Senior administration official blasts Trump in anonymous NYT op-ed

[Maj. Bill Martin]

I believe Rule 12 and Rule 40 invalidates your assertion.

First, Trump was an antiestalishment candidate who won despite those rules - Rule 40 was in effect since 2012, and Rule 12 is purely procedural..  If you're going to claim those rules would prevent a conservative (anti-establishment or otherwise) from doing the same as Trump, you're going to have to explain how Trump managed it, but a conservative can't..

Second, what Rule 40 basically does is boost candidates who win a plurality of convention delegates in primaries and caucuses  if you.don't win 8 states, you can't be nominated at the Convention
Why can't a conservative win a lousy 8 states?

Now, if the response to that is "well, there aren't enough conservative primary voters to give a conservative a pluraility", then the problem isn't the system at all.  It's that a conservative can't convince enough people to vote for him/her.

I didn't vote for Trump in the primary, and was desperately hoping that a true conservative would catch fire with voters.  But it didn't happen.  Best guy was Cruz, but the truth is that a lot of people just don't like how he comes across - he was perceived as lacking the personal charm of a guy like Reagan.

But hey, find a conservative candidate who has that charm, and they likely win the nomination. Of course, if the Dems have stacked the electorate with illegals...it won't matter who the GOP nominates.

[Bigun]

The New York Times Anonymous Op-ed Pushes Electoral Sabotage

http://thefederalist.com/2018/09/06/new-york-times-anonymous-op-ed-pushes-electoral-sabotage/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=16cf2c076a-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-16cf2c076a-83773485

[Maj. Bill Martin]

The New York Times Anonymous Op-ed Pushes Electoral Sabotage

http://thefederalist.com/2018/09/06/new-york-times-anonymous-op-ed-pushes-electoral-sabotage/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=16cf2c076a-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-16cf2c076a-83773485

That is easily the best thing I've seen written about this whole thing, obviously including my own drivel.  I hope people take the time to read it.

[TomSea]

The left-wing dominated media has slammed conservatives really since Nixon.

The Vietnam war was started by Johnson/Kennedy but it's when Nixon enters the picture is the left overly rotten.

In 1976, I saw Rolling Stone newspaper and their cartoons of the Republican candidates way back then and I never picked up another issue practically to read..... I did get their George Harrison tribute but otherwise,  practically nothing.

[GrouchoTex]

John Barron wrote the op-ed.

[TomSea]

Sometimes, there are counter-ops, this sure takes the light off of the Woodward book.... though, it may well be too awful to call it a counter operation.

Some say, that during the campaign, those pictures of Melania came out to offset other stories in the press.

But, my first reaction was both the Woodward story and this story came out at the same time as a 1-2 punch.

[txradioguy]

I had forgotten some of that stuff @txradioguy.  Wow, the media was horrible to Reagan and totally petty but without the power they have today to do even worse to Trump.

@Emjay


I've followed politics almost since I was aware of what was going on back in the Watergate Days.  I guess I've been a political wonk since I could walk thanks to my mom.

It's a blessing and a curse I guess.  But I remember well how the media excoriated Reagan and his family.

The difference between then and now...and why I say Trump doesn't have it as hard as Reagan did...is that there wasn't a Fox News...there wasn't Talk Radio...Limbaugh and Levin et al or CRTV to counter what the MSM put out.

When Reagan took office the MSM had a stranglehold on public opinion and what "news" was.  What people knew they know ONLY via Cronkite...Brinkley and Chancellor at 5:30pm every night...or via wire stories from AP and the bigger newspapers like the NY Times Washington Post...Boston Globe or the LA Times.

All we had to counter them was the relatively handful of people that read The Weekly Standard (I still remember the TV ads with Tom Selleck) and Bill Buckley's magazine National Review.


Today look at all we have out there to counter the MSM narrative.

In reality the MSM is weaker than it was in the 80's...which is why they get more and more desperate to control things and more outrageous in their actions.

[Bigun]

That is easily the best thing I've seen written about this whole thing, obviously including my own drivel.  I hope people take the time to read it.

@Maj. Bill Martin

I agree!  It would be very difficult to make the case any better IMHO.

[TomSea]

Whodunit: Cracking the case of the anonymous NYT oped

...

The very nature of writing anonymously as a senior administration official is that one wants their words to have impact. What kind of person uses terms such as “hellbent,” “effective deregulation,” “unsung heroes,” “country first,” "lodestar" and “allied, like-minded nations?”

