem to appear right before elections and then disappear.

John Althouse Cohen replied...
Trump's defenders have been claiming for 4 years that any story that makes him look bad is fake news based on fake sources. This has been happening over and over for years, not just “right before” the election.

Teman didn't restrict his observation to Donald Trump, or the credibility of other stories that make Trump look bad.

Teman simply made an observation about the stories from "anonymous sources" that "magically seem to appear" right before elections.

Illogically, JAC seems to be arguing that Trump supporters' repeated questioning of anonymous reporting for the last four years somehow now independently enhances the credibility of Goldberg's pre-election anonymously-sourced Atlantic story.

Unknown said...

"If he said it, I'm thinking it was in the spirit of genuinely hating the losses in war, and he is keeping us out of military adventures."

I have no way of knowing for certain the truth in this case. But how anyone could watch Trump all these years and think he is "genuinely hating the losses in war" baffles me. When has he ever given any sign that he is capable of this kind of empathy? Show me a video, a part of a speech, anything.

tommyesq said...


rehajm said...

List bullet point campaign accusations against Trump....I'll start: *He called fallen troops "losers" and "suckers"

Of course, this tweet was by Sharyl Attkisson, who immediately followed it up with "
PS the list doesn't mean any are true or not; and some of course have been disproven already."

(my own ps - I don't think Rehajm intended to suggest that Attkisson's tweet was true, I just suspect that many will not actually click on the link to see the context.)

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

So transparently fake. They’re just phoning it in. Like Biden.

By the way no matter how sloppy I spell Biden autocorrect fixes it every time. For some reason Siri just can not fathom what I mean when I mistyped Yrump. Tech is so tiresome. But politically fucked tech will bring a hot war to dili in valley if they don’t straighten up.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne aka Doug Emhoff's Pimp Hand said...

Jeffery Goldberg is one of the best examples of Samuel Johnson's assertion that patriotism is "the last refuge of a scoundrel" that I have ever seen.

Jupiter said...

"multiple sources" means the voices in Goldberg's head. They're getting louder!

rehajm said...

Same pattern used by the dems and their LLR-lap poodles every 4 years.

Apparently nobody loved you enough to get you the 2020 365 New Bombshells of the Day That Will Sink Trump Calendar for Christmas...

AllenS said...

Here is Trump's exact quote --

"They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, tape wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the country side of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

No, wait a minute, that was John Fucking Kerry, the Presidential candidate talking about veterans.

How many of you Liberals voted for that piece of shit?

Drago said...

It does appear that the lefties/LLR-lefties did not do their homework before launching this latest desperate lie and left far too many inconvenient actual facts lying around.

The Bolton book passage which puts the lie to this transparent hoax should have been "cleaned up" with a payment to Bolton to retract that "inconvenient" passage and the deep staters should have told their DOD "Clinesmiths/Ciaramellas" to make the Navy Flight record documents "disappear", similar to how Chris Wray's FBI lost MORE Flynn documents that show Flynn was set up.

rehajm said...

It's almost like all were positioned & ready to seize on the allegations in The Atlantic..as if..coordinated..
(Maybe the claims are all true. But the track record to date is poor.)
What if the steady stream of claims and attacks helped elect Trump rather than hurt?


(There's a big Sharyl Attkisson theme here because @Jack is throttling her Twitter feed at the moment...)

Ken B said...

Three things I learned in grade school:

Look both ways before you cross the road.
Don’t pull a gun on a cop.
Don’t believe unsourced reports about historical weather conditions in preference to official navy records.

I went to a better school than most it seems.

Jupiter said...

"McCain was shot down due to his own incompetence, and refused to snitch to the Captors."

Well, the first part of that is likely true.

But not the second.

Jupiter said...

"The First World War, boys
It came and it went
The reason for fighting
I never did get"

Well, if you are talking about the reason for Americans fighting, it was because Woodrow Wilson had an affair with his neighbor's wife in Princeton. He was then black-mailed by a Zionist lawyer who got hold of his love letters. In return for America's joining the war, the Zionists got the Balfour Declaration. Over there!

Ken B said...

McCardle's argument is pretty bad. First, it’s mind-reading. Second it ignores that names allow checking. There are records of who was with Trump when. Third, it ignores the named and the disgruntled who have already provided evidence this is false: Bolton. Fourth, it exculpatory her from assessing the reliability of the alleged witnesses, in their character and in their proximity to Trump. Fifth, it subverts normal standards of evidence.

It is completely dishonest. Of course JAC likes it.

Achilles said...

Banjo said...

I feel sorry for the readers of Atlantic who believe they are getting good value for their money. The people who write and edit the magazine, owned by one of the left-wing plutocrats who seem to control news and information these days (see the amazing transformation of The Drudge Report in the past year) are the same Ivy League products who infest the NYT, WaPo and the alphabet networks.

No.

The time to feel sorry for them is long gone.

At this point if they are still sucking up these obvious lies they are complicit and willfully seeking justifications for a path chosen.

You cannot support Joe Biden and be a decent human being.

Ken B said...

Rcocean
McCain turned down early and preferential release from a hellish captivity. Soldiers do not decide the circumstances which might call on their courage and honor, only how to react when they are called on. McCain acted heroically.

Temujin said...

"According to sources..."

This reads like fiction. But then, it IS The Atlantic. Did not used to say that a few years ago, but it's a real buzzy sort of mag these days. Buzz as in Buzzfeed-y. This is not news any longer. This is the organization that fired Kevin Williamson, a month after hiring him because he had views other than those approved by Naral. Williamson is one of the sharpest minds in our culture and was brought on to The Atlantic to shore up it's intellectual heft and show that it was not just about young people with causes wearing black. But alas, it was, and is.

It's a garbage dump. It is The Atlantic in name only. A shell of what it once was.

~ Gordon Pasha said...

