|
Post by Amadan on Mar 4, 2017 14:25:53 GMT -5
Anyway, yes I feel myself becoming more partisan since the election, because the Democrats have been going nuts over any and every little thing in a concerted attempt to bring down Trump any way they can, fairly or not. And lucky them, they have the majority of the mainstream news media more than happy to help in this effort. This is an actual strategy, and anyone who doesn't see this is not looking very hard. Did Nancy Pelosi or Chuck "No More Tears" Schumer ever call for Clinton to step down after it was revealed she lied multiple times to congress about her emails? There's a lot of hypocrisy there. And we don't even know if Sessions actually lied. I happen to think he answered the question he thought pertained to meeting with Russia as a surrogate of Trump. I do not think he willfully lied about this. He met with many ambassadors of other countries during his work in the Armed Services Committee. One source I read said over 20. That was part of his job. The Dems are trying to lump this together with the Russia conspiracy, and I don't agree they should. As I said before, the Russia thing is important to get to the bottom of. And Sessions should recuse himself. But at this point I don't believe Sessions had any election related contact with the Russians, and I believe he was answering the question he thought he was being asked. Here's a question for you all -- why wasn't Al Franken more precise when he asked his question? I agree that most of the media hates Trump and is eager to point out his shortcomings. Unfortunately, the fact is that he makes it very, very easy for them to do so. And he has made it clear he hates the media back. I think you're wrong in thinking there is some grand conspiracy to bring down Trump "by any means possible." What there is is a President who has made it clear that if he had the power to do so, he would shut down all media that isn't on his side. Unsurprisingly, this has made them even more adversarial. You should regard that as a good thing, since the alternative is a media that rolls over and faithfully reports only what Trump would like. I have to think on some level you would disapprove of that even if you really, really like Trump. About BiasI actually don't really care if the media is "biased" - there is no singular "media" entity, there are only hundreds of different media institutions, all of them with biases. Some are more partisan than others - Mother Jones, the National Review, Salon, the American Spectator, those are all media outlets who make their biases very clear up front. And they are still part of the media and they can do good reporting even if we know what position they are coming from. One of the reasons that FOX and MSNBC (and then, to a lesser extent, all the other Big Media groups from the Washington Post to CNN) get a lot of flak, maybe even more than the blatantly partisan rags like Salon and NR, is that they try to maintain a pretense of being unbiased even when it's very clear they have taken a side. But even that, I don't really care about except when they actually say untrue things. I think people make too much of "media bias," as if the purpose of newspapers and television stations is to report objective facts without any discernible opinions or biases. But that's never been what they do. They have an obligation to make sure that the things they report are (so far as they can determine) true. But even if not overtly inserting their opinions into what they report, the choice of what to report on or what not to report on is still always going to slant the news in a particular direction, no matter how much any journalist tries to be "objective." So if CNN has decided they hate Trump and every single one of their stories is a negative hit piece on Trump... well, that would tell you that CNN is very biased against Trump. But it doesn't mean the things they are reporting aren't true! You can argue that it's "unfair" that all they do is report negatively on Trump, and if the media market becomes narrower so that there are few alternatives to CNN to get your news, this would be more cause for concern. But I don't think CNN has any more obligation to be fair or friendly to Trump than FOX had to be fair or friendly to Obama. Sure, it would be nice if major news outlets tried harder to be objective, but ultimately it's up to us to pick out where biases and angles lie. All I really demand of them is that they not lie. In the meantime, I try to pick out news sources that I think will report in a reasonably comprehensive and even-handed manner. Sometimes that requires a lot of trawling. But back to your questions about Clinton and Al Franken et al - that all falls into the category of "Yeah, but what about X?" If we're talking about how bad Trump is or isn't, it doesn't matter how bad someone else is or isn't. If Hillary Clinton is a big fat liar, it doesn't make Trump less of a big fat liar. Maybe you think it makes me "biased," and my opinions suspect, if I seem more concerned about Trump's big fat lies than Clinton's, but it doesn't get you off the hook for defending Trump. Personally, I care more about Trump than Clinton because Trump is President and Clinton isn't. I don't know why Al Franken wasn't "more precise" with his question, but it seems to me there are any number of ways he could have asked it and any number of ways Sessions could have answered it, but absent good faith, we'd still arrive at the same place.
