03-03-2017, 06:33 AM
(03-02-2017, 05:52 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: NYT, Ellen Pao, radical rewrites, none of that rings a bell?
Yes, and over-zealous analysis in pursuit of an edgy story is bad journalism. My referenced story covered that too. The question: is this just a case of pushing the envelope or more a case of creating something out of whole cloth. Spinning is a lot less egregious than outright lying, and that seems to be the state of the alt-press ... to say nothing of social media news, which is not only unsourced but totally unhinged.
SomeGuy Wrote:I think a halfway competent lawyer could argue that that question was whether he had communications with the government in his capacity as a campaign surrogate, not in his day job as a member of the Senate Armed Forces committee.
But I'm not a lawyer either, so I will let them fight it out if that is the direction they choose to go with it.
This is politics, and he handed them a sledgehammer to beat him with, to misquote a poorly worded anecdote. FWIW, he gets the same consideration any other lawyer would get. He's expected to know the law in great detail, and this was an exercise in stupidity only matched by Bill Clinton's denial of carnal relations.
SomeGuy Wrote:What? The partisanship is stupid, on both sides, but that's not what I was talking about. I am more concerned with the popular hysteria, particularly in the political/media class, over Russia. A couple of cranks on an obscure message board is merely comical, the same beliefs among our senior political leadership and their mouthpieces in the press could lead to actual, no-bullshit Great Power war.
Which would be bad.
The intel community is united in their analysis. The Russians interfered in our election, and did so with some degree of success. Elections are underway in France, and both Italy and Germany are coming soon. What's the right answer if not to raise an alarm. In normal times, subtlety might work just fine, but these are far from normal times. I don't see the Russians pushing this to the point of open war with NATO, because they are already weak economically and don't need the massive drain a large war would entail.
That segments of our society are coming unglued has deeper roots than this. With a uniquely loose cannon at the top and the dispersed rumor mongering (see above), we're at risk. Is this worse than the Red Scare period of the 1950s? Arguable. We were war weary then and are again, but this time, we lack a huge base of veterans with direct experience of war. So yes, it's scary.
Still, are the PTB ready to start the draft, because that's going to be part of any large war. I don't see the Millennials going quietly to their doom, nor do I see parents investing their sons and daughters in a war, unless Russia invades an ally ... at a minimum. Putin sees a losing effort there, so we may be better off than we think.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.