A while back, CNN’s excellent Trump fact-checker Daniel Dale identified the “sir alert” phenomenon:
I’ve fact-checked every word Trump has uttered since his inauguration. I can tell you that if this President relays an anecdote in which he has someone referring to him as “sir,” then some major component of the anecdote is very likely to be wrong.
Lots of people do call Trump “sir,” of course. But the word seems to pop into his head more frequently when he is inventing or exaggerating a conversation than when he is faithfully relaying one. A “sir” is a flashing red light that he is speaking from his imagination rather than his memory.
In poker parlance, it’s a tell.
In the linked piece, Dale describes how Trump seems to particularly relish tales of tough, burly men tearfully addressing him as “sir,” providing an example of an absolutely false story Trump told about farmers and ranchers blubbering with gratitude at a signing ceremony for an executive order. It was a lie, of course — as Dale notes, there’s video of the event, and there wasn’t a wet eye in the house.
Looks like we need to add “Mr. President” to the “sir alert” trigger-word list in honor of this big, fat whopper:
There’s just no fucking way this is true. I mean, maybe BoJo said something along those lines to suck up; earlier today, Johnson humiliated himself by standing up to Trump on the trade war thusly:
“But just to register the faint, sheeplike note of our view on the trade war, we’re in favor of trade peace on the whole, and dialing it down if we can.”
“Faint” and “sheeplike?” Jesus Jazz-Hands Christ, that’s embarrassing. So maybe Johnson further debased himself by reinforcing Trump’s ridiculous and contemptible conceit that the American media is “the enemy of the people” because non-Fox/Sinclair outlets don’t sing his praises 24/7. But the idea that this was the top question from “fellow World Leaders” is insulting to everyone’s intelligence, and I hope the people Trump’s trying to co-opt for his pity party push back on it publicly.
Open thread.
Spanky
If there are pictures of BoJo with wet pants and dirt on his coat because he rolled on to his back and tinkled before the big dog, I don’t wanna know.
dmsilev
Nah, it’s just a misplaced comma. He meant to write “World Leaders who think the USA is doing so well and is stronger than ever”. Since that’s a null set, the most often-asked question from them is pretty much whatever you want it to be. As is the least-often-asked question of course.
Spanky
OT, although it’s about FYWP: There’s a Tulsi ad on the right side that sez “I will bring a soldier’s heart to the White House putting service above self”.
I’m getting a strong Mayan sacrifice vibe from that woman now.
LuciaMia
What? Why of course its true. Just like that story of surgeons leaving their patients on the operating table so they could greet Dear Leader at his hospital visit. Shame on you, Betty.
oatler.
We need Chuck Todd to weigh in on this.
bbleh
I hope the people Trump’s trying to co-opt for his pity party push back on it publicly.
Faint hope. They know he’s playing to domestic political opinion, and they both understand that need and care almost nothing about what he says to his followers as long as it doesn’t undermine their interests.
Also, unlike him, they have sense of statesmanship and responsibility. And BoJo is just doing his usual aw-shucks English-gomer act.
One can only imagine what they say about him when he’s not around (and they aren’t falling down laughing).
CliosFanBoy
Generally World Leaders don’t refer to each other by title when they speak do they? Other than meeting royalist.
Shana
Well it could be that no one except Boris Johnson is talking to him outside of a group setting and that he did say something that could be construed as a comment on the US press. Extraordinarily unlikely but possible.
JMG
World leaders don’t bitch about the press of other countries, only about their own. If Trump wasn’t so awful, this one would be sad.
zhena gogolia
Where is Hugh Grant when you need him?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMJcZpvyNok
Cheryl Rofer
Some journos are pushing back
MattF
@dmsilev: I agree that the null set is involved here— maybe ‘The question I was asked most by fellow World Leaders’. The semantics of the null set (there is only one) are rather subtle. It exists, but it has no properties.
Mike in DC
I wonder what the impact of a recession would be on support for impeachment and for a primary challenge to 45?
Cheryl Rofer
Anya
I really doubt even BoJo would humiliate himself like that. Trump is lying through his teeth.
