He courted the show’s young male audience by floating the idea of eliminating the income tax, talking about mixed martial arts fighters, praising the military skills of Gen. Robert E. Lee and speculating that there was “no reason not to think” there could be life on Mars and other planets....
Why not say he "courted" the old women (like me) by talking about the length of the bed in the Lincoln bedroom and how badly depressed Mary Todd Lincoln was after her son Tad died?
Mr. Rogan seemed to back Mr. Trump’s questioning of election processes, at one point likening those who raised concerns over elections to those who questioned coronavirus vaccines.
“You get labeled an election denier,” Mr. Rogan said. “It’s like being labeled an anti-vaxxer if you question some of the health consequences that people have from the Covid-19 shots.”...
What I thought was so interesting was the first topic: how Trump felt when he found himself suddenly President. If that's not a topic for women, I don't know what is, especially when Trump centered the description on his interest in seeing the Lincoln bedroom and imagining the feelings of Abe and Mary. I loved Trump's (seeming) openness, as he repeatedly described his subjective experience as "surreal."
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Watching. Interesting to listen to Trump in the context of the rats fleeing the bad ship Kamala. I suppose when you need to turn on a dime from ‘Will Trump accept the results of the election?’ to not accepting the results of the election, you must believe you need to shift early, long before the results are in…
Debunked never happened. Vote fraud is real Democrats made it their top priority
What I thought was so interesting was the first topic: how Trump felt when he found himself suddenly President. If that's not a topic for women, I don't know what is
Interesting…Trump’s a feminine guy, ya?
I'm watching it. I think most people who watch for themselves will key in on how The View hosts flip flopped about Trump. The segment comes up early and builds a foundation for Trump's assertions about unfair mainstream / establishment treatment. Recall that Madonna wanted to burn down the White House, Kathy Griffin made a fake bloody Trump head, and NYC play actors "killed" in a play...then real assassination attempts... Trump mentions the number of Presidents killed in office...the world's most dangerous job...
Regarding The View, he said Whoopi Goldberg and Barbara Walters "loved" him in 2015 when he first ran for president. "Then the machine took over" and changed the message because Trump threatened the establishment.
A 2018 story about his visits to The View:
https://abcnews.go.com/theview/video/donald-trumps-appearances-view-53201876
Most assassination efforts against US Presidents targeted Republicans, with JFK a notable exception (insert Deep State theories as desired):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots
"Interesting…Trump’s a feminine guy, ya?"
I've talked about Trump's feminine side a few times on this blog. There's something womanly about him. Some of the aversion to him is based on the dissonance people feel (as exhibited in the fuss over his hair, which predates his political phase).
The aversion is homophobic/misogynistic, by the way.
Yeah, and Trump was really serious in his imagined choces when sharks and boats with electric motors came together. Talking for three hours is crazy in and of itself, Ann.
And then there was infamous town hall north of Philly where he said: "You know, people talk about Hannibal Lecter like he’s real...but he's not!" Trump rambled, leaving many attendees scratching their heads. The mention of Lecter was entirely out of place as Trump transitioned from there to reading answers to approved questions from has teleprompter to taking shots at political opponents.
One rally-goer remarked, "It was strange—he kept talking like January 5th was election day. I hope people don’t actually get mixed up by that."
As the rally wound down, Trump’s confusion seemed to deepen when he acted uncertain about ending the event. After someone suggested it was time to conclude and play a walk-off song, Trump appeared to hesitate before standing frozen in place on stage. Supporters began filing out of the venue, but Trump swaying silently as music played for over 30 minutes. It appears that Trump's doctor needs to increase his daily Rexulti dosage.
This is the last election where the corporate media plays a significant role.
More people believing a lie doesn't make it the truth.
I don't know if it is feminine, but some people just have the gift of gab.
When you finish the Rogan interview, go find and listen to the interviews he did with Theo Vonn and Sean Ryan. He’s not the same brash Trump that the media makes him out to be, he’s far more feeling, reflective, and insightful, whether you agree with him or want to vote for him or not.
‘fly on his home turd… er, turf…
Rogan called it at 28:29 when saying
“they're going to take what you said about Robert E Lee oh Donald Trump Wishes the South won”
I’ve watched the first hour or so, and it’s been just an interesting conversation, and it’s a conversation that goes both ways. Trump was interested in finding out about Rogan. That story about landing a blacked out Airforce One in Iraq was one I’d never heard before, for instance. Well worth a watch.
Trump/Rogan interview is worth watching. I watched the first hour last night. I was surprised by what Trump had to say. He spoke at length about political and economic history, and the merits of tariffs versus income taxes, as well as the history of assassination of presidents. I’d sort of bought into the left’s insistent claim that Trump wasn’t well read. That’s BS. I’ll watch (or rather listen) to the rest of the interview over the next couple of days. This interview might reach 80 to 100 million people.
I appreciate that he is a student of American history. When he drops these nuggets and reflections into a conversation, you can tell he has read a wide range of books on the subject. It’d be good for both he and Vance to lightly weave our history into their speeches and answers whenever it fits the topic.
He is the wrong person to ask if he will accept the results of the election. What are the pussy hat wearers going to do this time?
I'm now twenty minutes into the podcast. Apparently acknowledging an historic fact, that Lee was an excellent general, is now "praising" his military skills. The South did have excellent military leaders. The North won because of it had far superior manufacturing and transportation infrastructure.
