McMaster has mostly been very careful not to put himself out on a limb, but his comments today tied him a little more tightly to Trump. I hope he knows what he's doing. He's one of the few guys in that admin we need in there.
Soooo . . . Trump leaked highly classified intel to Russian Foreign Minister . . .
- Thread starter Sope Creek
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Please, the WaPo was in Obama's back pocket. Again, with things like Journolist (started by employee Ezra Klein and leading to resignation of David Weigel...who came back five years later), why would I not think that people colluding by email to give favorable coverage to the Obama administration are not defacto mouth pieces of the Democrats.
Again, I am not as strident as Ladoga on this but I think I have plenty available to me to throw a weary eye at the Washington Post (among others) when it comes to their reportage.
The bloody Administration asked WaPo to withhold key items, who the country was, the city where the laptop was coming from. If these fake news ass-clowns can't wrap their minuscule minds around the fact the Administration asked for this, Allah have mercy on them.
WaPo got two significant stories wrong in the last couple of weeks both of which it tried to showcase as big scoops.
Good Lord, dude. I'm not saying it is gospel. But at least the paper has journalistic standards. Fox is nothing but talking points (with a few oft-repeated exceptions). All you can do is think in terms of left and right. This is more than that. This is integrity vs. partisan hackery.
This is what is unfortunate about right wing media - it instills an inherent distrust of any news or media that strays from its message or could be deemed unfavorable to right wing politicians/leaders. Trump screaming 'FAKE NEWS' at anything he didn't like only exasperated the issue and gave people like Rush Limbaugh, most the people at Fox News and Alex Jones license to scream it too.
If/when Trump actually does something that is deemed impeachable by common sense journalists and legislators, I'll bet dollars to donuts that there will be right wingers who blame the liberal, mainstream media for trying to take him down.
Limbaugh's latest is that this is payback from Bezos for threatening Amazon with anti-trust measures.
You realize that Klein was a columnist and blogger....not an investigative reporter, and that there is a major distinction.
This thread is mostly a left wing snark fest. But I have a couple of comments that I don't think have been covered. (I haven't read every post and I post these coments knowing that goat will post a criticism if I am repeating a previous point)
First, what's up with "former U.S. officials" cited as a source for this story?How in the hell does a former official know anything about this meeting without participating in criminal activity about trafficking in secret material? Further, why is his, or more likely her, identify kept secret? Is it because the former official might have a well documented history of lying?
Second,
The officials declined to identify the ally but said it has previously voiced frustration with Washington’s inability to safeguard sensitive information related to Iraq and Syria.
This looks like the ally in question had similar issues with the Obama administration. Trump talking out of turn, if that is what happened, is not a new issue.
Finally, I don't think we know what Trump said. Whether it was by design. Whether it was careless. Or whether it is a nothingburger because McMaster said Trump didn't know the city where the intel originated and if Trump mentioned a city, It would be a coincidence. We do know that WaPo gets a lot of Trump stuff wrong.
So your response is LEAKS!, OBAMA!, and FAKE NEWS!
You realize that hard journalists were part of the emailing list as well and my point was that the idea originated with a guy employed by the WaPo.
No. My response is CHICKENSHIT ANYOMOUS SOURCES; CREDIBILITY; AND SELECTIVE OUTRAGE.
Oh for **** sake. My distrust of the WaPo is completely separate from this issue. I already said Trump releasing info was dangerously dumb.
I get my info from all different sources because, despite what you may think, they are all terribly biased and you have to read both sides and see if you can discern truth from propaganda from there.
So what? That's irrelevant. You used the fact that Klein (a well known liberal policy pundit) worked at WaPo to impugn the entire publication as being of questionable integrity.
When did anonymous sources become such a controversial thing? I mean, you think stories about big, controversial, or sensitive topics are going to plaster the names of their sources everywhere? This isn't anything new.
Anyone leaking classified info to reporters is going to be anonymous, because, you know....it's not exactly legal. That's how things work. But you know that. And a multitude of media sources have gone and confirmed the general story, through their own sources. Because, well, that's how journalists work their sources. DC reporting has always been based on confidential sources.
