Axios reported yesterday that Michael Wolff taped the conversations that he used for his book:
Michael Wolff has tapes to back up quotes in his incendiary book — dozens of hours of them….
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In some cases, the officials thought they were talking off the record. But what are they going to do now?
I am a relative nobody. But I know better.
I talk with the press fairly frequently. I have reporters that I talk with a lot because they are honestly striving to tell complex stories with the intent of making their readers smarter by the end of the piece. I assume that any interaction I have with any reporter is on the record and highly likely to be recorded.
On Wednesday evening, a reporter that I have talked with in the past e-mailed me to ask for some background on a long term policy issue. I said I could callback in 10 minutes. The initial chunk of the conversation was like this:
“Hi, this is John Doe of the XXX News”
“Hi John, this is Dave from Duke, responding to your e-mail, still got time?”
“Yep, let me get my recorder going…”
“Everything on the record unless we both agree before hand?”
“Sounds good, so tell me about X and Y and how they interact?”
And then we talked for a while.
This is not hard. You assume that you are on the record and a good memorization will occur unless there is a specific guarantee that is previously agreed upon that says a conversation is either off the record, deep background, not for attribution or any other restriction including no notes/recordings. I’m a nobody who will never work in the White House and I know that.
Roger Moore
Could you please give a brief summary of the difference between these categories? I hear about them but honestly have no idea what the exact distinctions are.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
there are tapes? Oh, Lordy….
rikyrah
We have heard some variation of Wolff’s stories throughout this nightmare. He’s put them all condensed together in a book – that’s what makes it different.
And, all the muthaphuckas who had these stories, but did them ‘ off the record’ are just mad cause Wolff’s ABOUT TO GET PAID.
JPL
Dave appears to be surprised that he is smarter that the average white house worker. All you need to know about the aides, is that they were willing to work for Trump.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Maggie H and the stenos of Vichy Times has a sad.
Mnemosyne
I worked for newspapers without ever having gone to journalism school, and even I knew this shit. (Though it rarely comes up in entertainment journalism — the actors doing press to promote their movie aren’t going to be doing it off the record.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: call me petty, but I’m glad that “Ivanka is dumb as a brick” is now part of our political conversation
as Joy Reid recalled, and noted in real time 18 months ago, there was a time when she and Jared weren’t the only ones imagining her political future
Ivanka was destined for the Senate! She’s so poised! And Fredo was gonna be mayor of New York. So polished!
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
@schrodingers_cat:
Yep. Maggie has a book deal for her upcoming hagiography, and she just got scooped. I feel a little bit of pity for her friends, family, and colleagues, because she’s probably throwing multiple tantrums right now. ??
Barbara
They obviously knew Wolff was a journalist. What did they think he was doing? Why did they talk to him at all? What does this say about WH security? That people will talk to any random dude who makes it inside?
ETA: Seriously, if their defense is that they didn’t know what he was doing, that just makes them look even worse for having been willing to give damaging information to some guy.
Tom Levenson
Yup. This is middle school newspaper level stuff. (I really know! I worked on the Willard Jr. High newspaper — a sporadically published 100+ page MIMEOGRAPHED fishwrap.)
I have occasionally taken pity on truly non-news types who asked after the fact if I wouldn’t publish x or y, but that was my option, not theirs.
Mnemosyne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Don’t forget, the same people saying that shit were the exact same people demanding that Chelsea Clinton pinky-swear that she would never run for any office anywhere at any time. Because that’s the kind of assholes they are.
So far my favorite revelation is that Bannon also refers to Jared as “Fredo,” and it was only emphasized when (I think) the FTFNYT got it wrong, said “Frodo” (as in The Lord of the Rings) and had to do an official printed correction. ???