The aversion is homophobic/misogynistic
She claimed, without evidence.
In my opinion, [t]he aversion is homophobic/misogynistic [...]
She declared.
Projection is a hell of a drug, Rich.
Prof, I think part of Trump’s feminine side comes from the Manhattan finance thing of behaving in a very self assured macho way while simultaneously being very fastidious about one’s appearance, home, possessions, etc., which is usually associated with femininity. And of course as a sales guy being able to show empathy and interest in others’ stories, which is also seen as feminine. If you see the dissonance as insincere, it’s definitely offputting. But even if you like him, i can see how it could be weird for people who are not used to this sort of people.
Something similar happens with military men: simultaneously assertive and dominant, but also almost maternally caring about subordinates and obsessive about neatness, cleanliness, exact arrangements of things, etc. one online military cartoon had a recurring series of “It’s Already Gay” cartoons when Obama was trying to repeal DADT.
JSM
Don't forget Lincoln's secret weapon: General McClellan. Without him, the south may have thought the north was, you know, competent and been more cautious in their choices of battles.
Yah, I would need that claim explained. I would agree Trump displays certain feminine qualities and perhaps the contradiction of masculine/feminine is confusing to some, but how that equates to misogyny/homophobia is not apparent to me..
Now you're just jacking off.
I think most everyone, both men and women, are combinations of both “masculine” and “feminine” traits. In fact, I don’t know which traits are “masculine” or “feminine.” Is being artistic or literary feminine? Most famous artists and writers were men. Is athleticism masculine? The Olympics would suggest otherwise. How about extroversion?
But I really don’t care if our president is masculine or feminine, articulate or inarticulate, or anything like that. I’m more concerned if he or she will lead us towards peace and prosperity, or towards war and economic ruin.
DJT went to a military academy as a teenager. No doubt in his history classes he learned about the brilliance of Robert E Lee. During his presidency, Eisenhower had Lee's portrait prominently hung in the Oval Office.
Trump is well read in economics, political history and all the issues. The left’s portrayal of him as an illiterate yahoo gets busted by the Rogan interview.
"He courted the show’s young male audience"
I'm watching while writing this and I feel almost sixty again. I'll be feeling about 57 by the time I'm done, and that's not a bad thing. Both Rogan and Trump are older and wiser people than the ones we saw four years ago. Change is good.
How's that Russian Collusion working out for you??
Which means of course that Eisenhower must have wanted to re-enslave all the blacks. That's why he mobilized the Arkansas NG and sent them to Little Rock. I know, its confusing, but trust me on this.
Trump is so different one-on-one. He comes off much better than he does when giving a formal speech. The shouting tone of voice in a speech is very off-putting.
Harris is the opposite. One-on-one she's very cringey, but she is quite good in giving prepared speeches.
Nazi generals far outshone their American counterparts.. We overwhelmed the Wehrmacht with our industrial might.
Jeez. Just as I'm reading about real-time fraud going on right now in Pennsylvania- in multiple locations, the NYT is out there talking about the 'debunked' claims from the last election.
Nothing was debunked. And you don't get to just say it's a done topic by you declaring it 'debunked'. It was simply not investigated.
I'll be listening to Joe Rogan's podcast this morning. I'm not a young male voter. I'm an older guy. And I already voted. Nothing any of them have to say can change that. Not even Bruce Springsteen. Hilarious.
How much cussing is in the episode? I rarely listen to Rogan clips because usually there's an f bomb or three and I really dislike that word. But I loved the Theo Von podcast and was surprised there wasn't any cussing. Enjoyed the JD Vance episode with Von too because they kept it mostly clean as well.
It's entirely possible that for three hours nothing worthwhile happened and it's all a stupid distraction for pretty much everyone.
…probable, possible, c’est the meme chose…
I respectfully disagree. Trump's not gay, and he's not a woman. The people who hate him don't hate him as a person. They hate him as a symbol. The people who feel this hatred don't realize how much they've been manipulated by the media. As soon as he's out of office, the hatred will dissipate into nothingness.
At some point in the future liberals will talk about the good things Trump did, and how bad J.D. Vance or Ron DeSantis is in comparison. "You want to outlaw abortion! That's awful! Pro-lifers are Nazis. Why can't you be respectful of democracy like Donald Trump?"
See "Dick Cheney, former Nazi, now rehabilitated."
Trump calls this hatred part of the game and I don't think he holds any grudges about it.
Anyway, it's not misogyny or homophobia. It's anti-Republican partisan horseshit, manufactured by Pravda media. I've heard it all my life.
There is an old saying, amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics.
The interview is so weird. Joe asks questions and Trump just answers the questions. He just straight up answers the questions without hesitation. Such a contrast from Harris.
If Clinton was the first Black President, Trump was first female President.
What john mosby said. Also I think Trump is a typical NYC trash talker, which is off-putting out in the rest of the country but only skin deep, not serious. Like fire back in kind and get over it.
You mean he didn't admit he was Hitler?!
I know you're being somewhat sarcastic but Eisenhower first nationalized the Arkansas NG and confined them to their barracks, then sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock ... which really messes with the whole "only a dictator would order Federal troops to enforce the law" argument.
@John Mosby, see Denzel Washington's portrayal of McCall in the Equalizer movies. Fiction, sure, but there may be some basis in fact.
Liberals are extremely poor judges of character and easily bamboozled by the professional liars.