Trump is "polling" ever higher in battleground states and the betting sites show a tie right now - all of which speaks to Trump rallying. This is an attempt to cool his support with what should be his natural demographic but as stated above is readily disproven by people willing to go on the record, contemporaneous information from the USN on weather at the event, and even Bolton's book. This was probably going to be the "October Surprise" but was pushed forward to blunt Trump's momentum and to change the conversation from what a failure Biden has been on the stump.

BTW, what's with Biden's hand. Are those IV infusion marks?? :-)

Amadeus 48 said...

By the way, Biden repeated the Charlottesville "very fine people" lie yesterday in Kenosha, and the Chicago Tribune printed it verbatim, with out a correction of Biden's lie. They also ran pictures on the front page that were shot so tight that it looked like Biden might have had a crowd. A citizen journalist posted wide angle video that showed: about forty members of the news media, about 15 citizens, and about 25 BLM demonstrators, who arrived in four vans about three minutes before Biden did.

Just another brick in the wall.

Nonapod said...

I agree that the press is unscrupulous and extremely biased against Trump.

I'm saying why I don't care. I assume the context would have been similar to Patton's use of "bastards."


I generally try to avoid directly categorizing people and institutions as "evil", but at some point it becomes almost impossible to categorize a person or institution in any other way. When you have this constant stream of demonstrable outright lies and distortions coming out of the Democrat-Media-Complex day after day, year after year, it becomes almost absurd to call it anything else but what it is.

The Democrats and the media has become derranged and, yes evil. That's not to say that all the individuals that make up these entities are all evil people. To be sure, some are. But most are probably simply derranged. They're self deluded, choosing to beleive in a reality which is not true in order to avoid cognitive dissonances. They choose a narrative that is more digestable to them since doing otherwise would challenge too many foundamental assumptions about their fellow Americans.

Amadeus 48 said...

McCain is dead. He has no more comments to offer, no more sucker-punches to throw at his friends to the applause of his enemies. The ego, heroism, and pig-headedeness that sustained him through years of hell in the North Vietnam prison camp are of no more avail.

Rest in peace, and good riddance.

Amadeus 48 said...

My father, who was the mildest of men, after listening to years of fawning huzzahs from the press for McCain, said, "Yup. He was the greatest prisoner-of-war in American history." No further comment.

JPS said...

Sources say Jeffrey Goldberg blows goats. I am in no way suggesting he does, but it's interesting and surprising that several people have told me this independently.

Seriously, this does read like a line a Trump-hater would put in Trump's mouth, because hey, it's not so different than "I like people who weren't captured," right?

Birkel said...

Lies in the MSM.
Fake News.

Literally enemies of the people.

Gravel said...

Another crop of unnamed sources says what left leaning people want to hear; it's refuted on record by multiple named witnesses, including Bolton (who until today was the most imporantest truth-teller evers!!), and a verification of the weather claim by an FOIA.

It's not hard to pick which side to believe on this, regardless of your thoughts on Orange Julius Caesar. There's something broken in the minds and spirits of anyone who prefers the anonymous narrative over direct testimony and legally documented proof.

bbkingfish said...

General Kelly "refused to comment" on the story of Trump's disrespect at his son's grave. How easy it would have been for him to get his old boss off the hook if the story weren't true.

Kelly knew that people would interpret his "no comment" as "yeah, he said it." For public purposes, his "no comment" was as good as an affirmation, in my opinion.

Also, I think you can expect an avalanche of this kind of story over the next two months. How long do you think Goldberg/The Atlantic has been sitting on this one?

The reason the story resonates with so many Americans is that the story is so consistent with Trump's public persona. Plenty of people like him, but there are many GOPers who held their noses and voted for him in 2016. If even 10% of them get wobbly, Trump is in serious trouble.

Jason said...

Dan Daly: "COME ON YOU SONS OF BITCHES! DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FOREVER?"

Marines: HOO-RAH! HOO-RAH! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

Press in 2020: OMG DID DALY JUST REFER TO THE TROOPS AS "SONS OF BITCHES?"

William said...

I don't think Trump's comments about McCain made him look good, but neither did the actions that McCain took against the Trump campaign....You would think that what with all the bad publicity it gets, war would be a rare occurrence in human affairs.....If you go to war, the odds are that future historians will consider that war to be a futile and fatuous endeavor and that your blood was shed in vain. The exception is leftist endorsed causes and armed struggles. Are there any folk songs about how terribly foolish were the struggles of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade....The first Lost Cause was not the Confederacy and the first One Hundred Days were not those of The New Deal. These words were used to describe Napoleon's march from Elba to Waterloo. Napoleon had already lost the Napoleonic Wars and this footnote added another one hundred thousand casualties to the butcher's bill. Napoleon's carnage was relentlessly glorified by the Country Joes of that era....War would be rarer if hippie peace freaks had turned some negative attention to the futility and fatuity of armed third world struggles instead of romanticizing them.

Alison said...

Utter bullshit and lies. 4 "anonymous" sources. Already been refuted on Twitter by non anonymous people on staff now, or formerly. (Am busy or would find the tweets and link them, real life interfering!)

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

It's impressive that our host, like Kaus and probably Trump, keeps to the main point. The U.S. has been in far too many endless wars, where the gain to anyone except maybe those with careers in the Pentagon is unclear. By comparison, it is extremely unlikely that Trump disparaged or ridiculed U.S. service people in general, or disabled veterans. It is extremely likely that he was noting the sadness and frustration of Americans suffering and dying in stupid causes. There are "nameless" establishment figures who are pushing back: they love endless wars. And yes, McCain deserved to have a few insults thrown his way.

Gravel said...

I admit second place to no man in my detestation for John McCain, the senator. But come on people, refusing to bend under extreme torture is heroic. Refusing to leave the prison ahead of men there longer than he was heroic. Yeah, he eventually broke, but only after they resumed torture.

He was a liar and a fool as a politician, but his behavior in Hanoi was heroic.

rcocean said...

