It’s just like when people insisted that Covid was a manufactured bioweapon that leaked from a Wuhan lab, and people pushed back hard saying that it was clearly not man-made. Then when there is some evidence that suggests that it might have been leaked from a lab (where they were studying existing viruses), the conspiracy theorists say, “See, we were right all along!!!” Even though the lab leak portion wasn’t what people were objecting to. It’s the same bullshit.
One thing that should be noted is that there’s still various calls for the “laptop to be returned”, because the FBI took it and, if only it was still out there, the right-wing media could find the evidence against Hunter.
All of the information has been copied. The New York Post has a copy, Giuliani has a copy, the Washington Post has a copy, you can probably find a variety of copies across the Internet (though, it would be difficult to know if you have the “official” version).
There’s nothing stopping anyone from looking through the thing for something damning. The FBI is not in the way.
I did. At least, I objected to the notion that this particular was abandoned by Hunter Biden at a two-bit repair store that happened to be owned by a Trumper. I don’t know how much I actually got involved in those discussions to know if I used weasel words, but I will cop to having to move the goalposts when new evidence came out confirming that it was his laptop.
Now it’s the chain of custody and the implied criminal activity (without evidence) that are a problem. But it’s not a good look to have to pivot like this. And my only defense (and other Dopers Buck_Godot is referring to) is that the story was so stupid that it felt entirely safe to reject it with some degree of confidence. Whoops!
This is a bit different, in that in the lab-leak situation, it’s easy enough to say “there’s no evidence one way or another.” But as I describe above, I think we (the dope) went beyond that in rejecting the Hunter Biden laptop as being really his.
It certainly didn’t take long for Margorie Taylor Greene to find what was of most interest to her.
I think it was entirely justified to question if the laptop even existed when the story broke, particularly given who was claiming to be in possession of it, and the sketchiness of how they claimed to get their hands on it. But from the beginning, there were multiple levels of fact that needed to be established before this turned into an actual story:
- Does the laptop exist?
- Can it be proven to be Hunter Biden’s?
- Can you prove that no one has tampered with the contents?
- Do the contents contain any evidence of crimes?
- Can any of those crimes be connected to Joe Biden?
The first two questions ended up being answered in the affirmative, but even before we had that information that the answer to question 3 was a resounding “no,” which makes any consideration of 4 or 5 moot.
Count me in as another that early on accepted that it was likely that it was Hunter Biden’s laptop. What happened then was something that the Republicans and the Right-Wing media turned into an art form: Just like with Hillary Clinton and the “Climategate” emails. Innuendo and willful misrepresentation of what the emails said is very profitable for them. And many on the right are very gullible regarding that email “evidence.”
Hunter’s emails are getting the same treatment.
I think Miller has it here. When the news broke, I found it, while not impossible, extremely unlikely for points one and two to be the case, but wasn’t 100% sure. And for a properly skeptical public, it was a pretty extraordinary claim, which of course requires substantial evidence. Which was NOT forthcoming in any timely fashion, and the cagey way they played how and why they got it, increased the skepticism.
If I say I found Trump’s personal cellphone that he left at the Thai restaurant down the street when he visited two years ago, you’d also (I assume) think I was a crank until proven otherwise.
As for the other 3 of Miller’s points, yeah, don’t need to say any more than they already did.
Totally agree, but if this sounds familiar:
“The laptop doesn’t even exist!”
“OK, it exists, but it’s not Hunter Biden’s!”
“OK, it’s Hunter Biden’s, but it’s not unmolested!”
It seems like we stopped there, but… phew.
Like I said, not a good look. I’m not sure I would have done anything differently, though.
I think it was more like:
“Does the laptop even exist?”, which is a reasonable question, considering the sources.
“O.K., it exists, but is it actually Hunter Biden’s?”, another reasonable question.
“O.K., it’s Hunter Biden’s, but considering who has had it, can it be shown to be unmolested?”, a damn reasonable question considering the sources and the hands it has been through.
Nothing wrong with how this looks at all.
I think, in general, the “mainstream media” and most Dopers handled the laptop properly – as a non-story. It’s not a story that Hunter has a laptop (whether true or not). Not a story that a laptop that might be his has porn on it. Not a story that there are pictures of Hunter doing drugs (which was already public knowledge). Not a story that random idiots and known liars like Giuliani are claiming with zero evidence that there are emails or documents on the laptop that indicate criminal behavior.
The only newsworthy aspect of the laptop stuff is that Giuliani and other right-wing liars are deliberately and publicly lying about it for political purposes. And even that is barely more than a dog-bites-man story.
You have to wonder, though, why there is nothing incriminating on the laptop given who has had possession of the hard drive. Not only have they found nothing interesting, they haven’t planted anything interesting either.
Maybe those that possess it do not think they are capable of planting stuff that will stand up to scrutiny by computer experts? As long as they have possession they can claim anything they want.
As I noted, that is a feature, there is no need to plant anything, the misinterpretations and lack of context of the messages posted by the right wing, leads the gullible to follow what the right wing media will tell them about what those email say in “their reality”.
The purpose of the laptop nonsense wasn’t to put Hunter in jail, it was to politically damage the President. So they didn’t really need to put anything more than vague allusions to criminality. Anything more than that might backfire because it could be proven to be false.
More importantly - Do I give a fuck?
“Intolerant”? Of open racists and transphobes? Fuck off with that bullshit!
I personally think that it is unlikely that the contents had been significantly altered by Giuliani or anyone else on that side. Not because they couldn’t/wouldn’t but just because if they had they would have planted something actually pointed to the culpability of Joe Biden in a vast conspiracy. We would have had an email from Joe himself saying “Don’t worry about Shokin, I’ll take care of him personally, Burisma is in the clear! Just put the money in the usual account.”. Instead all we have are various allusions to “the big guy” as part of a perfectly legal deal that didn’t actually happen.
The common hypothesis at the time was that the Russians had hacked Hunter and downloaded a bunch of his personal data. Mixed that personal data with breadcrumbs of incriminating false stories. Planted the laptop at a known stooge who was in on the conspiracy and timed the leak to just close enough to the election where the salacious stories would come out but before people could fact check them.
That was what motivated the extreme response from all parties involved to suppress the story because if that hypothesis was true, the US needed a playbook to be able to counter it or it would be a devastating vulnerability in national security. It later turned out that the Russians had no involvement but that wasn’t something that was ascertainable at the time.
I don’t think we can say that with certainty at this point.
That can happen, but it’s not what I think of when someone mentions “piling on”. When someone states an unpopular opinion, there will likely be a dozen different posters disagreeing with it.
The thing is, I think that hurts the argument of those that are piling on. The OP (offending poster) probably won’t reply to everybody who takes him to task. He can pick and choose the weakest, least-supported posts and reply to them, making it seem like the idea is defensible, but it’s really just the low-hanging fruit.
Don’t ask for any examples, but I’ve been in threads where interesting ideas were brought up, but people pick the trivial aspect to debunk, and the most difficult, most interesting issues get dropped.
And also when that happens, everyone complains about threads devolving into the “so and so” show.