|
|
|
Post by Optimus on Mar 4, 2017 14:59:14 GMT -5
I'm not setting you up, I think my intended point was fairly obvious. I didn't recall whether you were one of the people bewailing Clinton being "influenced" by foreign donors, but many GOPers (and Trump supporters especially) certainly were, and your cavalier attitude towards Trump and his close advisors being so cozy with Russia strikes me as suspicious. As for Clinton and the email server, you know how I feel about that, but likewise, a senior government official not disclosing contacts with a foreign power? Especially Russia? That is a national security issue. My point, to make it unambiguous, is that you have a pattern of going "pooh pooh" about Republican misdeeds that you would certainly not pooh pooh if Democrats were doing the same thing. Being partisan is natural and all of us do it to an extent - I try to be relentlessly honest and even-handed because I dislike hypocrisy and double standards, but at times I probably am more critical of people I dislike than of people I like. But you, celaw, habitually see everything Trump through rose-colored glasses, and while I am not asking or expecting you to change your mind about him, I am asking you to please consider, when you defend Republicans or criticize Democrats, whether you are making a snap judgment that you would make differently if the parties were reversed. Oh, that's funny - I just clicked on "like" for your post above when I meant to quote it. Anyway, yes I feel myself becoming more partisan since the election, because the Democrats have been going nuts over any and every little thing in a concerted attempt to bring down Trump any way they can, fairly or not. Did you also feel yourself becoming more partisan 8 years ago when the Repubs did the same thing to Obama (with McConnell stating that Congress's goal was to make Obama a "one term President), but didn't actually have any legitimate reasons for it? Or, was your current "something probably happened, but going after him is stupid" attitude more of a "nothing has actually happened, but going after him is totally fine" one back then?
|
|
|
Post by celawson on Mar 4, 2017 16:30:52 GMT -5
Anyway, yes I feel myself becoming more partisan since the election, because the Democrats have been going nuts over any and every little thing in a concerted attempt to bring down Trump any way they can, fairly or not. And lucky them, they have the majority of the mainstream news media more than happy to help in this effort. This is an actual strategy, and anyone who doesn't see this is not looking very hard. Did Nancy Pelosi or Chuck "No More Tears" Schumer ever call for Clinton to step down after it was revealed she lied multiple times to congress about her emails? There's a lot of hypocrisy there. And we don't even know if Sessions actually lied. I happen to think he answered the question he thought pertained to meeting with Russia as a surrogate of Trump. I do not think he willfully lied about this. He met with many ambassadors of other countries during his work in the Armed Services Committee. One source I read said over 20. That was part of his job. The Dems are trying to lump this together with the Russia conspiracy, and I don't agree they should. As I said before, the Russia thing is important to get to the bottom of. And Sessions should recuse himself. But at this point I don't believe Sessions had any election related contact with the Russians, and I believe he was answering the question he thought he was being asked. Here's a question for you all -- why wasn't Al Franken more precise when he asked his question? I agree that most of the media hates Trump and is eager to point out his shortcomings. Unfortunately, the fact is that he makes it very, very easy for them to do so. And he has made it clear he hates the media back. I think you're wrong in thinking there is some grand conspiracy to bring down Trump "by any means possible." What there is is a President who has made it clear that if he had the power to do so, he would shut down all media that isn't on his side. Unsurprisingly, this has made them even more adversarial. You should regard that as a good thing, since the alternative is a media that rolls over and faithfully reports only what Trump would like. I have to think on some level you would disapprove of that even if you really, really like Trump. About BiasI actually don't really care if the media is "biased" - there is no singular "media" entity, there are only hundreds of different media institutions, all of them with biases. Some are more partisan than others - Mother Jones, the National Review, Salon, the American Spectator, those are all media outlets who make their biases very clear up front. And they are still part of the media and they can do good reporting even if we know what position they are coming from. One of the reasons that FOX and MSNBC (and then, to a lesser extent, all the other Big Media groups from the Washington Post to CNN) get a lot of flak, maybe even more than the blatantly partisan rags like Salon and NR, is that they