How, then, is it that people who declare themselves free from homophobia and misogyny are the ones who hate him so? That's not their motivation, as I see it. It's based on (1) he took the Precious from Hillary, and (2) reflexive hatred of anyone who's a Republican.
My college-age girls and I listened to the Theo Von interview and absolutely loved it. He comes across as very kind and interested in Theo, and reflective about his brother’s alcoholism. It’s a very good interview for both of them.
I don't see any feminine side, and no gender confusion at all. It's women that see the feminine side via projection, I'd buy that. Just another reason they're no good in elections. It ties in with "he seems to mean well."
The aversion is tribal. Laptop Republicans(white collar) never really get on with builders(blue collar/working class).
Trump is symbolic of the working man takeover of the Republican party. The snooty snoots hate him for it.
To the extent Trump is "feminine" reflects his natural empathy. He clearly engages and listens to those around him and is a naturally trusting person.
Rogan is tedious so I won't even try it. The Don Imus interview would be the standard for good stuff. Everything in ten minutes.
I know you are trolling with this.
It is class/tribal not whatever you said. The White collar Republicans are bitter the Blue Collar Republicans took the party from them.
Yes and it’s been a week or so of cascading vote rigging news from the USPS van in MN full of completed ballots helpfully secured with red or blue zip ties left open and unattended, the stolen ballots in CO that were oops “already counted” to the 7 million “excess” ballots in CA mailed out to Democrats and the “widespread ballot fraud” in PA which I have been reliably informed doesn’t happen. But don’t leave out the DOJ threatening AZ and actually suing VA to force the states to allow illegal immigrants to vote. I’m sure this brief roundup is missing some active but still super fucking rare ballot shenanigans but I am simply here to second and amplify Temujin’s point.
They are playing a significant role this election?
Always important to remember just how dumb these people are.
People have original source material gadfly. Your media lies and stupidity just mark you out as someone who justifies their hate and evil motivations with Regime lies and propaganda.
Althouse has to do the feminist bit in all things. This has become an annoying reality in dealing with most women. My late wife, a Filipina, refused to buy into this bullshit, but I meet very few women who don’t trot out this crap.
Trump is at least 4 standard deviations to the right on IQ. He does things differently than others who don't understand him and his detractors fall to confirmation bias and tend to be myopic.
Trump is smarter than anyone who supported Ron Desantis.
The biggest contrast to Harris, especially evident in long-form interviews like this, is that Trump speaks with an enormous amount of detail and confidence. Two elements that are starkly absent from Harris’s verbal diarrhea.
Ah but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.
If Harris had refused another debate and went on this podcast, would you also focus on her "interesting" stories about the first few days as VP?
Althouse usually responds fairly and accurately to political speeches and interviews. Six months ago, she was expressing her hope that Trump would drop out of the race and quit politics.
Not even one in ten-thousand honest listeners would have that reaction. It’s impossible to see either Biden or Harris able to sustain even 30 unedited consecutive minutes of such conversation. Trump is amazingly open and honest about his thoughts and feelings. Granted I am just now watching it after listening to most of it last night. But if I see even a whiff of Biden like “confusion” I’ll return to this spot to apologize to Gadfly. Keep in mind this is THREE HOURS compared to our current Chief Executive who cannot handle a 3-minute press conference.
Just listened to the first 45 minutes of this podcast. What strikes me is that no other politician could do it like Trump does it. He is a one-off type of persona. He is constantly in a free-form mode. He often doesn't even finish off a sentence, knowing that you'll finish it off in your own mind, while he's quickly moving on to his next thought.
But...he is fully engaged. No bullshit. No pre-set sentences or entire paragraphs to repeat. I cannot imagine Kamala making it through 15 minutes of this before her staff would have to wildly wave her off and wave off the rest of the interview.
The gap between the competent Trump and the completely in over her head Harris could not be greater.
One other thing hit me from this first hour. In his first term, Trump knew nothing and no one. He had zero connections in political Washington DC. Sure- he knew faces and names, but he didn't know how it worked, who was capable, who would be loyal, who would be competent. And he had to build a cabinet and deep team without that knowledge. And frankly- even with all this, and a never ending barrage of attacks, impeachment processes, and press harassment, he accomplished a ton in his first term.
When he wins this election, this time he'll be going into Washington DC with the knowledge of how it works, and who should be on his team. This will be a far more impactful term. One for the ages. I look forward to it.
I loved Trump's (seeming) openness, as he repeatedly described his subjective experience as "surreal."
Watch out Ann... you might become a Trumper yet. Trump is real.. what you see is him. Kamala.. well all we see is word salads or worse... fake stuff.
And don't hide your American flag.. fly it cause you are proud of your country, warts and all.
Steve Sailer suggests Trump was heavily influenced by another notable NY trash talker, George Steinbrenner.
It's got to be a parody account mocking bich, right?
The onstage character is one he sheds as soon as he leaves the stage. Twelve years with a top ten network TV show was excellent prep for his stage persona.
I don't follow Rogan, but I pop in for podcasts from time to time, if it's an interesting guest. This is the most focused I've seen him in a while - often he looks like he's just toked a blunt down (one of the reasons I don't follow him). But he was sharp and focused for this interview, and even had on a decent shirt !
