Maybe he was saving it from September-October to increase the effect on the American election?

Let’s be real here. He saved it to increase the effect on his book sales.

Right now the attack ads seem to focus on his attacks on military servicemen, but IMO, the way Trump deliberately let the pandemic run free, especially in blue states, for political reasons, should be the #1 thing for his opponents to use against him. It may even top every single other vile and idiotic things he has said and done.

Use the contradicting statements from Trump. Use the quote from Kushner that fighting the pandemic "wouldn't make sense politically". Use the way Trump has taken little action, and even outright sabotaged the US' ability to fight the virus, both before and after there even was a pandemic beginning to spread, and both before and after it reached the States.

I always knew that Trump, if faced with a real disaster like, say, the Cuban missile crisis, would not be up to the task. In fact this was my #1 nightmare scenario with Trump since November 2016. Covid proved me right, although I couldn't in my wildest dreams imagine he would botch it this badly.

That might be true for a lot of authors. But Bob Woodward doesn't need to do anything to boost his sales. One reason for not releasing tapes prematurely is to be able to keep talking to Trump and to other officials, getting more information that ultimately serves us. A lot of doors would have slammed shut the minute a tape was released.

Bob Woodward is a sensationalist journalist. That’s not to say that he’s all bad, but he doesn’t do these books for idealistic reasons.

Frankly, I think one of the reasons he’s releasing recordings is that his credibility has at times been reasonably questioned.

Since he insisted it be so and the dozens-to-hundreds of people legally and ethically obligated to stop him from doing so all quietly capitulated.

If nobody is willing to defend words on a page, then they are just words on a page.

Frankly, downplaying a pandemic, knowing it will kill people (there's no nicer way to put it), is the kind of thing I expect some colonial-era European or American regime to do to some backwater country they care nothing about.

It reminds me of those tapes in the Burns-Novick documentary on Viet Nam, where one of the hawks in the presidential race (I forgot who it was), talked about how he was working to convince South Viet Nam to walk out of peace negotiations with the north, not for their own good, but because a peace treaty in 'Nam would ruin his chances of winning the presidential election back home.

So again, the kind of thing I expect from decades or centuries back, and in other parts of the world. It's surreal that Trump was/is doing it in 2020, and to his own country.

Trump was nominated for it in 2018 as well. He lost.

Nixon, wasn't it?

“The President never downplayed the virus.” -Kayleigh McEnany

“I wanted to always play it down.” -President Donald Trump

Who knows how many people would have died if we had a full-on panic. This requires steady, calm, assured leadership. People freaked out in Germany and Western Europe, and look at how many died. Those countries are now ravaged by civil unrest. It's worse than the Bowling Green Massacre.

Ah, I almost spit coffee on my monitor. Thanks for a classic Cain. :D

Trump Tweets

I will be announcing a list of future potential Supreme Court Justices at 3:30 P.M. Eastern from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House.

The first part was practically boilerplate. But the finish. Now that’s writing.

Of course it was. Imagine how different America would have been over the past half-century if Hubert Humphrey had won the election.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...e-talks-107623

I remember Bob's first Trump book "fear" was, IMO, rather tame in the criticism of Trump, mostly as someone in way over his head.

I hope Woodward is not longer giving Trump a mulligan on this one.

What is that supposed to mean? Going back to Watergate, Woodward has demonstrated a unique ability to uncover and report facts that the powerful would conceal. That's what a journalist is supposed to do. One of the great failings of modern journalism is that too many journalists see themselves as stenographers or scorekeepers, rather than advocates for truth.

It doesn't take much of anything to get nominated. There's a huuuuuge list of people that can nominate. Being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize isn't any more impressive than your mother telling you that you're a handsome boy.

It's been canceled by the divisiveness and hatred he's fomented within his own country.

I'm sure Lincoln Project will have some interesting ads coming from this.

Funny, this is precisely something of which Woodward has been accused, especially during the W. Bush administration.

Judge Roy Bean
Judge Judy Sheindlin
Judge Jeanine Pirro

I know stubby Mcbonespurs is trying to whip up his own base, but that seems like it has a chance to backfire.

Most of the MAGAchuds won't know the names, but having a list may give his opponents plenty of ammunition. (With all sorts of dirt uncovered on them.)

One of the reasons Trump is losing suburban women was his nomination of Drunky Mcrapeface... Why drag that up again unnecessarily?

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What's that about? Is he hovering over RBG's hospital bed or something?

You have a point I hadn't considered.

I agree that his vivid response was Trump's greatest failure. But I am not sure it is the best way to attack him. MAGAchuds lack both empathy and intelligence, so pointing out how trump let the blue states suffer from Covid19 is just as likely to result in a "ha ha! He is really owning the libs!" Than it is to make them change their vote.

But point out trump hates the military? Well that may get at least some to consider changing their vote (or at least sitting out the next election).


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It's even better: Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton are on the list.

If that doesn't get out the vote for Biden, nothing will.

Q: "Did you mislead the public?"

President Trump: "Well, I think if you said in order to reduce panic, perhaps that's so. The fact is, I'm a cheerleader for this country. I love our country and I don't want people to be frightened. I don't want to create panic."

https://twitter.com/cspan/status/130...448751106?s=19

Also Trump:

Attachment 43031

https://twitter.com/pbump/status/130...304046080?s=19

You've got to be ***** kidding me!

"Speaking from the Diplomatic Reception room of the White House, the president read off a list of names including Daniel Cameron, the Kentucky attorney general who recently spoke at the Republican Convention, as well as Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Josh Hawley of Missouri."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tru...-list-20-names

They both went to Harvard Law, as did five of the current Supreme Court justices. That probably makes Cruz and Cotton qualified, at least technically. The other four all went to Yale. I would like to see President Biden -- or anyone -- make a commitment to broaden the search for candidates.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...aking-experts/

Correct. Woodward's interest in the information is clearly only in the shock value as a mechanism for driving attention to his book. If he simply thought releasing the material was in the public interest, he would have done so long before nearly 200,000 Americans died.

Okay.

Is there any credibility to that accusation?

"People are saying..." isn't really all that authoritative.

5D trolling.

Wow.
https://media1.giphy.com/media/Qaf7G...H33/source.gif

Christopher Hitchens said it about Woodward in 1996.

You'll have to evaluate for yourself the credibility of the accusation and perhaps decide for yourself if access journalism is a problem.

In any case, I have not made any claims about Woodward's reporting accuracy. I certainly can't fault him for getting Trump to speak on the record, especially for getting him to contradict his own lies. Although Trump is obviously, abysmally stupid, Woodward's ability to get him talking is still admirable.

This article leads me to the impression that Hitchens disagrees with Woodward on many things.

Nothing in it strikes me as substantiating the claim made.

It read as a whiny, bitter diatribe.

You've uncritically repeated an accusation you heard. That Woodward is a "stenographer."

Think about that...

I said the accusation had been made, yes. I was correct and I apologize for that. I'll try to fix the problem in the future.

Like I said, "people are saying" is a useless addition to the discussion.

Except for the folks in the suburbs, who need to be frightened of all those "other" folks coming to invade.