Mike J
@Roger Moore:
Off the record: don’t repeat this
Background: you need to know this to understand what’s going on, but you can’t tell who explained it to you. No direct quotes.
not for attribution: You can use the quote, but not my name.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
Also, to respond to something you said in the previous thread, I am 100 percent with rikyrah: I will never forgive the people who inflicted Trump on us, whether directly or indirectly. Not one.
randy khan
I have dealt with the press occasionally, too, and the assumption that everything you say is on the record is the first thing you’re taught. And even when I said something was off the record or not for attribution or something like that, I assumed it would be printed with my name attached.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne: I said the other day, that it’s a bit of a shame about Maggie, because her dad was a classy writer. Back in the Stone Age, when I’d get a paper NYT every day, if I saw his byline I made a point of reading the piece; his “NYC” column was always good.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: Maggie Hagiographerman can cry me fucking river.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Who is the dad of the nepotism hire?
Major Major Major Major
God, these people are stupid.
MattF
The definitions of sourcing according to the AP.
feebog
Of course there are tapes. This shipwreck of an administration would fuck up a two car funeral if you spotted them the hearse. To a person they are incompetent, inept not ready for prime time. That includes players like McMasters and Kelly. They may have been perfectly competent in their military positions, but Washington politics is not the military, and trying to function in this administration must be a nightmare of the highest order.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: Clyde Haberman. Foreign correspondent in a bunch of high-profile places, then came back and wrote a twice-weekly column about NYC. Good writer.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Barbara:
Easy to see, in Trumpland the worker bee sit down, shuts up, doesn’t ask any questions and does as they told. That includes asking why some dude who apparently is a reporter is hanging around the break room day after day.
Marcelo Teson
Why would you tell a reporter something off the record if it can’t be repeated or used? If you’re trying to provide background on a story, isn’t that Background? Or do you say something off the record so that the reporter gets a clue where to look elsewhere for more stuff they can use?
different-church-lady
Memo to Team Trump: next time you don’t want someone to find out you’re an asshole, try… not being an asshole.
ruemara
A visitor’s pass should give more access than a press pass. It shouldn’t allowed him to roam the halls, tape people and squat on the sofa watching the freak show. It’s insane. All I’ve ever done is media for a small town and a small business and I would’ve asked why he was here and what was he doing. Trump’s WH; dumber than a hick, half-trained media person.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
As I was saying today in another context, there are few things more satisfying than watching a bad person’s dream turn to ashes in front of their eyes. ?
different-church-lady
@Barbara:
Ego is a hell of a drug.
Gin & Tonic
@Gin & Tonic: Wiki says Clyde went to Bronx Science then CCNY. Important tidbit for NYC-centric people. Maggie went to Fieldston and Sarah Lawrence.
That tells you almost everything you might need to know.
cain
Can we get a thread going on what’s going on with Pakistan? It seems like those guys have gone off the deep end. Pakistan is cutting off access to Afghanistan while at the same time Trump wants to escalate in Afghanistan. That fool. How is that escalation is going to happen?
Meanwhile, some jackass Indians are mad at a Washington post editorial wondering why Trump insulted a country and also what did he get for it. They seem to fail to understand that what Trump did was idiotic, you burned a bridge for nothing, you gained nothing plus it was a bridge that you needed for something you wanted to do. Sigh.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Jim, Foolish Literalist linked to the Twitter feed of Janice Min, one of the co-publishers of the Hollywood Reporter. Here’s a sample:
MattF
@cain: Hmm, stupid, motiveless, counter-productive policy from Trump.
WaterGirl
I hope all the people who bad-mouthed Trump to this guy say something like “hey, it was just locker room talk”. I’m hoping that would push Trump over the edge.
Zach
If these guys can’t keep obviously secret stuff away from reporters obviously angling for a juicy story, there’s about zero chance that the Trump admin hasn’t accidentally let way, way more classified info leak into their personal email accounts in a year than Obama managed in 8.
MisterForkbeard
OffTopic, because I need to vent: I’m arguing with an old high school friend on facebook at the moment. She’s incredibly angry about Sessions and Trump, and the tipping point for her is Session’s renewing the drug war. I made a point about why it’s important to vote against any and all Republicans – because regardless of what they say during the campaign or how reasonable they pretend to be, this is what they do when they get into office. She mostly agreed.
She’s now telling me that the 2-party system is corrupt, and she wrote-in Bernie in 2016… and will do the same in 2020 because “corporate democrats and republicans are exactly the same, because they’re funded by the same people.” She’s a giant fucking moron, and I don’t know what to tell her.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
Also, to make it even more sweet, the hoity-toity New York Times eeporter got scooped by a trade paper, not a “real” newspaper.