try to maintain a pretense of being unbiased even when it's very clear they have taken a side. But even that, I don't really care about except when they actually say untrue things. I think people make too much of "media bias," as if the purpose of newspapers and television stations is to report objective facts without any discernible opinions or biases. But that's never been what they do. They have an obligation to make sure that the things they report are (so far as they can determine) true. But even if not overtly inserting their opinions into what they report, the choice of what to report on or what not to report on is still always going to slant the news in a particular direction, no matter how much any journalist tries to be "objective." So if CNN has decided they hate Trump and every single one of their stories is a negative hit piece on Trump... well, that would tell you that CNN is very biased against Trump. But it doesn't mean the things they are reporting aren't true! You can argue that it's "unfair" that all they do is report negatively on Trump, and if the media market becomes narrower so that there are few alternatives to CNN to get your news, this would be more cause for concern. But I don't think CNN has any more obligation to be fair or friendly to Trump than FOX had to be fair or friendly to Obama. Sure, it would be nice if major news outlets tried harder to be objective, but ultimately it's up to us to pick out where biases and angles lie. All I really demand of them is that they not lie. In the meantime, I try to pick out news sources that I think will report in a reasonably comprehensive and even-handed manner. Sometimes that requires a lot of trawling. But back to your questions about Clinton and Al Franken et al - that all falls into the category of "Yeah, but what about X?" If we're talking about how bad Trump is or isn't, it doesn't matter how bad someone else is or isn't. If Hillary Clinton is a big fat liar, it doesn't make Trump less of a big fat liar. Maybe you think it makes me "biased," and my opinions suspect, if I seem more concerned about Trump's big fat lies than Clinton's, but it doesn't get you off the hook for defending Trump. Personally, I care more about Trump than Clinton because Trump is President and Clinton isn't. I don't know why Al Franken wasn't "more precise" with his question, but it seems to me there are any number of ways he could have asked it and any number of ways Sessions could have answered it, but absent good faith, we'd still arrive at the same place. I actually like this post a lot, Amadan. The thing is, I WILL agree with taking someone down when they deserve it. And I'm not blindly fangirling Trump. There are things he does and has done that I hate. But...I strongly think our country will be better with most of Trump's policies than Hillary's, and I like many of the people he's put in place, so I want his administration to succeed. I don't like smear campaigns against people who don't deserve them. I didn't think Sessions deserved to be called a racist, and I found that smear campaign pretty rotten and disingenuous. And I don't think he deserves to be accused of perjury here nor to be asked to resign. This is separate from Trump. And this is separate from the Russian conspiracy concern. And I think the Dems are conflating Sessions' answer with both of those things on purpose. I will gladly change my tune if any EVIDENCE comes up against Sessions (or Flynn for that matter). Right now, to me, it's just a lot of speculation.
|
|
|
Post by nighttimer on Mar 9, 2017 10:59:15 GMT -5
The thing is, I WILL agree with taking someone down when they deserve it. And I'm not blindly fangirling Trump. There are things he does and has done that I hate. But...I strongly think our country will be better with most of Trump's policies than Hillary's, and I like many of the people he's put in place, so I want his administration to succeed. I don't like smear campaigns against people who don't deserve them. I didn't think Sessions deserved to be called a racist, and I found that smear campaign pretty rotten and disingenuous. And I don't think he deserves to be accused of perjury here nor to be asked to resign. This is separate from Trump. And this is separate from the Russian conspiracy concern. And I think the Dems are conflating Sessions' answer with both of those things on purpose. I will gladly change my tune if any EVIDENCE comes up against Sessions (or Flynn for that matter). Right now, to me, it's just a lot of speculation. Jeff Sessions is a racist POS and that's why Coretta Scott King wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee telling them how much of a racist he was. Given a choice between believing Mrs. King and Jeff Sessions is no choice at all. Sessions lied to Congress about his contacts with the Russians. That's not the Dems conflating a thing. That's your standard denial of Republican racism and malfesiance. Change your tune or don't. EVIDENCE doesn't seem to be enough to move the needle for Trumpettes. Blind faith gets them where they need to be.
|
|