The press has lied and lied again about having "Numerous sources" for a story. For instance, the Press published some lie about Trump-Russia and then stated that other news outlets had confirmed the story. It was later disclosed that the NYT, WaPo, and WSJ had all been talking to the same lying anonymous source. In other stories, the "numerous sources" turned out to be one liar, and two people who had heard the Lie second-hand.

This is all part of the MSM/Democrat party game plan. Whenever Trump gets some traction, throw out a lying story about Trump based on anonymous sources.

Alison said...

Tweets refuting this false accusation:

Sarah Huckabee Sanders
Dan Scavino
Techno_Fog

Skeptical Voter said...

Who can be more credible than "multiple sources". Now those multiple sources can all be priests, doctors, lawyers and such; or they can be 20 bag ladies standing on street corners yelling about the imminent invasion of visitors from Mars. All of them of course are "multiple sources". It would comforting for the writer in The Atlantic to name as much as a single source, in order that one might check the credibility of said "source".

I see this all the time in the pages of my low rent fish wrapper the Los Angeles Times. Their
"news writers" --at least in their barely disguised opinion pieces-- appearing in the "news" section like to salt their stories with "experts say" or, even better, "many experts say".

Ralph L said...

"I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted ... I didn't get 'thank you.'"

I'm sure the McCains would have refuted that if they could have. Did they?

Yancey Ward said...

Bleh brings up point that I think should be addressed:

"Going “on the record” wouldn’t make it a bit more believable."

Well, this is just wrong. By going on the record, one could at least examine evidence by questioning other people who were present at the same event. One could look at the source's past history to estimate credibility. One could examine whether or not the source was actually in the room with the President.

I am in Althouse's camp on this one- it could be that Trump isn't particularly overly obsequious to veterans, diabled or not, like a normal retail politician would be. I actually find this a bit refreshing because I think, counterintuitively, it makes him far less likely to engage in overseas military adventures putting their lives at risk, and the evidence bears this out. How many service men died or were wounded under Presidents Bush Jr. and Obama?

In any case, the evidence also doesn't even support many of the claims in the article- see the Bolton book quote above. Also, you are not going to fly the President in a helicopter in a fucking rainstorm if you don't have to. Are these people at The Atlantic that daft?

stevew said...

The higher the level of outrage from Trump's haters and detractors the more likely it is that what they are saying about Trump is not true. Especially in situations about what he is to have said according to anonymous sources.

Gunner said...

So hilarious to watch lefties glorify the necessity of fighting World War One. I suppose for them, it was necessary since they needed Europe to destroy itself.

Fernandinande said...

"If any man says he hates war more than I do, he better have a knife, that's all I have to say.:-- Handey

Charlie Eklund said...

If this is the case, then why did President Trump feature disabled veterans and disabled first providers at the RNC? In the front row, even, at Trump’s RNC nomination-acceptance speech, if I remember which event it was correctly. These clownish Trump-haters act like the rest of us are somehow unable to remember what happened two weeks ago. Maybe some cannot, but I’d be willing to bet more of us can and do remember.

Deevs said...

The Byron York tweet Ken B posted above is interesting. It juxtaposes the Atlantic saying Trump didn't want to go for fear his hair would be messed up (see his appearance on Jimmy Fallon to see how much credence I'm giving that assertion) with Bolton's book saying things were cancelled due to weather. Then there are a bunch of tweets saying, "Oh, now Bolton is credible?"

Which is really stupid, because I'm guessing those convinced of the veracity of the Atlantic story were similarly convinced of the veracity of Bolton's memoir. In that case, the burden is on those touting the veracity of the Atlantic's four anonymous sources to explain why Bolton's account is suspect.

But this is one of the stupidest controversies in four years rife with stupid controversies. You know what? Even if Trump referred to a bunch of dead WWI soldiers as losers, I don't care. Trump being a jerk at times isn't new information. I doubt many people are all that concerned with the reputations of dead WWI soldiers. When's the last time most of us thought about the dead soldiers in a war 100 years ago as anything more than an abstraction? Outside of Sabaton fans and watching 1917, I'm guessing it hasn't been a lot. This is stupid.

hstad said...

Just more B.S. by 95% of the MSM. Write everything which is negative about Mr. Trump. But this is telling - who's the audience for this? The MSM is afraid that many Democrats are also moving toward Mr. Trump. But voters are wiser and since they are not taken in by the MSM lies it will fall on deaf ears. Hell, look, Mr. Trump is at 52% (27% from Blacks), according to Rasmussen, vs. Obama [with 95% favorable MSM press] same time in Obama's second Presidential run. This may be a landslide of massive proportions which will negate the "mail-in" fraud effort by the Democrats.

roesch/voltaire said...

Last year, a former four star general & colleague who worked directly for Trump said to me, “Donald Trump is the most loathsome individual I ever met.”

Trump’s attitudes & behavior toward America’s heroes are repugnant. Of course this is from Brennan but the number of people reporting this along what Trump himself says shows his true colors.

Martin said...

Yes, all those sources who must remain anonymous but whom we must treat as totally reliable, even if what they say is not supported by known facts. Like for Russiagate.

Trump has a big mouth, with no filter between the brain and the vocal chords. Stupid, half-baked things come out all the time. I wish that weren't the case, but it is.

Parsing his every off-the-cuff statement as if it is a carefully considered policy pronouncement is ridiculous. And doing it selectively when it is something that can be used to embarrass him, while leaving the (occasional) insightful things unmentioned, is dishonest. Welcome to the American media, Pravda on steroids but still able to fool people who remember when it wasn't so bad, and have not been paying attention.

50 years from now, the grandchildren of our current 20- and 30-somethings, will wonder what was wrong with their grandparents back around 2020. Not just Trump and the reactions to him; the whole insane political and social milieu.

Unknown said...

"The Press will lie at will about Trump"

"Pravda journalism" at it's best. A mixture of lies, fabrications and distortions. They learned their trade from Marxist professors at 'journalism' school.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Amadeus 48 said...
Give me a source that isn't anonymous. Goldberg can't do it.

