Foxnews finally has the Russia/Trump story on their front page, with a completely unbiased article titled:
“Media refuse to believe Trump’s Russia comments were sarcastic”
What they don’t get is that it doesn’t matter whether the comments were sarcastic or were meant to be serious. Most people know they were not meant seriously! The comments were reckless, ill-advised, and demonstrate an embarrassingly cavalier attitude about foreign policy that would enrage FoxNews-types into frothing calls for imprisonment if Obama or Clinton had made them.
Fodder for a different thread, but why were they reckless, etc.? On the one hand I get that saying that he might break treaties or see if an attacked-NATO country is current with its obligations before intervening in the face of a Russian invasion. Same with suggesting he’d toy with defaulting in order to get a better bargaining position. These are statements that could very well end lives and decimate markets.
But as reprehensible as the email comment was, particularly given that few actually take them seriously, what is the potential harm? I’m referring to self-defined ‘real’ harm like the above pair of examples. Looking bad, being a mockery, etc., are perception harms, but a different class of ill than something reckless and ill-advised. He knows his supporters are all “fuck political correctness and fuck namby-pamby diplomatic speak and fuck Hillary!” with the comments, and knows that if Russia could do anything they would not be waiting to hear from him. If they do already have the information, his comments would do little to sway their decision to release it. I can’t imagine his comments at this juncture/topic factoring into any intelligence decision (or intelligent decision, but that’s a different topic too).
I could be mistaken (hence this is a real question, not a rhetorical one), but how do his comments play out in terms of actual effects? Could he be learning from his past mistakes and smartly shifting to more inconsequential blather?
Eric Bolling: it was the Bush administration who took down Osama Bin Laden, not the Obama administration.
He’s right.
Bush let Bin Laden wander free all those years so Obama could go after him.
Bush was just giving Obama Affirmative Action - he knew Obama could never manage the job on his own.
And how did Obama thank them ? By letting 9/11 happen on his watch !
“President publicly requests worse version of watergate” is slightly more newsworthy than “Police acquitted in murder” is not exactly a difficult opinion to hold.
Tough shit. The president does not get to make jokes like that. Jokes based around doing something incredibly stupid and destructive are not funny coming from someone with that much power. The president especially does not get to make jokes like that in an unclear, “I’m joking, unless you agree, in which case I’m serious” tone, much in the manner one might proposition a close female friend for sex.
Indeed - such jokes have consequences, and someone who would be President should know that. Remember Reagan’s “We begin bombing in five minutes” joke accidentally caught on mike? Funny stuff, right? No one would take that seriously, right? Well, no one except the actual Russian military, who were not laughing.
You and I and davida03801 have the freedom to tell stupid jokes and be immature assholes on the internet if we so desire because (as far as I know) none of us wield any particular power and we can all be safely ignored. When the guy who wants to be responsible for international diplomatic and military relations with the entire world says something that suggests he’s allied with one of the country’s greatest opponents, even in jest, ignoring it could have devastating effects for generations to come.
Will it? Probably not. But how do you like the odds?
Never tell me the odds! Except if you’re telling me the Odds are making another album.
Don’t overlook the fact that he was talking to a room full of reporters, who then questioned him about that statement - did he REALLY just encourage a foreign country to infiltrate the US State Department? If you say something that’s a joke, and people question you about whether you were joking, you don’t then continue with the joke. Trump did not back down from the statement when questioned.
Fox News apparently didn’t air the speech by the father of the Muslim soldier who died serving overseas – you know, the one about what’s in the Constitution, and how men in uniform have earned medals by sacrificing their lives for this country – to instead air comments about how speakers at the DNC convention just aren’t talking about using our military to preserve our nation against threats and thus and such.
It was also a FACT that these headlines (among many others) were on the front page instead of the “Trump-Russian thing”:
Police: Pennsylvania bridal shop co-owner stood naked in store window
Band of monkeys raid Thai polling place
Suspect accused of beating turtle to death with hammer claims self-defense
Is it not a fact that the “Trump-Russian thing” is more important than these stories? Would you really argue that the reason that they didn’t have this story on their front page is because they didn’t have room for it?
I thought it was funny.
(But then, I have a twisted sense of humour.)
Gee, and the Russian military were usually so happy-go-lucky.
Fox sure has taken a great interest in weather this morning - the floods around Baltimore (which happened several days ago) and the Big Sur wildfire (which has been burning for a week.) They didn’t have much to say about these events before, but damn, their weather crews are working overtime this AM.
Funny that the lead story on every other news network is something else entirely.
Well half of 'em were fucked up on antifreeze at the time, so, yeah, they mostly were 
And to really make that an apt comparison, imagine if Reagan had then been questioned about the comments, whether he was serious, and he confirmed that yes, he was.
That would be the equivalent of what Trump did.
Regarding the Trump-Khan story, which has been a top story everywhere else for two days and for good reason, I’ve located it on the FoxNews.com website. Not the top story, but at least within the first column of second-tier stories. See how it jumps out at you?
You can’t say their ignoring how the Khan story is distracting from Clinton’s “spat” with “Benghazi mom.”