As to the validity of it....as we've already noted in this thread, Erick Erickson has confirmed he knows one of the sources.
http://theresurgent.com/i-know-one-of-the-sources/
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Or is it RATIONALIZATION, COGNITIVE DISSONANCE; and BLIND PARTISANSHIP
Yes, I do. I question them the same way you question Fox. It speaks to the culture at the paper. Just like people use Bill O'Reilly to impugn all of Fox News or lump Sean Hannity together with Bret Baier even though they hold different roles at Fox.
I am not saying that everything the WaPo publishes is a fabrication. I am saying that I trust them no more than anyone else without seeing some corroboration from other sources. Anyone reading or viewing everything from one side without questioning is the moron, not the person who questions it all.
Edit: And I want to add that this is separate from this particular story. Info was apparently shared and that may have been problematic given what we are hearing. I do not trust that we are getting a true version of events from the administration either.
Or is it because it is Melania and she's afraid Donald will hit her? Or is it because it is an extraterrestrial that has taken control of Sean Spicer's body and is cautiously planning another sequel to Independence Day that it doesn't want revealed for fear that Jeff Goldblum might not be available? I mean, if we are going to speculate, let's speculate.
Or maybe it's just as the leftist, George Soros-funded Washington Post and Erick Erickson noted...that somebody inside the administration has concerns about the situation.
McMaster saying Trump did not know the source of the intel. I can believe that. Still - that does not mean that he should just reveal the intel on an impulse. Sometimes Presidents share intel, even with Russia, but they make sure of the impact and wisdom of doing so before they actually reveal it. If necessary, they hedge their words.
So Trump didn't know the source. Big Deal. It appears that the concern is that anyone who knows anything about intel can figure the source out based upon the information that was shared.
McMaster needs to be careful here.
So Trump didn't know the source. Big Deal. It appears that the concern is that anyone who knows anything about intel can figure the source out based upon the information that was shared.
McMaster needs to be careful here.
Huh. WaPo cited "former U.S. officials" as a source in the very first sentence. I suspect the authors did this to try to establish some gravitas to their story. One has to wonder why the former official is such a chickenshit that he or she didn't want to lend their name to this latest Trump bust. The likely answer is the individual doesn't want to have to answer questions or otherwise be cross examined about their views. That tells all of us something about credibility.
If you are going to respond to me, you must pay attention. I am talking about the "former U.S. official". Not a current official.
All it tells us is that we don't know enough about the source to know how to assess the source's credibility. Nothing more.
The former official most likely verified the nature of the material, not the original conversation.
Your answers are in the original article if you chose to read it while doing something other than misplacing your focus and speculating with your Trump blinders on. Here are the money sections:
“It is all kind of shocking,” said a former senior U.S. official who is close to current administration officials."
and
“Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive, and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling,” said a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official who also worked closely with members of the Trump national security team. He and others spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject."
Now maybe they maintain anonymity because they are congenital liars. Maybe it's because they have a gigantic purple growth on their forehead and they feel awkward about appearing in photographs. Maybe it's because Rikki-Tikki-Tavi secretly likes cobras.
Or maybe it's because the former official doesn't want to compromise the current officials whom they are close with.
It's like when grandpa goes out for a gallon of milk, and ends up in St. Louis. He may or may not have broken any laws, but it's time to take the keys away. We can tell him Mikey got a new job and needs to borrow the Lincoln. And while we're transitioning, let's make sure we monitor who grandpa talks to. Cousin Vlad might try to swindle grandpa out of the farm.
Or maybe the former official knows he or she committed a crime. I can understand the whistleblower consideration if a current official. The former official looks like anti-Trump busy body.
Maybe. But there is no logical reason for the former official to hide behind anonymity unless he or she doesn't want to answer questions.
Who cares? It's much more interesting to me that unfriendly forces now know the source of highly classified information for no apparent reason.
Or maybe it's Baron Trump and he's worried about losing his allowance. Or maybe it's the family cat and it is worried that it's catnip will be taken away. Or maybe...
Only to someone who looks like this:
Possibly. Also possible that the former official doesn't want their access to information cut off once they unwisely reveal themselvs. Intelligence flows based on the originators trust in the receivers discretion. I'm trying to think of a recent news-worthy example of this but am coming up blank.
True...if only we could come up with an example where someone revealed sensitive information in a way that compromised the trust of the source of that information. That would be a really helpful comparison.
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