I was actually thinking that BoJ might want to learn from the French President how to handle Trump. He doesn’t debase himself but he knows how to flatter Trump just the right amount. But he also doesn’t mince words when he disagrees with him.
hells littlest angel
The list of his tells is a long one. “Frankly,” for instance. Anything that comes after that is pure bullshit.
OzarkHillbilly
@hells littlest angel: His lips moving is all I need.
Wapiti
The question they actually ask is: “Mr. Trump, why do you spend so much effort licking Putin’s… what is that word in English… boots?”
tokyokie
@hells littlest angel: I would add to that, the higher the level of honorific, the more wildly exaggerated the story. Or, to quote Dashiell Hammett, “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”
Shana
@hells littlest angel: And “that I can tell you” is another
ola azul
@hells littlest angel:
“…, o-KAaay.”
The dominance-bluster tic that parenthetically assumes compliance (not agreement) n sez: “I’ma lie squarely in your fucking face cuz I happen to know you’re too chickenshit to contradict me.”
Jay
immanentize
@Shana:
But has he yet done, “Mr. President, Sir, …”
Or is he saving that for his declaration of martial law?
donnah
If he says, “Trust me” or “Believe me”, don’t.
debbie
The Washington National Cathedral is unamused.
Jay
Sloane Ranger
@bbleh:
Yes. BoJo models his public persona on a well known type in British literature and theatre. The upper class twit who is eventually revealed to be playing the role and is really a brilliant detective or secret agent. Think Lord Peter Wimsey or Albert Campion.
Not comparing BoJo with either, just observing this is who he thinks he is in his own mind.
m.j.
“…rooting for it to fail?”
Of course he’s talking about himself and not the country, but as to the media asking for failure I have to ask, since when? I still am able to turn on Morning Edition during my weekly commute and be almost instantly pissed off. On the way home All Things Considered’s official NPR response to the assholes, “I hereby order,” was to refer to it as, “urging.”
Jesus fuck.
Sloane Ranger
@Jay: To be fair, most European conservatives would feel perfectly at home in the US Democratic Party.
Daoud bin Daoud
@Spanky: I was thinking more along the lines of Aztec sacrifice, but yeah, a definite Meso-American vibe.
Betty Cracker
@Sloane Ranger: Am I missing some cultural context around the “faint, sheeplike note of our view”? It sounds so comically servile — was he being sarcastic?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Jay: “The bullet went through my shirt, just missed my skin and went out the other side. Darndest thing you ever saw. You want to talk about close calls!”
Who is this guy and why do I care about his fake shooting story?
MattF
@Betty Cracker: I was guessing sheeplike = sheepish rather than ovine.
Chetan Murthy
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: click thru and read the thread. His false report caused an all-night manhunt for a shooter. People could have been killed. BTW, someone who (reportedly, though who knows what actually happened) refused to evacuate the apt complex being searched, was taken into custody. No trifling matter.
Mr. Kite
Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi is traveling the world trying to save the US reputation and influence… https://apnews.com/7083d58ec18a4b7fa5011f8c95b64508
scott (the other one)
Video or it didn’t happen. [Narrator: it didn’t happen.]
John Revolta
To be obnoxiously fair, I’m pretty sure that “Mr. President” is exactly how the other world leaders would refer to him as a matter of protocol. Now as for the rest of this twaddle……………………….
Brachiator
Not going to happen. They will do their best to ignore crap like this and stick to meeting agendas. There is nothing to be gained by publicly responding to any of this.
The US is still the big dog, and Trump enjoys abusing the privilege.
ola azul
@m.j.:
Exactly. As opposed to “the delusional preznit today petulantly and impotently demanded ….”
The unwillingness of peeps who fucking-well KNOW better to speak plainly and directly and forcefully observable truth without ass-covering ornament or dumbed-down diminishment is, apparently, infinite.
An insidious Orange rage-clown is in charge of the country, and the best NPR types can muster is euphemistic behavioral descriptors like “unconventional”.
Slow death by chickenshit politesse.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Mr. Kite: Co-equal branch of government. I’d say the tiny-fingered, Cheeto-faced, ferret-wearing shitgibbon had forgotten this, but it’s quite likely he’s never read that far into the Constitution in the first place. No references to “Trump”. Boring!