Not a bad showing for both, I think. Trump's stream-of-consciousness style of speaking is off-putting for me, he jumps all over and uses hyperbolic, inarticulate characterizations ('those people - they're horrible, the worst !') to an extreme degree - but then, this has been an effective way for him to relate to the blue collar class, it's one of his tactics. I thought he acquitted himself well with Rogan, and Rogan came across as quite eager for the conversation. I think he's a bigger fan than he lets on.......
Harris refused the Fox debate. Once her polls dropped following the DNC (no bump at all) she reversed course.
It continues to make me kinda sad. Seeing how sharp a 70+ guy is who never drank. That sadly makes me wonder what I’ve done to my head. ;)
Does that mean an aversion to masculine women is homophobic/misandrist?
Omar Bradley said that.
"Debunked claims" - no they were NEVER "debunked". The MSM and Establishment Pols just started screeching "There was no election fraud" 2 days after the election and refused to support an audit or do any objective investigation.
The NYT/WaPo/MSM love to "lie by adjective". Who cares that they refused to endorse Kamala, when they lie and write anti-Trump propaganda in every article.
Dude!
I've looking forward to this, even though I'm not a Rogan fan. And will now listen.
"The people who feel this hatred don't realize how much they've been manipulated by the media."
I believe this. I watched it happen after he won.
Re: Robt E. Lee
If you use a football analogy, Lee was the Head Coach. Longstreet was the exceptional Defensive Coordinator and Stonewall Jackson was the brilliant Offensive Coordinator.
Lee's genius was letting his two coordinators do their job. He screwed up Gettysburg because Stonewall was dead and he refused to listen to Longstreet.
Ron’s point. The Civil War was won by Grant, and the western theater in WW II by Eisenhower. Who had the better tactical generals really didn’t matter. Sure, the South started off with the cream of the country’s Officer corps. But in the end, it didn’t matter, when Grant ground up their armies and won by attrition. Earlier in the war, Union generals would let Confederate generals disengage and regroup after battles. Grant didn’t. And the Germans, despite killing millions of horses, had no answer to the Cannonball Express.
Brilliant analogy and absolutely correct.
Smells like Preen Spirit to me.
Imagine fake Kamala - she would repeat her memorized and regurgitated her mob-puppet controlled answers. and it would be horrific. No wonder she canceled.
My view is maybe the opposite - Lee screwed up Gettysburg by fighting it.
If Kamala wins - it will be by cheating and fraud.
Remember how we used to vote? - Local precinct - ID in hand.... One vote per person.
Yeah - Chi Com covid virus helped democrats end that.
btw- experts are now saying signature verification has no way to ultimately verify.
I am about halfway through now. I had it on in the background while eating breakfast and doing a bit of painting, and it's more enjoyable that way -- half listening, and half focusing on what I'm doing. There's a lot where I think "Mm, that sounds unlikely," but Trump acknowledges right in the conversation that he exaggerates for effect.
He sounds older than I am used to, but I guess it's probably been eight years since I listened to anything longer than a five minute clip of Trump talking/speechifying. The way he is able to circle back to answer questions after a five minute digression (mildly frustrating though I find many of these digressions) actually leaves me more comfortable that his mental acuity is still fine, though I can also understand how, if you don't wait long enough for him to return to the point, it can also sound like senile rambling. But with my elderly relatives, who weren't quite there at the end, they weren't able to close the loop in a conversation like that -- they'd just ramble and repeat the same anecdotes a couple minutes apart -- so he seems like he's all still there. Just really likes to talk.
Bravo to this post... Think how good this country's situation could have been with just -normal- media / politics / discourse. So far 12 million YouTube views, and counting, since around midnight CT (but nothing to see here).
Michael writes, “Nazi generals far outshone their American counterparts.. We overwhelmed the Wehrmacht with our industrial might.”
I think that is a not entirely justified assessment. As has been noted, amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics, an observation attributed to Omar Bradley, and many others, including Napoleon (“An army travels on its stomach.”) Marshal Ferdinand Foch (“Behind every great leader there was an even greater logistician.”) and Sun Tzu (“The line between disorder and order lies in logistics…”)
At the tactical level, the Wehrmacht did perform well, but not significantly beyond the expectations of Clauswitzian theory — an army fighting on the tactical defensive with interior lines of communications and a unified command structure. In logistical terms, the Wehrmacht could hardly have been worse — an army equipped with a bewildering variety of munitions and transport brought on by a dependency on captured material and an unquenchable hunger for supremacy when good enough could suffice, tanks too massive to cross the bridges in one’s line of march and too poorly engineered to be efficiently serviced in the field. (To swap out the transmission of most German tanks required a crane to lift the turret off the tank as step one in a daunting long process that often took a week to complete. The same task for M4 Medium could be done with hand tools and a improvised block and tackle.) Horse-drawn artillery... Logistics is the business of generals or should be. Given the American success in that aspect of war, the Nazi generals were the ones far out-shown. Yes, American private industry built the weapons, but the American military defined the requirements, tested and approved the designs, and coordinated every detail of transporting, stockpiling, and delivering weapons, fuel, munitions, food, and ten thousand other necessities across oceans and continents. American soldiers seldom had to do without, whereas doing without was so pervasive in the German army, that when newly captured German soldiers were served their first meal as POWs, sumptuous by Wehrmacht stands of cuisine, they believed they were being exploited for propaganda purposes.