The only thing that would sting more would be if it had been Teen Vogue who scooped her. Seriously.
Roger Moore
@Marcelo Teson:
As I understand it, doing something off the record means they can’t publish it, even paraphrased, but that doesn’t mean they can’t use it. A good reporter is only going to publish the stuff you tell them if they can verify it somehow. So you provide them with information they aren’t allowed to report directly, but it tells them where to look. When they get enough information to verify what you told them, they can publish based on the information they dug up themselves and you don’t enter into it.
schrodingers_cat
@MisterForkbeard: Tell her what you told us. Wasting your vote is like giving the Rs half a vote, mathematically speaking.
VOR
@ruemara: A lot of the companies I visit require an escort at all times. Someone has to walk with me down the hallway and stand outside (sometimes inside) the bathroom waiting for me.
Roger Moore
@cain:
Tinfoil hat theory: without Pakistan, our only route into Afghanistan will be through Russia. You do the math.
Jeffro
@MisterForkbeard: just keep pointing out the differences and remind her that as a certain ex-president one said , “if the choices are chicken or steak you don’t get to write in fish”
Or something like that
Mnemosyne
@MisterForkbeard:
Unfortunately, your friend has been propagandized by people who want to make sure that nothing ever changes. I’m not sure what the cure is, except that I’m pretty sure it can’t be done via Facebook, or any other non face-to-face way, because it’s too easy for her to ignore your arguments.
I don’t have a link to the article, but there was an interesting scientific study done a couple of years ago that showed that the only way to change someone’s mind was by asking them to explain their own arguments. Your only chance is to ask her to explain WHY she thinks voting third party works, and keep asking WHY with no counter-arguments until she talks herself out of it. Sadly, she will probably rage-quit an online argument long before you get to the end, but if you go out for coffee or something, it might work.
Baud
@MisterForkbeard:
Tell her you will continue to fight to protect the country from people like her. Then tell her goodbye.
Gin & Tonic
@MisterForkbeard: Walk away.
MattF
@Roger Moore: You can give a reporter a lead, and then that reporter owes you a favor. Or, at least, that’s what people think. In fact, you’re negotiating (through the reporter) with an editor, and the editor doesn’t owe you squat.
Mike J
@MisterForkbeard:
Ask her how Bernie put in place the policies Sessions is reversing when we had a neo-liberal corporate Democrat in the White House.
MisterForkbeard
@schrodingers_cat: I have. I’m already getting anger for it, including a “don’t you dare tell me how to vote” shtick, and her BernieBro friends are leaping to her defense. And attacking Hillary, naturally.
I think I’m going to just need to leave a “I want you to know that you’re actively harming the exact outcomes you say you’re working towards, and you really need to re-evaluate your behavior.” and then turning off notifications for the thread. If I wanted to actually resolve this, I’d probably have to ask her for an example of a bought-and-paid-for corporate democrat that she considers equivalent to republicans… and then fucking demolish that example. Probably repeatedly. And then bring it up whenever she starts to complain about this stuff again.
And I really don’t want to expend that level of energy on someone who doesn’t want to listen.
ruemara
@MisterForkbeard: “You are a giant, fucking, selfish, moron and your thought patterns are exactly why we have Trump now. Good luck with figuring out closed mouth breathing. Bye.” There you go.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: My sympathies for collaborators are very, very limited.
MisterForkbeard
@ruemara: Very tempted to say that. And really shouldn’t.
I shouldn’t say this either, but she wasn’t ever the brightest bulb in school. I’d hoped she was more experienced now, but she still tends towards ignoring details and critical thinking.
Phylllis
@MisterForkbeard: That she’s a giant fucking moron? But you may not want to be like me, I don’t have any friends.
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
You are mistaking schadenfreude for sympathy, my friend.
ETA: I had this whole conversation yesterday — you can pity someone without sympathizing with them. In fact, the word “pity” has a connotation of condescension and an unwillingness to help the object of pity.
ThresherK
You remembered it here first: Bill Clinton testified before a Grand Jury and that had to be taped for some guy who couldn’t attend because of a hangnail. We all remember what happened to that tape.