Ceterum censeo factionem Republicanam esse delendam.
Brachiator
@Sloane Ranger:
And then you have Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the House of Commons, who seems to be pretending to be an 18th century dandy.
Mike in NC
Any time he says “believe me” or “trust me” also means he’s just making shit up.
germy
@Brachiator: Was he the inspiration for Monty Python’s “upper class twit” or is he too young?
Brachiator
@tokyokie:
No, with Trump these anecdotes are more about someone meekly or humbly approaching him in stupefied amazement at how the mighty and imperious Trump is dealing with some challenge to his greatness.
Sloane Ranger
@MattF: Yes. I agree. It is all part of his affected way of speaking.
Like I’ve said before, Johnson’s aim at this summit is to walk a tightrope and not irrevocably piss off either European leaders or Trump.
B.B.A.
@John Revolta: It hasn’t been generally used since 1800 or so, but the President also historically has the title of “His Excellency.” Nobody tell Il Douche that.
FelonyGovt
It’s actually the most minor of the affronts, but the constant random initial caps in his tweets (fellow “World Leaders”; our “Country”) are driving me insane.
bbleh
@Brachiator: Naw. The blood-sucking Undead have been dressing like that for centuries now.
Another Scott
ICYMI, and in case you didn’t have enough to be depressed about, Drum basically says we’re all doomed:
Hmm…
I’m not quite so fatalistic. Getting back to 350 ppm CO2 isn’t impossible and won’t require everyone to give up their cars (though giving up internal combustion cars, motorcycles, lawn mowers, etc., would be a good part of the solution). We hit 350 ppm around 1985 – the industrial world wasn’t still using horses and buggies back then.
As Drum and others have noted, the US is only about 15% of world CO2 output these days. Getting the rest of the world to buy in (in a serious way) and developing efficient new transportation, lighting, heating-and-cooling, and farming systems will do much more than everyone in the US walking to work…
Changing our energy usage and eliminating burning fossil fuels doesn’t mean that the economy has to stop. It means the economy has to change (as it has many, many times in the past (from wood, to coal, to whale oil, to petroleum, …).
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@germy:
Oh, I think he’s too young, but his type has been around for a long time.
Rees-Mogg may be in a class by himself. He named one of his sons Sixtus.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The Trump phrase that drives me craziest is when he says something crazy and then says, “You all know that. You all agree.”
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
Agent Orange is dementing and decompensating simultaneously. A time zone change makes it worse, as does press coverage he doesn’t like. It ought to be a wild week.
@immanentize: Very OT: you have ?
catclub
@hells littlest angel: mostly if his lips are moving. But I latched onto “believe me”
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: Asked a British friend who is as befuddled as we are by the “sheeplike” comment. Best guess is that he’s offering a small criticism but using the words “faint” and “sheeplike” to downplay it as criticism. Friend says it’s just odd.
catclub
@Another Scott:
But only 5% of the world population.
Sloane Ranger
@Brachiator: Pretty much. The irony is that, as a Catholic, Jacob Rees-Mogg wouldn’t have been able to stand for Parliament in the 18th century!
catclub
@Another Scott:
Neither am I, but can you show any counterexamples to what Drum is asserting?
germy
A commenter over at LGM referred to “third string intellects over at Balloon Juice” and now I am deeply ashamed.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/08/running-out-of-luck
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Countries stopped using wood because they chopped down all the forests. They stopped using whale oil after harpooning most of the whales. We are slow learners.
Another problem is the smug arrogance and narrow vision of some in the West. After living high on the hog, hell after consuming most of the hog for decades, they now often seem to want to tell the rest of the world that they will now have to radically change the way they live and future expectations, and perhaps even permanently settle for a lower standard of living.
This is not an easy sell.
tokyokie
@FelonyGovt:
I just write off his weird capitalization as an unconscious acknowledgment of his German roots, as every noun is upper case in that language. His embrace of NDSAP theory and rhetoric would be a more conscious acknowledgment of that heritage.
m.j.
@ola azul
You bet. The media’s response to this shithead is to say, “Thank-you sir, may I have another?”