There were some poor American generals, Lloyd Fredendall, the man usually blamed for the Kasserine Pass debacle, was certainly one of them. Mark Clark, the unimaginative commander in the the Italian campaign, is another but for different reasons. Fredendall was another George B. McCelland, a skilled practitioner of the art of molding raw recruits into the appearance of soldiers, but otherwise incompetent at managing a battle once it had begun. Clark was not incompetent. He did reasonably well given the German defensive strategy in southern Italy. However, he made a mess of Operation Diadem by diverting the main effort toward the capture of Rome rather than the pursuit of the retreating German army.
TRUMP: “Tonight, the Middle East is a tinderbox. It's ready to explode. People are being killed... Nobody is in charge. Joe Biden is asleep, and Kamala is at a dance party with Beyonce.”
what did you say, Gadfly?
Very nice conversational interview but I don’t know that we learned a whole lot about policy that we didn’t already know. I don’t think Trump won Rogan over per se; Rogan may or may not be voting for him anyway but I do think there was a bit of a bond established, both ways. They each have the ability to pull whomever they are speaking to into their own orbits when they are in more intimate settings. My own takeaway is that Trump is as human as the rest of us once you burrow past the showman bluster and hyperbole. And I really believe Trump admires Rogan and get a sense the feeling is mutual.
Plenty of soundclips for the left to exploit, which they will, which will in turn draw some curious folks to the entire episode and further erode the marginal credibility that remains with the media.
I think Kamala would do fine with Joe. He didn’t really push back against anything Trump may have “expanded” the truth about and I kind of think he did that to signal that Kamala would be treated the same way.
Russian Collusion. Hunters laptop. Carrol Rape Fantasies. "Fine People." J6 protesters killing capitol police.
Rich has based everything on known lies. They are just dishonest evil people.
Yeah, cause nothing attracts today's young men like discussions of Lee's leadership.
Re: Harris not going on Rogan, that was obviously the right choice and listening to him now, I can't imagine anyone seriously considering putting her on a three hour podcast. I don't think she has three hours worth of talking points to return to.
My impression is that she could be an interesting conversationalist. I think deep down, she's a fairly normal person who's very invested emotionally in avoiding failure, but actually has no interest whatsoever in being an Attorney General, Senator, Vice President, or President. With her actual friends, she's probably fine. It's just that because she doesn't want to fail, she doesn't want to speak frankly about anything so she locks up and starts stringing talking points together into gibberish.
Once she retires and that pressure is gone, I think she would be a good guest to have on. Although I suppose she might still be hyper anxious about her image, since she's an upper middle class Californian, and women of that class (like my schoolmates' parents) tend to be very concerned about appearances. But if she felt she could truly relax . . .
If she becomes our next President, though, I think she might have a nervous breakdown.
"If she becomes our next President, though, I think she might have a nervous breakdown."
I've had that thought. Not to worry, though, Tim Walz is standing in the wings.
The masculine term for the feminine term ‘feelings’ is ‘instinct’. While women say they have a feeling about a person, men say they are following their instincts or they say they knew it in their gut. 2 sides of the very same coin. T
Over 11 million people have already watched/listened to the podcast on YouTube. 1.6 million have viewed the Stern/Harris interview which happened two weeks ago.
The comments on both videos are revealing. 285,000, 99.9% positive, comments on Rogan. 8,900, quite a few negative, comments on the Stern interview.
I was surprised by how many of the Rogan commenters identified as other than American. This particular comment caught my eye, "This is the most positive comment section I’ve ever seen in politics."
I wonder how many of the commenters are bots?
My time in NYC was as a contract employee @ NYT. While standing in line at a donut/breakfast place in Queens, one of the servers was on the nut about seeing her ex with a new, young, "tightass" hottie. She threw so many Fbombs and Mother****er, and worse combos that I was getting embarrassed for the customers lined up there. They were nonplussed. The ranter could have just as well been reciting the rosary. When in Rome.
That's where I picked up on Dagen MacDowell. I loved the show.
I can't recall who made the comment on C-Span recently; an anecdote about Bedell Smith interviewing Rundstedt about 1944-45, where Smith fed the field marshal numerous opportunities to say something favorable about Allied soldiers but Rundstedt only wanted to talk about material superiority.
Asked about it latter, Smith said that he didn't work up the heart to tell Rundstedt, "Yes, that's how we planned it."
The Wehrmacht may have had better forces unit for unit throughout the war (it is not apparent to me that they did, or that the edge was as great by the end as it might have been at the beginning) but modern wars are wars of systems, and the German system failed catastrophically as the US system integrated all the elements of national power to pursue clear goals.
This is a good opportunity to plug one of my favorite authors, Geoffrey Perret. His books on the US army and air forces in WWII (There's A War to be Won, and Winged Victory respectively) are good antidotes to Wehraboo and other mythologies.
Tim Walz is standing in the wings. That's to worry about.
Mary Lincoln never identified herself as "Mary Todd Lincoln." Her sister made it her life's work to have her rebranded as Mary Todd Lincoln, and succeeded.
The South actually didn't get the cream of the professional officer corps, Lee notwithstanding.
Harris was offered the opportunity for another debate on FoxNews and turned it down when she was riding high in the polls. She was offered the opportunity to do an interview with Joe Rogan and has, so far, not taken up the offer. In any case, your implied libel against Althouse is laughable as pretty much all of Althouse's readers would recognize.