I’m off to find anyone on TV who remembers that.
Jeffro
@Mnemosyne:
Same here. They can’t claim that this Wolff book has “opened their eyes” – all of this was already out there, even back in the primaries. Smart people who put their country above their party should have voted accordingly.
And for the lame-ass folks (coughmyRWNJrelativescough) who try to excuse it as “well, I knew he was a bit off but I like his policies“…WHAT. POLICIES? The guy is a consummate liar. If they try “Hillary would have been worse” on me I’ll start reaching for a bat…
WaterGirl
@Baud: @MisterForkbeard: What baud said, but with one addition. Tell her you care about her and you hope to hear from her once she figures out that she’s part of the problem she’s railing against.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@MisterForkbeard:
She’s been brainwashed. This is the propaganda you hear daily from Bern-outs on social media and loony outlets like GOS and TYT.
Sad.
MisterForkbeard
Apologies for thread derailment, to the extent that it happened.
Regarding this whole kerfluffle, I remain completely and utterly unsurprised that TrumpLand people continued to make basic and easily foreseeable mistakes with regards to Wolff. These guys are so competent normally, right? >_<
Seriously, even I would know better. And I say that as a mid-30s tech worker with no background in press relations.
@WaterGirl: That is probably the best approach.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@MisterForkbeard:
Ask them do they seriously believe Hillary would have renewed the war on drugs and ignore any response that doesn’t address your question because it’s simply BS.
debbie
This is all so much unexpected fun! I love that at the end of the cease and desist letter, Trump asks for a copy of the book (cheapskate). I love that Holt’s releasing the book four days early because of the demand. Also:
Trump will be self-destructing. If not tomorrow, then very soon. I look forward to it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: My Schadenfreude with regards to Haberhack is near infinite!
debbie
@Mnemosyne:
It’s not about forgiving for me. It’s about the opportunity for eternal gloating on a very loud and constant basis.
MattF
Via WaPo: Rebekah Mercer publicly disavows Bannon.
jharp
For the record.
I have never spoken to anyone “off the record” in my six decades. I am not the trusting type.
LesGS
@MisterForkbeard: She’s flailing, wandering into inane generalities. Get specific. She is specifically angry about Session’s renewal of the drug war. Ask her if she thinks Clinton would have made Sessions AG. Clearly, the answer is “no.” Ask her if she thinks Clinton and her AG would have dumped Obama’s drug policy. Again “no”. Did her Bernie write-in do anything to prevent the situation she’s railing against? Again, “no.” Will a Bernie write-in in 2020 change anything for the better? Obviously, this isn’t the only thing pissing her off, but those issues can be looked specifically, too, instead of this lazy, generalized, “Both sides suck.”
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Yes, I remember liking his stuff.
Mnemosyne
@Jeffro:
They like that he’s a white supremacist.
Period.
MisterForkbeard
@MattF: At this point, you have to disavow Bannon if you want to have any influence at all with Trump.
At least, until 2-3 weeks from now when Bannon does something Trump likes and he’s back in favor. Then everyone can pretend they never said those things.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Shoes are dropping. From WaPo
As always, Trump telegraphs his intentions in angry Twitter rants before he acts.
This is also consistent with his obsessive idea that America’s allies are not pulling their own weight and taking advantage of us, ie, doing what we want them to do.
As always, the lumpen Trumpentariat will love this display of toughness, and Trump making sure that other countries don’t treat us like chumps. Even if the policy makes the world a more dangerous place for everyone.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: DING DING DING DING DING
Roger Moore
@Jeffro:
They liked his policies of saying “fuck you” to minorities. They loved his policy of grabbing women by the pussy. They were enthralled with his policy of being a complete asshole and beating up anyone who didn’t look right.
это курам на смех
I used to think that Veep on HBO was a parody.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
LO to the fuckin L
That is some kind of funny right there.
Miss Bianca
@MisterForkbeard: how about “you’re a giant fucking moron”?