Zinsky
I have been told that serial rapists relish being called “Sir”, since they know their manhood is wholly inadequate. Trump is the most insecure degenerate to walk the planet.
hells littlest angel
@Mr. Kite: Address him, probably. Refer to him, very unlikely.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: I expect the people Trump lied about will do what they perceive is 1) in their own political interest, and 2) in the best interest of their respective countries (order determined by individual integrity).
Repatriated
@germy: “…third-string intellects…”? I know! I too realize I’ll never measure up to that high bar set by the rest of the commentariat here. On my best days I’m only fourth or fifth string….
Brachiator
@germy:
That’s funny. I don’t consider myself any kind of intellect at all.
OTOH, I must sheepishly admit that for as long as I have been on the Internets, I have never really visited LGM. Never.
germy
@Brachiator: It was a commenter who said that, not one of the front pagers.
I am no intellectual, I visit here because I often learn things I didn’t know before.
Baud
@germy:
How did that come up in a post about Andrew Luck?
J R in WV
@Another Scott:
Drum said in part: “They have literally destroyed their own lifeblood rather than make even modest changes to their lifestyles.”
And it reminds me, on Easter Island, once upon a time, someone cut down the very last tree on the island. Meaning no one could build a boat, there would be no coconuts to eat… cut down the last tree!!
Because what they were going to do with that tree was more important than working to plant new trees for the future generations. I feel like this is what is happening right now, on an international scale.
germy
@Baud: The dummies here have finally stopped posting about football. Even the dummies here realize football is bad. I think that was the point he was making.
Brachiator
@(((CassandraLeo))):
Trump has not forgotten about the branches of government. He doesn’t care.
Even though he may largely be an incompetent Orange Loony, he is determined to run the country like one of his businesses, with himself as CEO. This is why he looks for every way he can to exert executive authority, even if it means running roughshod over Congress or agencies that are supposed to be independent, such as the Fed. He will talk about “my generals” or “my judges” as though the entire government works for him.
Baud
@germy:
LOL. What a random attack. Sounds like we got under his skin.
Immanentize
@catclub:
Iceland. Until not so long ago, Iceland was strictly a coal and wood(!) Energy country and all of that had to be imported. Vast pollution, huge expense, environmentally disasterous. But now it is one of the cleanest countries on the planet after a huge conversion to geothermal and other renewable sources.
Villago Delenda Est
Daniel Dale thinks he’s clever. ALL of Donald’s utterances are basically lies.
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
To be fair, not a lot of names pair well with “Rees-Mogg.” ?
Immanentize
@germy:
Those folks are jackasses. ?
Brachiator
@germy:
Oh, I’m not holding anything against anyone there. I guess I find it mildly amusing.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
Sixtus! Really…
Boris Johnson, whose real name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, has a son named Theodore Apollo Johnson.
Even stranger, Cenk Uygur named his son “Prometheus Maximus”!! I don’t how to describe Mr Uygur, nor his naming conventions. I think that this takes the cake in names. Young Prometheus should file for emancipation from his parents, and to change his name to something more memorable, like John Smith, or George Jones. But still, we all have something to laugh about, and that’s a good thing.
Jager
If Elizabeth Warren gets the nomination, I think she should open her debate with trump by saying, “Sir, you can call me Pocahantas if it makes you feel more comfortable.”
Jager
@J R in WV:
If Rees-Mogg’s son was an American Jr High student, kids would call him “Sucks Ass”
Villago Delenda Est
@ola azul: NPR is texbook Villager scum.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Calouste
@Jager: I don’t think he’ll be called any differently at Eton.
Another Scott
@catclub: On a limited scale – the Black Forest still exists, and regulations protecting (parts of) it were in place in 1579.
Of course, he’s right that humans too often exploited resources far beyond their capacity to recover. New fuels replace old ones when they’re better and cheaper (not when the supply of the previous fuel goes to zero.) But I think it’s obvious that we’re not going to burn all 5T tonnes of fossil fuels (which would cause a 4.5-9.5 C temperature rise). The only question in my mind is, how quickly are we going to stop burning it? And will it be fast enough to dramatically reduce the chance of killing the oceans, etc.? :-(
And, of course, different countries, and different regions within a country, are going to stop burning fossil fuels at different rates; the effects of AGW are going to vary dramatically across the world, etc., etc. Saying “everyone and everything has to change or we’re all doomed” is too simplistic. Fear-mongering makes people shut down.