As to Robert E. Lee, he was certainly a great general of the Modern Era, a master of 19th-century maneuver warfare, a student of Napoleon who might have been able best le petit caporal on a good day with the wind at his back and a brigade of cuirassiers in reserve. However, as an exemplar to American generals in WWII, he was probably out of place. Regarding an offensive war against well-trained and well-equipped enemies located across oceans, Lee’s management of the Army of Northern Virginia seems an irrelevancy. Lee was not ignorant of logistics, professionally he was an officers of engineers, but of the two major components of logistics, materials and delivery, the South had little to non-existent. Logistics was indispensable to victory over the Axis, but of necessity of minor importance to Bobby Lee.
Like the nascent United States of America in 1776, the Confederate States of America in 1861 was doomed without the intervention of a Great Power. In the War of Independence the United States won that Great Power support by inflicting a strategic defect on the enemy at Saratoga. Lee hoped to gain a similar advantage for the South by going on the offensive in Pennsylvania, but he failed by becoming pointless embroiled at Gettysburg. There is much to be said for personal knowledge of a battlefield. Wellington spent two days riding over the fields and tracks of Waterloo in 1814, and Erich von Manstein toured the Ardennes in 1936. Both excursions proved decisive when ideas became warfare. However, there’s no record of Lee having visited Gettysburg before 1863. His staff had been unable to acquire sufficiently detailed maps, and Lee’s usually reliable field reconnaissance service failed him utterly. Lee hadn’t a clear appreciation of the ground. He should have disengaged from Meade and found a position where Meade would have been compelled to attack rather than defend, but the temptation to finish the war there and then was too great for Lee’s usually sound military wisdom to prevail.
There is only one way to verify an absentee ballot- present a photo ID when you pick up and when you turn it in.
I am.
Personnel is policy. Pompeo to State or CIA. Vivek to Treasury or State. Borgum to Energy. RFK to FDA. Not sure about AG.
Yes, the role is to beclown themselves.
@Democratc Paychecks, Gadfly wishes you to know that neither Harris nor a Beyoncé did any dancing.
Mediaswine like those at NYT have been deliberately prepping the country for more fraudulent elections since 2020. They can no more prove that the 2020 election was "free and fair" than Trump can prove it wasn't. It is an article of faith that our elections are free of fraud and it flies in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary.
Not terribly deep but a great conversation. Trump's earlier podcast appearances shortly after the ear shot he was repetitive and exhausted. With Joe, he looked and sounded sharp.
No way in hell is Kamala Harris is going on the Joe Rogan podcast.
The election is all but over
"The South actually didn't get the cream of the professional officer corps, Lee notwithstanding."
Disagree. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, AP Hill, Hood, Joe Johnston, AS johnston, beauregard, hardee, DH Hill, Bragg, et al. The North had more above average Generals. So, the Confederates after losing Generals to death or disabled through wounds/illness got ground down. The Confederate Generalship of 1864 werent the Confederates of 1862.
The north meanwhile could go through McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, Pope, McDowell, Buell, etc. And promote winners like Grant, Sherman, Thomas, and Sheridan. 2/3 of west point grads fought for the North.
There are several F-bombs. None from DJT, yet, though.
I thought that in 2016. Alas, until the Boomers are dead, Old Media will still be able whip up heapin’ helpings of hysteria among large swathes of the population.
Indeed. My favorite part, so far, was his revelation that he HAD to select long time political cronies for positions, because only they could operate in that environment, and survive. He must do much better, this time around.
LOL! I am enjoying a refreshing cocktail as I read this!
Yancey, I used to a Voting Assistance Officer. At one time, many of the states required the absentee ballot to be certified by a commissioned officer in the unit, or a notary public. Perhaps those are also acceptable alternatives.
@ Christopher B
Steinbrenner was also known for the line, “You’re fired!”
"They can no more prove that the 2020 election was "free and fair" than Trump can prove it wasn't."
When one side fights tooth and nail every effort at an audit, you can be sure they have a good reason why.
Incoming CEO's don't generally fire everyone and re-staff. They bring in one or two trusted people and sit back for a few weeks and try to figure out who's working and who's not and who's going to be stumbling block going forward before they start axing people. I think this is how Trump thought he could handle his first term, he didn't realize DC was full of fiefdoms and that they'd actively work against him. I've always believed that what the "dictator for one day" statment was about; he'll go Andy Jackson on every agency he can on day one.
@Narr, actually, the South did get the cream of the pre-Civil War officers. Lee was the most respected officer in the entire army. Joe Johnston got crossways with Jefferson Davis early in the war and Davis spent most of the rest of the war trying to sideline him. Albert Sidney Johnston was very highly regarded in the pre-Civil War American army, but he died at Shiloh. Stonewall Jackson was a tactical genius, but he was accidentally killed by his own troops at Chacellorsville. Barnard Bee had accumulated a good record fighting on the Frontier between the Mexican War and the start of the Civil War, but he was killed at First Manassas, The North never did find cavalry commanders to match Stuart and Forrest.
The biggest blunder Lee and David made was keeping the best generals in the Eastern Theater. Consequently generals like Sherman and Grant were able to learn how to command armies against second tier generals like Pemberton, Polk, and Bragg.
The Lee/Jackson fireworks were about dramatic marches that put the CSA in positions to flank or separate bodies of Union troops allowing small scale superiority. But all the Union had to do was run away. Fredricksburg and Chickamauga stopped that shit.