The best part about this is Goldberg saying the sources need to remain anonymous because otherwise they'll be hit with "angry tweets".

Yes, he really wrote that (people are mocking him, rephrasing it as "mean tweets". But IMO the original is bad enough that it needs no change).

If you can't take public ownership of your attack on the President because of a fear of "angry tweets", then you're not worth listening to.

I post anonymously because I don't want to get fired from my job. Providing The Atlantic and the Biden campaign with a way to attack President Trump would get these people jobs and money and praise, if, in fact, their story was true.

This attack is a fraud, and anyone who pushes it is establishing that they are not honest people

Francisco D said...

rcocean said...
Trump had a funny, but true line about McCain. He truthfully was not a "war hero".

What he failed to mention was that McCain was such an incompetent pilot that he would have been drummed out of the Navy if his father and grandfather had not been admirals.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

bleh said...
Going “on the record” wouldn’t make it a bit more believable.

Yes, it would. Because if you are on the record, you can prove that you were there, or others can prove that you weren't.

You can personally be questioned, and challenged. It can be pointed out all the other times you could have mentioned this story, and didn't.

IOW, if the story is garbage, then going on the record makes it easier to prove that the story is garbage. Which means that the refusal to go on the record in a case when it would be safe for you to do so is pretty much definitive proof that your story is garbage

daskol said...

What the fuck happened to Goldberg. He hired and then quickly caved and fired Kevin Williamson, he refuses to publish his most prominent and smartest writers like McWhorter when they share their opinion and analysis of contemporary affairs, and now he tarnishes what's left of the Atlantic's reputation with a transparently hacky political hit piece. Some of the degradation of the academy and journalists rests of the people practicing the profession, but the role of managment--editors, deans, provosts, etc.--is significant. They are undermining the value and prestige of their employers, and they are failing to develop talent. To do all this for such short-sighted political purpose, and likely without much effect, is sad.

daskol said...

Bolton could have sold another 50,000 books if he'd included this anecdote. Ergo, it's almost certainly a lie.

MacMacConnell said...

"McCain was shot down due to his own incompetence, and refused to snitch to the Captors."

You evidently have never heard the propaganda tapes of McCain's broadcast out of NV turning on the war. Most Republicans' problem has nothing to do with McCain's military service it has to do with him being a nasty back stabbing toad.

In Biden's remarks today Biden goes to the Atlantic report right off the bat. No surprise, earlier in the week Biden told the Charlottesville lie.

Again Biden answers questions from staff selected questioners with pre-written approved questions and Biden's pre-weitten answers.

Earlier in Kenosho Biden patronized Blacks by saying a Black man invented to light bulb. Biden says it's a historical truth. Seems Biden is spending too much time in his basement on the internet.

roesch/voltaire said...

Trump’s defense was quickly undone by his own public comments. Not long after his denial on social media, a 2015 tweet resurfaced in which Trump not only called McCain a loser, but also shared a link to a story about him using the insult: Trump has insulted people in the Military from McCanain, who was bayoneted in the abdomen and foot, to Duckworth, to the soldiers who just got a bad headache from the Iran missile string in Iraq. It is telling that no one in his family has served.

daskol said...

BTW, wittingly or not, JAC is participating in a Dem information operation. Morning Joe already featured an this morning from an organization called VoteVets with a mom saying her deceased soldier son is not a loser.

Rosalyn C. said...

How do you know it's a lie? Because of all the other completely absurd bald faced lies the media has spread. Such as: claiming Trump called all Mexicans rapists, that Trump said Nazis were fine people, that Trump is a racist, he's an anti-semite, etc. I see these claims all the time in local chat groups as the "reasons" people hate Trump. Apparently people want to believe lies even when the tapes and transcripts are available to refute them. So naturally the media is shamelessly providing more and more lies while insulting Trump supporters.

First sentence of Goldberg's article is a lie, and it goes down from there. It's notable that Goldberg doesn't mention anything Trump has done for the military like what he's done to help veterans get timely medical care, improving the VA, upgrading the military's equipment, providing pay raises, etc. IOW, it's just a hit piece.

BTW, Biden never served either -- got deferments just like Trump.

LakeLevel said...

Someone told me that Anne was heard saying "I love throwing kittens on the highway".

Prove to me that this is false.

Maybe now you see why even repeating or mentioning unconfirmed quotes is so disgusting. Shame on you.

rehajm said...

A reporter just asked Trump to comment on what Biden's nasty remarks (as alleged by anonymous people but denied by Biden) say about his dark soul.
Just kidding.


-Sharyl Attkisson

gadfly said...

Meanwhile, the Trump attack on America's military continues to be documented as he orders "Stars and Stripes" completely shut by the end of September. The military's primary newspaper has been in publication ever since 1861 when it was first printed in Rush Limbaugh's hometown, Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

Twelve Senators recently wrote to the Department of Defense objecting to the exclusion of funding for the paper (a mere $15.5 million when in fact the worldwide shutdown would cost far more to accomplish) and citing where the paper was the only place to find detailed military coverage.

“It was Stars and Stripes that revealed the Defense Department’s use of public relations firms that profiled reporters and steered them toward favorable coverage of the war in Afghanistan,” write the Senators. “Most recently, the paper brought to light the failure of schools on U.S. military installations to shut down during the pandemic, despite Japanese public schools doing so. These stories illustrate why Stars and Stripes is essential: they report on stories that no one else covers.”

It seems likely to me that the DNC will now steer $20 million or so in political ads to keep the paper and its website afloat, particularly with the abrupt bow-out forced upon the Pentagon by our "Stable Genius".

PubliusFlavius said...

"You really shouldn't dignify this dreck with comment, even if you are showing it to be irrelevant."