To be clear: I think governments need to do much more to get people and industries to use much less fossil fuels. The quickest way to do that is to impose a carbon tax (with a sensible rebate) that increases steadily (with enough time for people and industries to adjust in an accelerated timeframe).
I still have a gas-powered mower, a 2004 diesel VW, and J still drives a 2000 Corolla. We’re thinking of getting a hybrid for our next auto, but probably won’t go full-electric until the car after that. We eat almost no beef and pork. We have a 95+% efficient gas furnace and a 14 SEER AC that we will probably replace next year (with an even more efficient AC). But we don’t have solar panels on our 55+ year old home and don’t buy carbon offsets. We’re worried about the future of the planet, but not to the extent that we’re doing everything we can to fight it. We probably should.
Maybe Kevin should, too. ;-)
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
chris
@Another Scott:
So… you’re not paying attention? No disrespect meant, you’re far from alone.
Duane
@Shana: Also telling, any form of “believe.”
Brachiator
@Calouste:
Well, “Sucks Arse” instead of “Sucks Ass”.
But I quibble.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
No, some random commenter named Les wrote:
And then he got jumped on and hilarity ensued.
But, goddamn, I will say that finding that quote was a compelling argument for no nested comments evah. Not only do you have to mash “Load more comments” at the bottom of the page multiple times, you have to mash “See more” for each and every little nested subthread that gets “too long”—21 times, by my count. Nothing so simple as “Search for ‘Balloon Juice.'”
And no comment numbers. Ngrr!
ETA: Jumped on about football, not about calling us third string intellects, let’s get that straight.
Another Scott
@chris: See #82.
What are you, yourself, doing?
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack
@Just One More Canuck:
Trudeau is “centre.” In that horribly formatted tweet it’s flag, name, position.
Jay
Jay
Just One More Canuck
@Steeplejack: I looked at the original tweet after I commented and tried to edit my comment. FYWP marked as spam, so it went poof
Rob Massing
“Mr. President, why are you the best president in the history of all people being the best at something?”
Jay
J R in WV
@Baud:
No football threads here anymore, even we know it’s a violent despicable game, er, racket. But if he knows that, he must be a visitor here, right?
Who made him visit a third string blog like this, anyways?!?!!
John Revolta
@germy: @Brachiator: Guy’s a troll. I’ve never seen him around there………..maybe once. Fuckem.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Yarrow:
Johnston is unconsciously thinking of one of the great parliamentary put-downs, from 1978, when Denis Healey described a criticism of himself as “like being savaged by a dead sheep”. He is probably not even aware that he is telling everyone about the cowering lick-spittle harmlessness of his ‘criticism’.
Uncle Cosmo
@Brachiator: IMO the appropriate term for Grease-Smogg is fop. Rhymes with “flop.”.
chris
@Another Scott: Sorry I’m late, life intervened.
My carbon footprint is large because I burn 5-6 tons of wood every year but I’d rather do that than use oil or the coal-fired electricity we have here. I drive a 10 year old car about 6,000 miles a year and may give that up in the not too distant future. Not because I want to but because I won’t be able to afford it. I’m in the $400 club, one of the many who can’t come up with $400 for an emergency. There isn’t much more I can give up for the planet except eating and my pets and that will happen soon enough.
Another Scott
@chris: As you no doubt know, your fossil carbon footprint is pretty small (the CO2 from burning trees is CO2, but trees get recycled whether they’re burned or not (they’re part of the natural carbon cycle). Smaller than ours. ;-)
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack:
This is a mortal insult. We Jackals are second-string intellects at the very least.
chris
@Another Scott: The sad part is that I have always tried to live lightly on the Earth and I don’t think it has made a damn bit of a difference. But I applaud your efforts, I know far too many people in denial and many more in plain ignorance.
Steeplejack
@Amir Khalid:
Agreed!
2liberal
@germy:
if you look at the responses the commenter is described as a louis ck defender and in general doesn’t get a positive response. adam , cheryl and the healthcare guy seem to have some pretty good public intellectual chops IMHO