I’ve always suspected Lady Bracknell of something.
Dan Rather: The number of press praising Trump's Syria air strikes “as 'presidential' is concerning”
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Ah, but modern education produces no effect whatsoever, so I fear it shall prove no danger.
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I remember that time. I was twelve at the time, and I recall that I was jolted to political awareness by news footage of my congressman in a fistfight with the Chicago police on the floor of the convention - it may have been the exact altercation you mention. My Republican parents were hard put to explain the situation at a twelve-year-old level. Their explanation was basically that even politicians can’t get away with dissing the cops… but the followup of, “whom do the cops work for? Are they ever responsible for their actions? Can they just take over the government?” was not something they were prepared to discuss.
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Actually, in this case it doesn’t:
“The role of the press is to ask hard questions. There is ample evidence that this Administration needs to face deep scrutiny.”
That is true, regardless of the scrutiny that the speaker of these words deserves.
Trump’s attack has been generally praised by the west (not just US media), but a few days later it looks like the results weren’t “good”. The targetted airfield was back in use after a day and Syria’s strongest allies have said to increase their support of Assad’s regime. So, yes, it is of vast importance that the media stops giving Trump praise for this and ask some serious questions. It is not up to the media to call Trump presidential, or to praise him, it is their job to question every move he makes especially if those moves are militairy (this, by the way, is important regardless of who is president).
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I can think of a few reasons why big, creaking news corps would trumpet this move. Chief amoung them being that war correspondence is one of the few areas of reporting left where their size and infrastructure is a true competitive advantage.
If they bootlick enough up front, they can get themselves embedded and send footage home nightly. Bloggers can’t compete with that. Plus in war they can get away just playing the footage, and don’t have to dig deep into it to find a story, or risk their market friendly " balanced" appearance in order to be of value.
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The role of the press should be to ask hard questions of everyone in politics. I agree that this administration need to be scrutinized. But Dan Rather is also not one who should be advising the Press or the President or anyone else how to act.
The point of the attack, as I understand it, was akin to “counting coup”. They are supposed to have destroyed 20 fixed wing aircraft. But the largest effect of the attack is to tell Assad that we are willing to do more than just issue a strongly worded statement. That we can and will hit him anywhere we want, at any time. And there is nothing he can do about it.
Doolittle’s attack on Tokyo did no serious damage to Japan. It was expensive and cost American lives, but we counted coup on mainland Japan.
I personally think it would be terrible to kill Assad or push him from power. And if we are to decline to intervene at all, we should not make idle threats about “lines in the sand”.
They should have said 20% of operational fixed wing aircraft. But still, a spanking.
For a moment, I thought you meant ornithopters instead of helicopters.
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That would be cool. Or autogyros. Or better still-
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Push the button Max…
Sorry couldn’t resist.
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I don’t pretend to be an expert on the situation in Syria. It is a vastly complex situation that involves many different parties, each with different reasons for being part of this war. Therefore, you can’t simply “count coup”, because any move will push around hundreds of pieces on the board. In this case Trump’s attack did some (slight) damage to Assad, but with many different side effects and one has to question if the blunt show of force is worth these side effects (especially when those side effects include possibly strengthening the position of IS).
So, again, regardless of Dan Rather’s history, he is right to point out that the media needs to be much harder in its questioning of Trump’s actions. And to be honest, it is needed since very few people in the media are currently asking Trump any actual questions.
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He is and was. Do tell: are you pissy just because Rather included an image of himself wearing Marine Corps dress uniform? Do you deny he enlisted in the Marine Corps? From WP:
In 1954, Rather enlisted in the United States Marine Corps but was soon discharged because he had rheumatic fever as a child.
Well GOD-DAYUM the nerve of that liar! Lemme guess: you’re still upset Rather reported about Dubbya’s being a useless deployment-dodging fuck in the TX ANG, right?
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If he did not graduate boot camp, he cannot call himself a Marine. If someone washes out in the first semester of med school. they cannot later call themselves a doctor. Even if they have a picture of themselves in a lab coat. The fact that he did so indicates a serious character flaw. That may not mean anything to you, it is a big deal to me.
I am not upset about the scandal with GWB’s military service. But I think there is some irony that Rather lost his job over that, and is now making false claims about his own military service.
The authenticity of the documents he sourced in connection to Dubbya were questioned but never disproved; and is Rather now making the claim that he “was a Marine in every sense of the word”? I didn’t see that in the OP (because it’s not there). @JamesBean has the right take:
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Here, then, have somebody else saying the exact same thing:
Is two enough for you to consider the actual point, or do you have some ad hominem reason to ignore Krugman too? Because I’m sure I can find more people arguing the same, but not sure I can find one that somebody motivated couldn’t find any fault with.
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POLICY! Whatever… that’s for nerds! /s
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Fascinating. I did not know that.
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Krugman seems to be very knowledgeable in the area of Economics.
Personally, I doubt that the missile attack was something that Trump came up with on his own. Certainly he approved it. But much of the dialog I am reading seems to be based on the idea that anything associated with Trump must be mocked or dismissed. To do otherwise would be heresy. Had President Obama blew up 20% of Assad’s fixed wing aircraft for crossing the “line” with the use of chemical weapons against civilians, the reaction would almost certainly be different.
In my experience, doing something, even something largely symbolic, is far better than making threats, then backing up one’s threats with nothing. if you have children, you will learn this lesson quickly. If you say that there will be consequences for something, you had better follow through, or you lose all credibility.