Dignifying Dreck is par for the course when you cruelly link lies with a veneer of neutrality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioZeYpab3no

Do you see what I see?
Truth is an offense
You silence for your confidence
Do you hear what I hear?
Doors are slamming shut
Limit your imagination
Keep you where they must
Do you feel what I feel?
Bittering distress
Who decides what you express?
Do you take what I take?
Endurance is the word
Moving back instead of forward
Seems to me absurd
Doesn't matter what you see
Or into it what you read
You can do it your own way
If it's done just how I say

Metallica-Eye of the Beholder

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

I have four anonymous (non-existent) sources that Jeffery Goldberg does unspeakable things to 10-year old girls. These actions are so unspeakable that they can't speak about them.

See how this works, Jeff?

Mary Beth said...

According to Jeffrey Goldberg, the sources wanted to remain anonymous because they were afraid of angry tweets. If you can't get even one person to go on record and you don't have audio or video verification, it doesn't sound like there's a story. It's just gossip.

Joe Smith said...

I don't know that he so much disparages military leaders as he motivates them.

Obama said there was no way to defeat ISIS. When Trump got elected the Joint Chiefs told him the same thing.

He called them 'babies' if I recall and told them to get it done.

Amazing how it works.

No credit at all for defeating ISIS in record time, of course.

Michael K said...

What he found out, is they - US Generals - are mostly politicians in uniform, full of ego, with a love for favorable publicity, and grandstanding. I'm sure Trump was shocked at how incompetent they were, and how sensitive they were to negative press. Its amazing how many of them refused to defer to the President's judgment, and were always threatening to resign if they didn't get their way.

Yeah. It's too bad he didn't figure this out from Casey after the Ft Hood massacre. mCasey was worried about "diversity" not security for the troops. The Navy is still trickling out info on the ship collisions.

Michael said...

"multiple sources told the Atlantic"

If that doesn't inspire confidence, what would?

BUMBLE BEE said...

Mike @1:13... You're saying he switched from Great Danes to 10 year old girls? A miracle!

BUMBLE BEE said...

As mentioned earlier, John Kerry was the one who called enlisted men/women chumps. Something about graduating school was it?

Drago said...

roesch/voltaire: "Trump’s defense was quickly undone by his own public comments."

More sad, pathetic lies from the marxist left.

You idiots have pulled this with every republican president since Reagan and no one is buying your BS. Everyone sees the hoax.

Everyone.

Even the lefties, which is why r/v moved so quickly off the anonymous "sources" and reverted back to the McCain nonsense.

Transparent.

Biden's poll numbers in Florida and Pennsylvania have collapsed and this is the result.

Expect lots more Dan Rather/National Guard moments in the weeks to come. The democraticals have nothing left...especially now that Biden has completely reversed himself on every major policy statement in just the last week!

LOL

Drago said...

Francisco D: "What he failed to mention was that McCain was such an incompetent pilot that he would have been drummed out of the Navy if his father and grandfather had not been admirals."

This is quite true and was well known within the Naval Aviation community. On the other hand, McCain would never have been such a screw up had he not flown under the cover of his family prestige. He probably would never have served if his grandfather and father not served.

So, its a chicken and egg thing.

minnesota farm guy said...

I read part of it and read Bolton's "rebuttal" of the Belleau Wood portion. This article is absolute trash. It takes the Seymour Hersh school of journalism by anonymous source to its logical conclusion that any lie will do.

I notice Ann cleaned things up so that John is no longer her source. What prompted that; a value judgement about the veracity of the article?

Drago said...

roesch/voltaire: "Last year, a former four star general & colleague who worked directly for Trump said to me, “Donald Trump is the most loathsome individual I ever met.”'

LOL

Would that be one of the Generals whose guidance has led us to an almost 20 year stalemate in Afghanistan?

Yeah, lets listen to that guy!

Sorry r/v, the days of the 4 stars helping to keep the endless wars going on and on and on and on forever and reaping lots of nice consulting/defense contractor/think tank gigs for big bucks are coming to an end.

I'm sorry Trump ending the endless wars is happening to you. I hope you can overcome the trauma.....

Guaranteed: Trump will expand his majority vote from active duty and reserve and retired military vote in 2020 over what he had already established in 2016.

And I hope your 4 star general chokes on it.

Drago said...

r/v: "Of course this is from Brennan but the number of people reporting this along what Trump himself says shows his true colors."

The commie muslim brotherhood lovin' Brennan!

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLxinfinity

minnesota farm guy said...

Anonymous sources. If you don't have the balls to put your name on a statement then that statement - and the maker- are worthless.

Drago said...

I'll bet r/v still believes:

- Reagan colluded with the Ayatollah to keep US citizens hostage longer to win election

- HW Bush abandoned his aircraft gunner by bailing out too soon

- W was AWOL from National Guard duty

We already know r/v is a russian collusion dead ender like Inga, still thinks Kavanaugh is a gang rape leader, still thinks the hoax dossier is real, and like Inga, still thinks Carter Page is a russian spy.

These morons really do think they can reset history every 15 minutes.

Drago said...

hstad: "But voters are wiser and since they are not taken in by the MSM lies it will fall on deaf ears. Hell, look, Mr. Trump is at 52% (27% from Blacks), according to Rasmussen, vs. Obama [with 95% favorable MSM press] same time in Obama's second Presidential run."

Trump leads Biden in Florida amongst hispanics, because of course he is.

BTW, did you hear? The BS poll from AZ that showed Biden leading polled 46% democrats! 46%!

Republicans? <30%.

That's how the media is lying to keep dementia Joe afloat.

minnesota farm guy said...

@Gadfly I am sure Trump spent hours agonizing over Stars and Stripes. Clearly a piece of DC gamesmanship by some asshole in the Pentagon to get Congress to ante up the $ for Stars and Stripes. I spent a glorious 395 days in Viet Nam and never saw a copy of Stars and Stripes. I and the troops did listen to AFVN. That was worth some money.

rcocean said...

McCain turned down early and preferential release from a hellish captivity. Soldiers do not decide the circumstances which might call on their courage and honor, only how to react when they are called on. McCain acted heroically.