“Like-minded” appears twice. Who uses “like-minded”? We Googled “like-minded” and “Trump” and found only one recent instance where an administration official was quoted using this term. Reuters says on March 15, 2018 that a “senior US Treasury official” said the administration would work with “like-minded” countries.


Next we looked at “hell-bent.” Another word you don’t usually use in normal conversation. But “hell-bent” turns up in relation to Trump often used by right wing writers who support the president: “Liberals are hell-bent,” “Bannon is hell-bent,” or “hell-bent on imposing multiculturalism.” But it’s used on the other side of the aisle also. “The Trump administration appears hell-bent on being the most destructive Presidential administration in the history of the nation,” Derrick Johnson of the NAACP said in September 2017.

https://www.jpost.com/International/Whodunit-Cracking-the-case-of-the-anonymous-NYT-oped-566677

[edpc]

The person using ‘lodestar’ in a sentence should be easy to find.  Just look for the Texan with a cold.

[Emjay]

First, Trump was an antiestalishment candidate who won despite those rules - Rule 40 was in effect since 2012, and Rule 12 is purely procedural..  If you're going to claim those rules would prevent a conservative (anti-establishment or otherwise) from doing the same as Trump, you're going to have to explain how Trump managed it, but a conservative can't..

Second, what Rule 40 basically does is boost candidates who win a plurality of convention delegates in primaries and caucuses  if you.don't win 8 states, you can't be nominated at the Convention
Why can't a conservative win a lousy 8 states?

Now, if the response to that is "well, there aren't enough conservative primary voters to give a conservative a pluraility", then the problem isn't the system at all.  It's that a conservative can't convince enough people to vote for him/her.

I didn't vote for Trump in the primary, and was desperately hoping that a true conservative would catch fire with voters.  But it didn't happen.  Best guy was Cruz, but the truth is that a lot of people just don't like how he comes across - he was perceived as lacking the personal charm of a guy like Reagan.

But hey, find a conservative candidate who has that charm, and they likely win the nomination. Of course, if the Dems have stacked the electorate with illegals...it won't matter who the GOP nominates.

Interesting, @Maj. Bill Martin.  Thanks for knowing so much and articulating it so well.

I was also for Cruz in the primaries and I think there were a few reasons he didn't win besides his perceived lack of charm.  One reason was that he was relatively new on the national scene and Trump was a household name.  It's sad but a lot of people just vote for a name they know unless it's Mickey Mouse.

Another was that Trump had a huge core of voters that were passionate about him.  That's a pretty good base to build on.

I do not understand people who think Cruz is without charm.  I have seen him in speeches, town hall meetings and one on ones.  He is loaded with charm although his intelligence and encyclopedic knowledge may put some less secure people off.

[XenaLee]

The person using ‘lodestar’ in a sentence should be easy to find.  Just look for the Texan with a cold.

I have a cold.  I'm a Texan.  Does that count?   

[Emjay]

That's fun stuff but I don't see anything there that raises a red flag with me as original or unusual enough to denote any particular scribe.

[TomSea]

Pence has used "lodestar" a number of times per the article.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/msn/as-donald-trump-seethes-mike-pence-and-others-deny-writing-critical-lodestar/ar-BBMWWXY

[TomSea]

That's why the essay could be somehow contrived... to throw people off track.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

I would suggest the possibility that part of the NYT's effort to protect the author's anonymity included some stylistic edits by the NYT itself specifically designed to throw off writing-style analysis. In other words...that entire analysis may be chasing a red herring.

They may be partisan hacks, but they're not entirely stupid.

[Emjay]

@Emjay


I've followed politics almost since I was aware of what was going on back in the Watergate Days.  I guess I've been a political wonk since I could walk thanks to my mom.

It's a blessing and a curse I guess.  But I remember well how the media excoriated Reagan and his family.

The difference between then and now...and why I say Trump doesn't have it as hard as Reagan did...is that there wasn't a Fox News...there wasn't Talk Radio...Limbaugh and Levin et al or CRTV to counter what the MSM put out.

When Reagan took office the MSM had a stranglehold on public opinion and what "news" was.  What people knew they know ONLY via Cronkite...Brinkley and Chancellor at 5:30pm every night...or via wire stories from AP and the bigger newspapers like the NY Times Washington Post...Boston Globe or the LA Times.

All we had to counter them was the relatively handful of people that read The Weekly Standard (I still remember the TV ads with Tom Selleck) and Bill Buckley's magazine National Review.


Today look at all we have out there to counter the MSM narrative.

In reality the MSM is weaker than it was in the 80's...which is why they get more and more desperate to control things and more outrageous in their actions.