Or maybe if that’s too harsh, you can try, “you need to do a lot more homework before we can continue this conversation”,
JustRuss
@MisterForkbeard: Since she’s focused on the drug war:
1. Point out how Obama de-esclated the War on Drugs, telling the DoJ to back off on marijuana
2. Point out Hilary’s statements and policies regarding drug policy.
Don’t demand that she agree with you. Just throw it out there and let her think about it. TWoD should be one of the easier “Both Sides” to debunk, with someone who’s at least semi-rational.
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
They searched desperately for that Presidential pivot…
They would have eaten ground glass for that pivot.
They are also mad because our side showed no inclination to make nice and brought every receipt possible, when they tried the bullshyt ?
Immanentize
@rikyrah: REAL PAID!
FlipYrWhig
@MisterForkbeard: Along with what everyone else has said, I still don’t understand what “corporate” means politically, other than “sucks,” or has to do with anything regarding drug policy. If anything the decriminalization of weed is creating profitable businesses. Is profiting from weed “corporate”? If not, why not?
Baud
@FlipYrWhig: It means campaigns funded in part by corporate money instead of Putin’s money.
TS
Just imagine if Obama had tried this to those who said disparaging things about him (all those good white republican men)
Oliver Darcy on twitter
Person familiar confirms to me that there has been a “hard push” to convince Breitbart CEO Larry Solov to fire Bannon. Bannon/Breitbart spox not commenting.
The president* getting people fired because they said mean things about him
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
I know how embarrassing it is that it took me until Obama’s election to really understand this, but racist white people actually think — against any and all evidence they see to the contrary — that white people are the best at everything, and that any random white person off the street would naturally have been a better president than Obama, because that person would have been white.
They had their chance to prove it with Trump, and it’s turning out exactly the way rational (mostly non-white) people warned them it would. EXACTLY. He’s a goddamned dumpster fire that will not be contained no matter how much they try to pretend that everything is normal.
I honestly don’t know how to get my fellow white people to wake up, but this is going to happen over and over and over again until they do.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
The press was looking for a presidential pivot,
And all they got was a golf course divot.
Jeff Sessions don’t like grass,
And Steve Bannon’s being a pain in the ass.
Trump is loonier than that big new moon,
And Pence is hoping to become president soon.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: And “corporate money” can just be monies from employees of a corporation. Should folk that just happen to work for a corporation be barred from the political process?*
*Rhetorical question, not directed at you.
zhena gogolia
@ruemara:
Perfect.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
I’m so there. I will never forgive them. Same goes for the horribles who voted for a third party.
PaulWartenberg
It should be a rule in life no matter what.
Say in public what you’ll say in private. Say in private what you’ll say in public.
Every word you say means something. Words matter. Words have power. Even liars should understand that.
Ohio Mom
I just got here. I can’t believe no one has said, “David, you’re not a Nobody to us!”
@MisterForkbeard: In cases like this, I usually start by agreeing. The Democratic Party is not perfect, and plenty of elected Democrats have done things I disagree with (for one, I was disappointed that Obama hired Arne Duncan, who in turn promoted public school deform).
However, this is the world we live in, not the world we wish we lived in. It is a two-party system. Third and fourth party candidates can’t win — in addition to Bernie and Jill Stein, see also John Anderson and Ross Perot. I’ve seen this movie several times now.
When you vote for the lesser of two evils, you get less evil. I’d rather have less evil than more evil.
Does this explanation work? I do not know. I do know that for most people, new concepts must be presented a number of times before they are fully understood.
I also like the explanation put forth by one of the frontpagers at LGM, that voting is a group effort, not an individual’s consumer choice. But I think that is too abstract for a lot of people.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I think corporations can do more when it comes to funding parties as opposed to candidates. But, yeah, candidates can’t receive donations from corporations (or labor unions) directly.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@FlipYrWhig: It’s probably a “longhairs” vs ”suits” thing. So much of our political culture is stuck in the past – artifacts of a simpler, stupider time, apparently.
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
Also known as making a choice like a grown-up.