He turned it down, because he would've been court-martialed, if he'd taken it. You couldn't "Jump the line" because the enemy (for his own propaganda purposes) gives you the chance. This is forbidden by the Military conduct code:

"...Article III: "I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy". To prevent the enemy from using prisoners for propaganda, officers were to agree to be released in the order in which they were captured."

Drago said...

What this is really all about:

DW@vfx_dude · 16m

TODAY'S Headlines in the REAL WORLD:
- Trump brokers Serbia/Kosovo peace deal
- 1.4mil new jobs added in August
- Unemployment drops almost 2%
- Trump approval up to 52%

MSM response: "Let's invent idiotic Trump hates wounded soldiers story"

rcocean said...

Goldberg is just laughing at his critics. Yeah, my "sources" don't want to talk because they'd have mean tweets in their twitter feed. LOL!

Can Goldberg make his contempt more explicit? He's basically saying, "You want names of my sources? Fuck you. Think I need to provide evidence? Fuck You". He's not being "dumb".

Drago said...

BTW, the Serbia-Kosovo deal also includes normalized relations with Israel.

Can you imagine how angry that makes the democraticals based on their blinding hatred of Israel?

John henry said...

 Earnest Prole said...

Remind me again the burning reason why a hundred thousand American boys needed to die in World War 1.

And hundreds of thousands more maimed and disabled.

And in only a bit more than 4 months that we were involved in combat.

And after all this carnage we think of Pershing as some kind of military genius.

And after Wilson ran, as fdr and lbj would later do, on a program of not getting us into an existing war that had nothing to do with us.

PDJT is probably the most peaceful president ever.

He brought peace to the middle east for the first time in 4000 years. (it seems.)

John Henry

Big Mike said...

McCain was shot down due to his own incompetence

Commentator rcocean makes a serious charge. Unfortunately, it appears to be true. McCain always insisted, and Wikipedia also writes, that he was shot down by a missile, however the official US Navy report at that time claimed that McCain was shot down by ground fire because he was flying too low. Moreover, it is perfectly possible to have ejected from an A-4 without injuring oneself, but one has to follow proper ejection procedures. His three broken bones pretty much prove that he did not follow proper procedures.

At any rate, IMHO the unknown North Vietnamese peasant who pulled McCain to safety from Trúc Bạch Lake did more in the long run to harm the US of A than all the ANV generals put together.

Earnest Prole said...

I don’t understand the fuss. If video emerged of Trump making the alleged statement, Trump apologists would turn on a dime to defend and even praise him. Isn't the more appropriate response therefore "Meh"?

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Blogger gadfly said...
Meanwhile, the Trump attack on America's military continues to be documented as he orders "Stars and Stripes" completely shut by the end of September. The military's primary newspaper has been in publication ever since 1861 when it was first printed in Rush Limbaugh's hometown, Cape Girardeau, Missouri.


Let me guess, "Stars and Stripes" is now as dishonestly partisan as "The Voice of America" was before a Trump appointee finally took over.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Dear people in "American Institutions":

We don't care who you are. We don't care what you accomplished in the past. If you let the Left "converge" you, we are going to destroy you..

Fight the Left like your life depends on it. Because it does

Greg The Class Traitor said...

roesch/voltaire said...
Trump’s defense was quickly undone by his own public comments. Not long after his denial on social media, a 2015 tweet resurfaced in which Trump not only called McCain a loser,

1; McCain was a loser
2: Attacking John McCain is a feature, not a bug
3: None of that has anything to do with the charge of Trump showing disrespect for the dead at Belleau Wood

Thanks for confirming that the story is utter garbage

MikeR said...

Uh, John Bolton says it's not true? https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1301920506103332864

Michael K said...

“It was Stars and Stripes that revealed the Defense Department’s use of public relations firms that profiled reporters and steered them toward favorable coverage of the war in Afghanistan,” write the Senators. “Most recently, the paper brought to light the failure of schools on U.S. military installations to shut down during the pandemic, despite Japanese public schools doing so. These stories illustrate why Stars and Stripes is essential: they report on stories that no one else covers.”

gadfly is worried. The stories that no one else will print because they are not true. There has been a concerted effort to take over military publications like"Military Times" by the left. This is pretty well known

Browndog said...

Libs throw out an obvious lie and everyone spends all day debunking it. All that time and energy talking about what libs want you to talk about.

Who's the leader, and who's the follower?

You spent all day mad, libs spent all day laughing at you.

MikeR said...

People who connect this with McCain don't really understand Donald Trump at all. "Only Rosey O'Donnell". He attacks his enemies. He never never attacks generic groups, not even liberal voters.

narciso said...

indeed and he got rid of suleimani, al rimi (who got a mention in the last drug war pick, day of the soldado) and baghdadi, I did a post about the raid to get the second one, back in 2017,

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

In other words, WITHOUT EVIDENCE The Atlantic slags Trump. Tiresome.

5M - Eckstine said...

Crock. Trump stood at the WestPoint grad ceremony and shook the hand of every graduate. No one respects the military more than Trump. Just a lot of generals are failed politicians.

Gahrie said...

80% of the military is going to vote for Trump, and everyone knows it. His love for them, and the Left's contempt, is obvious and unmistakable.

Birkel said...

McCain was a terrible human being.
From the Keating 5 to the ridiculous Brennan plot to unseat a duly elected president, McCain was a dishonorable shut.

He cheated on his first wife.
He was crooked as a dog's hind leg.

His one redeeming act was he did not come home early when offered.
That was his duty.

I give zero fucks for McCain.

Gunner said...

I am sure it is just a coincidence that McCain's "war hero" status mysteriously went down around early 2008 and went up again in early 2009 among Democrats.

mikee said...

Prediction: The multiple sources will never appear in public. Never. And if they do, they'll be friends of Comey, Brennan, Hillary, Valerie.....

RMc said...

"Multiple anonymous sources"

A large number times zero is still zero.