There's truth to what you say.  There is more media and it is more ruthless and relentless but its very proliferation dilutes its effect a bit.

Also, besides Fox News and talk radio, we have a lot of ways now for individuals to speak out like Twitter, Facebook and various public forums.

I just log onto Yahoo everyday because there I will see the very worst the media can dig up for the day.  Example:  their lead story two days ago was about Kavanaugh supposedly snubbing the Parkland Dad and, of course, they never corrected it.

[XenaLee]

There's truth to what you say.  There is more media and it is more ruthless and relentless but its very proliferation dilutes its effect a bit.

Also, besides Fox News and talk radio, we have a lot of ways now for individuals to speak out like Twitter, Facebook and various public forums.

I just log onto Yahoo everyday because there I will see the very worst the media can dig up for the day.  Example:  their lead story two days ago was about Kavanaugh supposedly snubbing the Parkland Dad and, of course, they never corrected it.

And today their lead story is that the emails Booker released contradict Kavanaugh's Roe vs. Wade comments in the hearing.  It doesn't contradict a damned thing, but that's what they're lying about today.

I've been using Yahoo for as long as I can remember (decades)... but now I am seriously considering ending that, along with my Facebook account.

[skeeter]

He was a B movie actor...he was senile...he was just reading lines from a script like when he was in Hollywood...he was a Cowboy that was gonna start WWIII.

Bobo the Chimp was smarter than he was.

Dems doing grip and grins with Daniel Ortega.

Ted Kennedy openly trying to get a meeting with the Soviets to help defeat Reagan in 1984.

The whole BS fantasy about George HW Bush flying in an SR-71 to London on the eve on the election to negotiate with the Iranian Mullahs to wait on the release of the hostages until after the election.

Nancy was mocked for the new china she bought for the state dinners because the other stuff wasn't even worthy of a homeless shelter it was so worn and chipped.

Oh and lets not forget the theory that was floated and reported on in the MSM that because Reagan's first middle and last names each contained 6 letters he was the second coming of the Devil himself.

So no it wasn't just Sam Donaldson shouting questions that "Raygun Ronnie" had to go through.

Yeah I remember all that too. Its a matter of opinion.

Mine is there has been nothing like the flat lies and insults we're seeing from the news media today.

[txradioguy]

Yeah I remember all that too. Its a matter of opinion.

Mine is there has been nothing like the flat lies and insults we're seeing from the news media today.

Dan Rather would disagree with you.

[Timothy Dennis]

Just more blather from the Deep State, (err, make that "Steady State"--"new and improved") which is an admission of the entrenched leftist bureaucracy that they are hell-bent on undermining the Trump presidency. The liberals would have us have a president who says "all the right things" and knows what a salad fork is; smiles on cue, all the while selling out this nation with a smile on his face.

[aligncare]

Yeah I remember all that too. Its a matter of opinion.

Mine is there has been nothing like the flat lies and insults we're seeing from the news media today.

+1

When I heard Rushbo for the first time in the late eighties I was astounded by what he was saying regarding a leftward media bias. I was young and politically naive so I had never noticed anything like a media double standard.

But, today, 2018, it’s impossible to miss it. Especially since Trump’s election two years ago when Trump got them to lower their masks and reveal their true nature.

[txradioguy]

+1

When I heard Rushbo for the first time in the late eighties I was astounded by what he was saying regarding a leftward media bias. I was young and politically naive so I had never noticed anything like a media double standard.

But, today, 2018, it’s impossible to miss it. Especially since Trump’s election two years ago when Trump got them to lower their masks and reveal their true nature.

Yeah 2016 ripped the mask off of naked bias on both sides of the broadcast aisle.

[Hoodat]

But there's never been anything like the unprecedented hatred this president receives from the legacy media. Its probably because there are other voices available now that weren't there when Reagan was president thats driven them over the edge.

A big reason is because Trump used to be one of them.  They don't take kindly to those who suddenly develop critical thinking skills and abandon the plantation.

[skeeter]

+1

When I heard Rushbo for the first time in the late eighties I was astounded by what he was saying regarding a leftward media bias. I was young and politically naive so I had never noticed anything like a media double standard.

But, today, 2018, it’s impossible to miss it. Especially since Trump’s election two years ago when Trump got them to lower their masks and reveal their true nature.

During the Reagan administration it was considered bad form for anyone prominent to even acknowledge a media bias. We all knew it was there but you were might be called a whiner if you complained.

For a little perspective...

! No longer available