Victor Matheson
@Roger Moore: Yeah, off the record to me means, “I didn’t tell you this, but you might want to dig a bit in Fredo’s rose garden…”
Roger Moore
@FlipYrWhig:
Supposedly it’s a criticism that they suck up to big corporations. In practice, it just means the speaker doesn’t like them. For example, failing to immediately end the drug war and decriminalize pot* is corporate because it must be benefiting the big drug companies. Similarly, Obamacare is corporate because it benefits big insurance companies. It’s a general-purpose excuse for disparaging anything that fails to meet their exacting standards for purity, because it’s always possible to figure out a way that some corporation benefits from any policy.
*Forget that the president doesn’t actually have the power to do this; they don’t care about minor details like that.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
That was a valiant effort. I think they usually respond by saying nothing will ever change if we keep voting for the same two parties. It’s real hard to defeat an alternative reality.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I really shouldn’t slander the past, though. The present has plenty of stupidity to go around.
FlipYrWhig
@Ohio Mom: @MisterForkbeard: I am a Bernie Sanders skeptic, to put it mildly, but he himself said to vote for Hillary Clinton and caucuses with Democrats. So it seems a little… precious, let’s say, for Forkbeard’s friend to conclude that the best way to honor the commitments and spirit of Bernie Sanders is to reject _what he said, says, and does_. He may hold his nose, waggle his finger, and kvetch unceasingly, but he doesn’t refuse to work with “corporate” politicians or quit in a fit of pique and/or conscience.
Suzanne
@MisterForkbeard:
Tell her she’s a giant fucking moron who has no grasp of strategy.
No, I don’t have many friends.
MisterForkbeard
@FlipYrWhig: I think “corporate” is basically catchall for “has gotten money from banks or businesses at some point.” It’s fairly meaningless, and only applied selectively.
@FlipYrWhig: To be fair, Bernie ALSO said that you should ignore him if he ever told you how to vote. Which is one of many reasons I think he’s a pretty poor politician, even if his heart is in the right place. If you successfully raise awareness of your issues while simultaneously making it much harder for your party’s likely candidate to win, you’ve done something really awful.
Baud
@MisterForkbeard: Then why are he and his group endorsing candidates?
Ohio Mom
@debbie: Yes, there is often a sad resignation underlying many of the choices I make in the voting booth (I am afraid the upcoming Ohio governor’s race is going to be one of those times). Just as there is a sad resignation in a lot of the choices I make in everyday life — Adulting includes a lot of realizing and accepting limitations.
Now I didn’t feel that way voting for Obama, unless you count that I was skeptical the first time that we’d win. And I was giddy in voting for Clinton.
The moral here is, it really doesn’t matter how voting makes you feel. That isn’t what it is about.
FlipYrWhig
@Roger Moore: I always like it when people who think that all politics needs to be responsive to the material needs of The Working Class also want all their politicians to be anti-capitalist. As far as I can tell, the working class is pretty OK with capitalism.
Brachiator
@Baud:
This may be the heart of the problem. People like this have a picture in their head of the perfect world that they want. They then discount or ignore everything in the real world because it doesn’t match their ideal.
They don’t seem to be able to acknowledge that Trump pushes them further away from their perfect world. Or that Trump’s actions hurt people who would not be grievously suffering had Clinton been elected.
MisterForkbeard
@Roger Moore: This is my impression of how these people are using it. They don’t really know “how” Hillary would have been corporate, except that she was less populist than Bernie. They also claim she was bought off by banks, but there’s literally no evidence of that and plenty of counter-evidence.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
The key thing to understand is that purity ponies aren’t looking for a practical plan of action; they want a reason to feel righteous. That’s far more important than accomplishing anything. I often think most of all they’re looking for an excuse for inaction. If nobody is perfect enough for them, they don’t have to explain why their plan doesn’t work.
Baud
@Brachiator: It’s faith-based politics, and it works about as well as everything else that’s faith-based.
FlipYrWhig
@MisterForkbeard: “Corporate” also means “bland.” AFAICT it squishes in whatever direction it’s useful and the only meaning that really stays consistent is “sucks.”
patrick II
@Mnemosyne:
I would like to see Maggie H’s book as it exists now just to see how much she will change it just to show she isn’t a total sycophant. She’s probably angry because of the re-write she is going to have to do from her normalizing first draft.
Ohio Mom
@Suzanne: You have us! We like you!