Narayanan said...

New profile who dis? said...
I admit second place to no man in my detestation for John McCain, the senator. But come on people, refusing to bend under extreme torture is heroic.
------------==============
what was the bending that was demanded under torture? denounce the war?

McCain plenty denounced USA when not under torture! - change my mind.

Jim at said...

The reason the story resonates with so many Americans ...

The story only resonates with fifth-column leftists and snivelling NeverTrumpers. And it will only resonate until you come up with something even more stupid.

Jim at said...

Meanwhile, the Trump attack on America's military continues to be documented as he orders "Stars and Stripes" completely shut by the end of September.

Another lie. The Pentagon ordered it.
Trump reversed the order.

I sincerely hope your stupidity is physically painful.

daskol said...

If he said anything that remotely even remotely this comment, I bet it was a deadpan, dark joke in the vein of Patton's comment about the soldier's objective. You know, like he asked Russia to hack Hillary. It's not that the people propounding this stuff are stupid, but they think, with some justification, that enough of us are that it's worth the reputational hit.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"I am in Althouse's camp on this one- it could be that Trump isn't particularly overly obsequious to veterans, diabled or not, like a normal retail politician would be."

Could be AA liked getting GB by a bunch of N according to ST back in the day.

Anybody else remember those comments?

If anyone does, I'll pay you to let me know what really happened back then.

I recall AA writing "I hope he ["ST"] is okay" or something approximating that, back in the day years ago. Ergo it was all true, what he wrote about her.

Readering said...

when it comes to analyzing Trump our AA has her own derangement syndrome

Earnest Prole said...

Isn't Trump's willingness to say this kind of shit half his charm?

eric said...

Blogger Mike said...
I have four anonymous (non-existent) sources that Jeffery Goldberg does unspeakable things to 10-year old girls. These actions are so unspeakable that they can't speak about them.

See how this works, Jeff?

9/4/20, 1:13 PM


I spoke to my own anonymous sources, which are definitely not the same as your anonymous sources, and they confirm what you're saying

Matthew Heintz said...

Your son is as useless as Joe Biden.

Robert Cook said...

"People who were with him deny he ever said those things."

Well...of course they would!

I don't claim to know that he said those things, and perhaps he didn't, (but it certainly does not seem out of character for him), but denials by "people who were with him" are immediately suspect. They are with him because they have a vested interest in being with him and in covering up for his bad behavior.

Robert Cook said...

"We've gotten to the point now that the media can just brazenly lie without consequences."


If you condemn it in the media, why accept (or applaud) it in your president?

NYC JournoList said...

Jeffrey Goldberg took one for the team and spun his fiction; a bottle of whiskey at his side to inspire both sides of the conversation with the four sources. Tis worth one’s soul to defeat the Trump.

Drago said...

Robert Cook: "Well...of course they would!"

Interesting note: Robert Cook is a strong believer in the laughable, transparently fake, long ago debunked in every way possible "October Surprise" lie that was pushed by the democraticals in accusing Reagan of having conducted secret negotiations with the Ayatollah Khomenei to keep American hostages longer to improve Reagan's electoral chances against the political juggernaut that was Jimmy Carter in 1980!

LOL

Drago said...

Earnest Prole: "Isn't Trump's willingness to say this kind of shit half his charm?"

It's probably smart of EP to back away from the non-existent "anonymous sources" and go with the "pattern" argument made up of things the lefties pretend Trump has said.

In that way, EP shows how much brighter he is over the usual lefty dummies like r/v or readering.

Drago said...

Michael K: "gadfly is worried. The stories that no one else will print because they are not true. There has been a concerted effort to take over military publications like"Military Times" by the left."

Remember how many times I had to explain that to Inga the dolt?

It's not surprising that our Poor Man's LLR-lefty C**** gadfly is even slower on the uptake.

Guildofcannonballs said...

"...Trump isn't particularly overly obsequious to veterans, diabled or not, like a normal retail politician would be..."

Derp derp isn't derp like I define, my guy!, derp to derp be: derping only though beczus/.

We have to keep God and truth. You keep being entertained. I'm eating beef in case you're starving like you predicted might happen, wuss.

Birkel said...

Robert Cook,
I hope you get the neighborhood you deserve. I want the BLM rioters to give you what you want. I want you to be happy.

readering,
I hope you TDS is decreased by BLM reducing your worldly possession. Fire is purifying. Good luck.

Gk1 said...

"You spent all day mad, libs spent all day laughing at you."

So true Browndog. It's really not worth even thinking about because we have seen this for the last 4 years with anything having to do with trump. After a few frenzied news cycles we know how it ends with "Well you can't disprove it didn't happen" like Blasey Ford's "rape" by Kavanaugh.

So very tiresome and in the end self defeating, as it blows up in their faces for the 245,000 time. Zzzzzzz

Michael K said...

denials by "people who were with him" are immediately suspect.

So statements by people who say they were with him but refuse to identify themselves are credible?

If only Comrade Stalin knew about this !

The best evidence is Bolton's book. He would never have passed up a juicy bit like this.

Ken B said...

One can not much care about what a Trump said or did not say and still object to demonstrably false reporting. The two claims made at the top of the Atlantic article have both been disproven by navy documents. Also by Bolton's memoirs, and eyewitness testimony.

Drago said...

Earnest Prole: "If video emerged of Trump making the alleged statement, Trump apologists would turn on a dime to defend and even praise him."

Written by a Biden apologist who still believes the hoax dossier is real and that the russians colluded with Trump and even changed actual vote totals in our election systems.

Interesting: A solid majority of democraticals actually believe the russkis were able to alter actual vote counts and that explains Trump's win.

"67 percent of Democrats believe it is "definitely true" or "probably true" that "Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected." There is no evidence of Russia tampering with vote tallies.

Ken B said...

“ If you condemn it in the media, why accept (or applaud) it in your president?”

Can we never get past “if you like your plan ...”??

iowan2 said...

