Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/04/07/dan-rather-the-number-of-pres.html
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Dan Rather: The number of press praising Trump's Syria air strikes “as 'presidential' is concerning”
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War always gives the press a great big boner. When the bodies of the kids start coming home, every single journalist was opposed to the war all along. Integrity is so rare.
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i am so loving this contract-free, internet empowered, zero-fucks Dan Rather. he’s like, “ok, younger media people, take notes: THIS is how journalism should be working.”
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I suppose it could be called presidential in some sense. I mean, opportunistic, petulant, aggressive and with prior Russian collusion isn’t exactly unpresidented for 45.
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It’s weird. I distinctly remember Rather endorsing Bush Sr on the CBS Evening News (maybe he was just serving his corporate masters) but he has always seemed to have a much more liberal slant in interviews I’ve seen of him.
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To save time I’ll just quote myself from the missile strike thread:
It was so predictable and aggravating: calling him “Presidential” for launching an airstrike, not giving a damn about whether it was effective in preventing the deplorable activity that supposedly inspired it for more than a week or two. These lazy starf*ckers might as well call him “erudite” for having launched his university, or a “gourmet” for selling repackaged sub-par steaks. Even after they were called out for their part in allowing a known grifter to become POTUS, the MSM pundits are back to their old habits.
Ted Koppel has also been great in this way lately.
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Extremely.
“That day he became a President!”
What the FUCK?
How broken do you have to be?
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There is no question that there are problems in syria. For a lot of people doing something is better than doing nothing. So Grump’s attack looks good from that perspective.
But, we should remember that for all the shit he got about his “red line” statement, Assad stopped gassing people without Obama taking military action. Putin got the credit for it, but regardless of how it happened, Obama got the results he needed.
Its hard not to see Grump’s ass-kissing of Putin as anything but emboldening to Assad to do shit like this. Its not clear if the attack will change anything.
Also, do not forget this:
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The part that bus me is didn’t Obama do the same thing a bit back and they were calling for his head?
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Context is everything. The is the President of the USA.
So bombing someone is presidential as fuck.
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If I was a cynical person I’d say the bombing was (in part) a way for him to establish that he is his own man in light of the ongoing investigations around Russian involvement with the Trump election team/administration, even may be distract people from it.
If I was a cynical person.
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I spoke too soon. Looks like jets are already using the ‘bombed’ runways.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-airport-idUSKBN1792XA
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You have to have brain damage, or something. Maybe you huffed a bunch of paint as a kid.
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Bush Sr was the only Republican presidential candidate since Eisenhower who wasn’t devotedly crazy/stupid/evil. Perhaps he was attempting to toilet train the GOP.
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Dan Rather has no credibility. In his latest book, Rather Outspoken, he includes an image titled “as a young Marine” But he never finished boot camp, and was never awarded the USMC insignia. He knows he was never a Marine.
" 
http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=71252
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To be fair, given the actions of the last few presidents, bombing a country for maximum political gains is one of the defining features of acting “presidentially”.
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Out of curiosity, what if the Russians launched a few cruise missiles at the airbase from which the US planes took off that recently killed 130 people at a mosque in Mosul?
Trump is insanely reckless. He seems to be sleepwalking into a major conflict over places he couldn’t find on a map and religious and social conflicts beyond his - or Kushner’s - abilities to comprehend. And the media approve, because conflict sells eyeballs and advertising space.
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