But I know what you mean. There are some relationships I still have only because I have bit a deep furrow in my tongue, and others I have bid goodbye to because the other person’s politics did not balance out whatever else their friendship meant to me.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Kind of a random discourse on this topic:
In my efforts to plan out my new year, I was looking around at “vision boards,” which are very popular right now since they were a big thing for Oprah and “The Secret.”
It turns out, though, that only picturing the outcome you want is counterproductive. People who envisioned the outcome they wanted were less likely to achieve it than people who didn’t, and both groups were surpassed by people who envisioned the steps they needed to take to get to their outcome. It’s the difference between an athlete who pictures him/herself on the medal stand and the athlete who pictures him/herself training for months until they win the race.
I think it’s the same psychology here. By picturing only the preferred outcome, people like Mister Forkbeard’s friend are actually paralyzing themselves and making that outcome less likely.
Baud
@Roger Moore: I think of it as free riding. They want others to accomplish the goals in accordance with their ideas, but they have no grasp of how many obstacles there are to success and then they get mad at the workers for failing.
Doug R
@ruemara:
He had classified information on a table at Mar a lago.
He had a meeting with the Russian ambassador where he shared classified information and only Russian media were allowed in the room.
Roger Moore
@FlipYrWhig:
In fairness, the voting preferences of the working class don’t necessarily reflect their material needs perfectly. That’s why many working class whites continue to vote for Republicans. It’s always possible to be paternalistic and argue in favor of options you think will benefit others even/especially if you believe they’re too stupid to support those options themselves.
Frankensteinbeck
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I would put greater than even odds the answer will be ‘yes.’ Unreconstructed Sandersites I know live in a bizarre alternate universe where the Democratic Party’s policies are roughly the same as Republican policies, including such things as deregulation and massive tax cuts to the rich. Hell, they think they’re the only group that truly cares about minorities and either claim minorities voted for Sanders or use slightly more politely phrased variations of ‘blacks are on the plantation.’
@FlipYrWhig:
They are Marxists, whether or not they use the term. They believe that all politics centers around the rich being evil and the need to drag them down. Democrats hardly ever think the rich are inherently evil, and merely want to limit them with increased taxes and regulation. Ditto corporations. Sanders dead-enders see no middle ground between ‘eat the rich’ and ‘I think MBA geniuses will save us all.’ If you’re not the former, they think you’re the latter.
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
Really? You wouldn’t support Cordray?
danielx
@MisterForkbeard:
“You’re a giant fucking moron” would be a good start.
Doug R
@MisterForkbeard: Tell her that her white privilege is getting in the way. Or something like that.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Yep. The analogy works quite well.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yep. And if you point out the facts to them, they sneer at you for being so gullible. THEY know the real truth!
The far left and far right conspiracy theorists are not as unique as they love to think.
MomSense
@MisterForkbeard:
Don’t talk to her. Not worth the effort with someone that willfully selfish. If the dreamers get deported in March you can tell her that she helped make this tragedy possible.
danielx
@Frankensteinbeck:
I have to admit I’m leaning towards “eat the rich”, but that’s a long way from being a Bernie bro or Marxist either one. And yes, the Kochs and Mercers are evil fucks.
ETA: Marxism as the basis for a political/economic system sucks, as has been proven over the last hundred years. Marxism as an analytical tool is very useful.
Gelfling 545
@debbie: I wonder who will read it for him.
Ohio Mom
@debbie: Did Cordray ever formally announce he’s running? If so, I missed it — maybe it was when I was busy with Ohio Dad’s surgery?
I would LOVE to vote — and canvass — for Cordray. It’s the others who I afraid don’t have that magic “it” needed to run and win.
ETA: just goggled, its true, be still my beating heart. He announced during the frenzied week before the surgery. Now I wonder what else I might have missed during that interim…
Roger Moore
@Baud:
It’s worse than that. They want others to be responsible for accomplishing their goals so they have someone to blame if anything doesn’t work out right. The goal isn’t success; it’s avoiding accountability for failure.