Overlay this DNC lie, with the DNC lies from April 2017. It is exactly the same "news" channels talking heads show. Talking heads interviewing each other about a "story" from annonymous sources...if true shows the true charecter of President Trump.

It is exactly the same script from the Russia hoax. The sources are never Trumpers, telling all lies. The DNC scribes, scribe away, never asking for corroborating sources, ignoring facts that call the "stories" accuracy into question.

Drago said...

If this had actually happened it would have been used during the sham-peachment that was the greatest moment in American history!!!!....until it was dropped and never again mentioned, not even during the democratical Zoom meeting "convention".

Josephbleau said...

"Well...of course they would!

I don't claim to know that he said those things, and perhaps he didn't, (but it certainly does not seem out of character for him), but denials by "people who were with him" are immediately suspect. They are with him because they have a vested interest in being with him and in covering up for his bad behavior."

And of course those who have a vested interest in defeating Trump have an equal vested interest in accusing him of bad behavior, so the intellectual content of this argument is zero.

Drago said...

Remember, all the lefties saying they can imagine Trump saying this also called George W Bush and Mitt Romney literal Hitlers.

So, you know, our lefties are quite the imaginative bunch indeed.

So this is the state of the lefty modern journalism: If they can imagine something in their twisted psyches, you are automatically guilty.

Robert Cook said...

"They learned their trade from Marxist professors at 'journalism' school."

You've obviously never been to journalism school.

iowan2 said...

I don't claim to know that he said those things, and perhaps he didn't, (but it certainly does not seem out of character for him),

You're going to have to give examples. I can't think of anytime President Trump has denigrate the military, or questioned the military's commitment. It also ignores all the President's policy actions he has undertaken in support of the Military.

Compare to Obama, who stripped $ from the military, and left the Nation vulnerable.

Rosalyn C. said...

Apparently your son has removed his comments. Or is blocking comments. Strange since you obviously were attempting to drive traffic his way. Perhaps he got too many objections?

How does he continue to maintain harsh and negative judgements on Trump's character, which he claims are based on evidence, which is proven to be false evidence and then maintain the certainty of his opinions?

Static Ping said...

To follow up on the zeroes that are anonymous sources, from past incidents having multiple anonymous sources is no better than having a single anonymous source. Sometimes it is one anonymous source, who may or may not have been there to witness the event, telling his or her story to three friends, who then just repeat what the original source told them. We even had fun moments where there is only one source, but he or she manages to convince multiple news sources to publish his or her "exclusive," at which point those various news sources verify each other, despite all of them coming from the same source, who may or may not have any idea of what they speak. Whether this latter phenomenon is because the reporters were duped or if they want to be duped is another story.

Given Biden's press conference today, it is obvious that this story was planted in coordination with the Biden campaign and swaths of the media have basically decided to refuse to do their jobs ever again. Our news media is corrupted to the core. I have known this for some time, but golly at least they used to be more competent about it. This is beyond parody.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Birkel did not mention McCain's little weenie, (insert troll's name). roast on the Forrestal, or the careless oit of zone flight that brought him down. Recall he crashed a Navy plane coming back from a sports event. Just another yuppie slug.

BUMBLE BEE said...

OUT not oit

rcocean said...

Just saw the press conference. OF COURSE, the "reporters" (actually DNC Operatives) asked almost nothing about CV-19, but asked 2 questions about McCain and the Goldberg Lie. Trump handled it extremely well. Press Corps just pushing the DNC agenda. What does this Atlantic magazine article or Trump's opinion of McCain have to do with Riots, Economy, CV-19, etc. in September 2020? Nothing. Just a coordinated hit job with the Biden campaign. Trump pointed that out.

weirdest question was some reporter asking about current U of Wash model showing 400 K dead by January. what was Trump supposed to say to that? Reporter kept stupidly acting like model was the voice of God and 100% accurate, when the U of W model has been getting CV-19 forecasts wrong since Feb 2020. At point, reporter was shouting at President, like it was a debate! Inane question designed to rebut Trump statement that we are "Rounding corner" on CV-19.

Finally figured out that Trump takes questions from these Bozos because it makes him look good.

Nichevo said...


bbkingfish said...
General Kelly "refused to comment" on the story of Trump's disrespect at his son's grave. How easy it would have been for him to get his old boss off the hook if the story weren't true.

Why would he do anything for the man who disagreed with him and fired him? Why would anyone expect him to do PDT a favor?


Kelly knew that people would interpret his "no comment" as "yeah, he said it." For public purposes, his "no comment" was as good as an affirmation, in my opinion.

This says more about Kelly than about the President, and more about you than about Kelly.




roesch/voltaire said...
Last year, a former four star general & colleague who worked directly for Trump said to me, “Donald Trump is the most loathsome individual I ever met.”


Fer shurr, fer shurr. Name him, you infamous whore.

Nichevo said...

Robert Cook said...
"We've gotten to the point now that the media can just brazenly lie without consequences."


If you condemn it in the media, why accept (or applaud) it in your president?

9/4/20, 4:57 PM

Frankly Cook it's more dangerous in the media.




As for McCain?

"He turned it down, because he would've been court-martialed, if he'd taken it."


It never would have come to a court-martial. His father the Admiral would have covered.

But what his father would first have done would be to show his son to a room with a table, place before him a quart of his favorite scotch and a revolver with one bullet, and leave.

If his son did the right thing he would be buried with all military honors after a tragic accident cleaning his gun. If not he would never be seen or spoken to again by The Admiral, or anyone in his family, or anyone in the Navy, or anyone who they knew.

He would have had to go out into the world and find new friends like John Kerry. I doubt he would have become a senator on the strength of such a record.

Much better for him to continue to endure captivity than to face that fate.

historyDoc said...

Of all the people who love and miss Obama, Jeffrey Goldberg may be at the front of the line. He misses peddling all the influence he had, and is desperate to get it back. His willingness to sell Israel down the river for Obama still bothers me like an open sore.

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