Grant and Sherman learned to pin the fortified line in place under threat of assault and then use your numerical superiority to go around and attack the flank and rear, making the csa run away. After they did this for a long time there was no where left to run away to, and nothing to eat either.
In the end Hood went nuts and started charging defenses again and killed his men at Franklin and Nashville. And Lee finally lost the last railroad into Petersberg.
The lesson was that Americans cant beat intrenched Americans, but after the battle the intrenched Americans are too tired to chase the attackers, so they can run away.
The Dems are repeatedly bumfuzzled by the patriotism displayed by normal Americans. It’s amusing and yet regrettable. They don’t know the joy they are missing.
Philip Holloway for AGOTUS !
Ah… ah I say, son, you shouldn’t disregard General Foghorn Beauregard Leghorn, master strategist.
I made it through the first 70 minutes. The digressions annoy me but that probably because I am on the impatient side when it comes to interviews. I hope Vance does Rogan- that one I would watch all three hours.
"The aversion is homophobic/misogynistic"
"She claimed, without evidence."
I think that there's plenty of evidence. Just look at how SNL recently kept joking that his music choices were gay anthems or how Bill Mahar keeps showing that clip of Trump dancing and pumping his fists up and down and Bill thinks that it's so funny to keep saying that Trump is jerking off two guys.
"Talking for three hours is crazy in and of itself, Ann."
I guess that someone has never gone to the theater to see a one person show. Don't forget that politics is one half theater.
Harmeet Doillon was on Tucker's podcast this week. She apparently had some work related contact with Harris back when Harris was SF DA and says that the Kamala she sees on TV now is not the Kamala she knew back then. They speculate that it's a substance abuse issue. I wonder if she's just so radical that they (the Party) have told her to be tone it down and sound centrist, but after being raised where she was by radical parents she (unlike Obama) just can't manage to and still have something to talk about.
Me, too
Trump never wearied, never stumbled, never exhibited any sign of the behavior Gadfly imagines in his fever dreams above. It's obvious he watched none of the events he mentions. Instead he regurgitates the same tired lies the View and Morning Joe. I've never understood the deference Leftists give to those they perceive as their thought leaders, especially in this era when the original materials are so easy to obtain and see for oneself.
Watching the JRE for three hours would do a lot to undo Gadfly 'a preprogrammed prejudices but it would shatter the Trump mythology he is so invested in.
I agree with Achilles. The femine feeling about Trump comes from the fact that he listens and actually responds to what the other person is saying.
A counter is Bill Clinton's "I feel your pain" - no, you didn't, Bill.
I feel like talking with friends about things you agree on is one of the lowest bars possible for being a functioning adult, Balphegor. But it's not sufficient to merely be interesting. Kamala has major pre-existing problems to deal with:
1) A variety of difficulties between the policy preferences of the minority working class which provides many Democrat votes, versus the preferences of the super elite which donate money to her.
2) An economy mostly arranged for the benefit of said super elite, exacerbating class and racial tensions
3) An incredibly motivated opposition increasingly welcoming of the voters the regime is failing to serve.
President Trump actually had a similar but far less extensive crisis: neocons and elite oligarchs back wars in the Ukraine and the Middle East. But his populist base is increasingly disenchanted by war. He responded by mostly ignoring the neocon impulse as President. This made his SecDef resign and likely permanently set the Jewish vote for Democrats at 70+%. But he has an advantage which will likely carry him into office. Conversation is nice, but hardly sufficient.
If you want a different take on the interview visit Drudge.
Clyde - Sailer mentioned that. The whole article is kind of an argument that the Apprentice movie is 100% wrong.
Not to mention Jubilation T. Cornpone
I think "the South got the cream" argument is one of those things that everybody knows, but may not be true.
It would take a comprehensive study to prove or refute the assertion, and I'm not aware of any such study. It's mostly vibes.
Take the list Big Mike offers: Lee most respected, OK. Joe Johnston couldn't get along with anyone (not just Davis, see his correspondence with Pemberton) and wasn't that great on a battlefield; A S Johnston might have been highly regarded before the war, but then he let Beauregard plan the Shiloh deployment, which was uniquely bad, and got himself killed without making much of a mark.
Lee was the only Confederate general that I consider top quality as an army commander, the only one to beat larger forces and capture sizable enemy
units with any consistency.
The western Confed armies never exhibited the sort of superiority over their opponents that the ANV did, which in itself calls the notion of overall better Confederate leadership into question, IMHO.
Jackson and Longstreet were both very good when kept on a tight leash. The latter completely flubbed his responsibilities outside Chattanooga after Chickamauga, and made an attack at Knoxville that rivals "Pickett's" Charge for bullheadedness.
As for Forrest, I agree with Foote (which is more rare, the more I read) that he was one of two authentic geniuses thrown up by the ACWABAWS, but he was not a West Pointer.
Ever met a salesman or entertainer who didn't? And at the same time have facts at his fingertips?
Bruce,
That was Longstreet's advice. He wanted the Rebs to leave Gettysburg and be chased by the Federals. Longstreet wanted to fight a defensive battle like Fredericksburg.
Grant won the war in the West. When he came East he understood that the path to victory was holding onto the Army of Northern Virginia. Keep Lee engaged and not able to divert forces from the Army of the Potomac. Doing that kept Lee from using interior lines to detach a part to reinforce another front and then recall them back to the main. Lee was stuck outside of Richmond as Sherman's army ravaged and rolled up his rear areas. Winfield Scott's Anaconda Plan put into effect.