Kenneth Almquist
“You assume that you are on the record and a good memorization will occur unless there is a specific guarantee that is previously agreed upon”
My impression is that in Washington, a lot of stuff is implicitly off the record. In any case, the excerpts of Wolff’s book that have been published are notable for the lack of any sourcing. Either Wolff explicitly agreed to treat all his interviews as off the record, or he decided to do that despite the lack of an explicit agreement.
It’s not clear why Wolff said that he had the tapes. He may have brought up the tapes to make it clear that when he wrote the book, he wasn’t just depending on his memory. Or it could be that whatever confidentiality agreement (if any) he has with his sources doesn’t prevent the tapes from being used in a libel lawsuit.
The real problem for Trump is that his management style is to encourage conflict between his subordinates. In particular, I think that Trump’s management style, as much as Bannon’s personality, explains why Bannon was saying negative things about pretty much everyone in the White House other than Trump himself.
The Trump organization had everybody sign non-disclosure agreements. That, combined with the fact that the Trump Organization wasn’t all that newsworthy, was largely successful in preventing employees from attacking each other in the press. But the White House is very different environment.
Ken
Is it just me, or is there some similarity between this situation and, say, people who testify to Congress for six hours and answer every question, then try to invoke the Fifth Amendment?
Or is it just that in both cases we’re dealing with utter morons?
Mnemosyne
@Kenneth Almquist:
To prevent Trump from claiming Wolff made it all up. And, yes, the tapes would be admissible in a libel suit regardless of any pre-existing confidentiality agreements.
It’s SOP in a dispute over the veracity of a book or article for the writer to indicate that s/he has tapes or notes to back in their claims.
Ksmiami
@MisterForkbeard: tell her if she doesn’t vote straight dem this country is lost. And that you can’t be friends with someone that dumb.
Ksmiami
@Roger Moore: and because almost to a t the ppl who voted stein etc were from a privileged class of ppl who aren’t faced with the daily horrors that gop policies have on the underclass and pocs.
Bill Arnold
@SiubhanDuinne:
A quick search suggests it was Politico, here:
‘Bannon was shot on the South Lawn and run over by a tank’
Amir Khalid
@Jeffro:
Ah, but in American elections you do get to write in fish and feel righteous about it; and then, who knows, if enough other people write in fish you might even get it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jeffro:
That’s when I reach for my revolver.
Ruckus
@Barbara:
You give them way too much credit. Way too much.
They have no idea what government is supposed to be about, they have no idea of history, they have no class, they have money but can’t buy a clue, they have no idea what real work is, either manual or intellectual, they have no idea what they are supposed to be doing, they think they know everything so they sure aren’t going to ask anyone anything, but in fact are ignorant fucking assholes.
Uncle Cosmo
@MisterForkbeard: You might want to sortakinda agree with her…but then point out that from a tactical standpoint, the only way to halt the slide into fascism is to vote for Democrats. Remind her how many tens of millions died because the German Communists fought harder against the Social Democrats than against the Nazis. Tell her you’d love to argue the merits of {insert whatever ideas or programs she’s pushing for} once the nation has been dragged back from the cliff’s edge – not before.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
They don’t know how not to be assholes. It’s the only thing they’ve learned well in life.
OK that’s not really the correct way to say it. They only know how to be assholes. I believe the instructions may come with the trust fund and the AE black card.
SgrAstar
@MisterForkbeard: you could start by telling her they’re NOT funded by the same people.
Ruckus
@MisterForkbeard:
Tell her that no only is she wasting a vote that could have saved us this fucking nightmare, but that BS is a one note old fart, with no possible way to get anything done because his idea, which isn’t wrong, only answers about 1/100 of the question. And his solution is worthless.
If she really is a fucking moron, it won’t matter. If she has even a micron of sense, it might. I’m not holding my breath, by the way.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Racist white people wake up? How’s that work?
They double down, then triple down, then yell and scream, then get nazi tats, then a pointy white hat and robe, but wake the fuck up? I don’t think so. That would take thought, effort, humanity and a complete examination of their life choices. And I just don’t see that happening for any of the white racist assholes that I’ve ever met.
Dmbeaster
@Marcelo Teson: Deep Throat is the ultimate example of an off the record source. His information was gold, but Woodward and Bernstein had to independently source and verify the stories for publication. Still, the information was indispensible in unraveling Watergate.