The western Confed armies never exhibited the sort of superiority over their opponents that the ANV did
The Western Reb armies had to fight a very competent George Thomas. The ANV fought mostly incompetent Generals before Meade took over.
Loudogblog, I’m a Trumpite and I think the jerking-off-two-guys thing is hilarious. I suspect the rest of MAGA, including DJT himself, agree. Certainly word has reached him by now, yet he keeps doing it. And Fox, which employs whole offices of people to research what the other side is saying, loves to show clips of him doing the double-fist move.
I’m hoping Trump will just work it into the weave: “Bill Maher says I look like I’m jerking off two guys when I dance. Well, I tell ya, I haven’t done that, but if I did I would be the father of double jerker-offers. No one would do it better than me. Well; maybe Lyin Kamala. Or maybe she’s lying about that, too. Joe Biden couldn’t jerk off two guys at once, lemme tell ya. He’d fall asleep halfway. Poor Joe, he can’t even jerk himself off. He wouldn’t be able to un-Velcro his Depends with a list of instructions. Now Walz…well, probably best not to think about whether he’s ever jerked off two guys at once. But I don’t think he’s coordinated enough to do it. Did you see how spastic he gets on stage? Anyway, if he ever did jerk off two guys at once, you know where he woulda done it, right? CHY-NAH! That’s right - on one of his many mysterious educational trips to Chy-nah. And you know what they say about jerking off two Chinese guys, dontcha? An hour later, you wanna jerk off two more guys. Is that a good thing? Is it a bad thing? I dunno. But I know that here in America, we have the best cocks, the biggest cocks, the hardest cocks. And I know that we are gonna MAKE AMERICA HARD AGAIN! Vivek, put on Ave Maria!”
Or maybe that’s why no one’s told him about Maher’s gag.
JSM
Sometimes I feel like Americans treat the Civil War like a sports rivalry. Lee and Jackson may not be the superlative geniuses they are portrayed as, but wohtoh their presence (or if they went with the Union), the Confederacy may have lost the war even sooner. And for their part, even Lincoln-era Republicans were mostly successful in reintegrating the defeated generals into their country, instead of driving them into international exile.
Better diplomats may have gained more for the Confederacy than generals ever did.
Made it through the whole thing. First time I listened to a full politician speech/debate/interview since W's 2003 SOTU. I thought it was good. The Robert E. Lee thing seemed more a discussion about Lincoln's concerns about him, rather than Trump's, but it certainly will show more about those who talk about it. It is a bit of a slog because, as both noted, Trump has his still of weaving stories, and Rogan did a get job calling him out and steering him towards the topic at hand. My wife appreciated Rogan's effort to keep Trump focused. Most of the conversation was nothing new other than hearing it from these two men. Personally, I enjoyed the last 1/3rd more than the rest, with the middle being the least interesting to me, but probably the best of the two clicking and having a good conversation about mutual interests.
Instead of fighting a defensive battle, they attacked prepared locations, up a slope, against well placed mass artillery.
Its Interesting to speculate what would've happened if Lee had gone West in August 1863 and taken over th AoT. But the importance of the western theater has been overrated. Lincoln put great emphasis on capturing territory in the West as opposed to destroying the AoT. Vicksburg was to captured. Then the Mississippi opened up. Then Chatanooga and the occpupation of East Tennessee. Finally, Atlanta was the prize.
The Union captured all these places and the war went on. OTOH, after the fall of Richmond and lee's surrender, the war ended with a couple months.
Lee was strenuously opposed to going west, and with good reason. OTOH, I agree with Brooks Simpson that Grant had only to make Lee irrelevant by pinning him down and letting Union superiority take effect in the west.
Lee maintained his army, and his nation's capitol, while the rest of his country was conquered behind him--with the full knowledge of his political boss.
A lot of judgements about generals are tautologies: we know X was a poor general because he was beaten by Y, and we know Y was a good general because he beat X.
Got through the whole Rogan interview with Trump and it was good. Very relaxed. With Rogan actually trying to get information and answers out of Trump instead trying to debate him or pepper him with constant "Gotcha" questions.
I could've done without the dumb UFO stuff, but I guess that's Rogan's thing.
I was programmed to say I’m not.
Lee always said that if he was forced into a siege of Richmond, it would only be a matter of time before Richmond would fall, or his army would be destroyed. Or both.
Thats one big reason why he was constantly attacking - he couldn't let the Union army push him back to Richmond, besiege him, and ground him down.
Forturnately, for him everytime he threatened washington DC, Lincoln and stanton got hysterical and demanded the AOP move between DC and Lee's army. This in addition to fortifications encirlcing DC, and 30,000 troops usually being stationed there.
McClellan hit upon the best strategy, put the AoP accross the James, take Peterburg and cut the RR's to Richmond. But Halleck/Lincoln refused to do it. Instead they brought the AoP back to Nothern VA. That McClellan may have not been best commander, doesn't mean his strategy was wrong. It was right, and Grant followed it.
Lee "screwed up Gettysburg". Yes. Put another way, he LOST THE F_CKING WAR!
My family was on the pro-union side of that war, and plenty of "our" generals f_cked up, and plenty of people on the winning side f_cked up the peace.
I respect Lee as a military leader who did remarkably well in a hopeless position.
But it took the better part of a century for the United States to begin ending the legacy of slavery. How proud are "we" of that fact?
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