The New York Times - They're even more evil now

Rainbow, or unicorn?  When Biden took office, his most important goal was to erase Trump, not fight a pandemic, not to lead a nation, nor, as the Afghanistan debacle demonstrated, to make strategic deals with our enemies. This article reveals what many observers have noted — Biden has way too many advisors, pulling his puppet strings, a fact which has been documented over the 12 months.

Yesterday, Biden spoke forcefully about Donald Trump —  if only he could channel that energy on all the multiple issues on his presidential plate! But, I guess his handlers will get him under control — it is in their best interests to do so. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/us/politics/former-biden-advisers-pandemic-strategy.html


mtierney said:

... This article reveals what many observers have noted — Biden has way too many advisors, pulling his puppet strings, a fact which has been documented over the 12 months. ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/us/politics/former-biden-advisers-pandemic-strategy.html

I think "former Biden advisors" means that they don't work for him any more. They were on the transition.

The real criticism in the article comes from former Trump officials.  Quelle surprise.


mtierney said:

Rainbow, or unicorn?  When Biden took office, his most important goal was to erase Trump, not fight a pandemic, not to lead a nation, nor, as the Afghanistan debacle demonstrated, to make strategic deals with our enemies. This article reveals what many observers have noted — Biden has way too many advisors, pulling his puppet strings, a fact which has been documented over the 12 months.

Yesterday, Biden spoke forcefully about Donald Trump —  if only he could channel that energy on all the multiple issues on his presidential plate! But, I guess his handlers will get him under control — it is in their best interests to do so. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/us/politics/former-biden-advisers-pandemic-strategy.html

I'd like to hear your defense of Trump's actions, since you seem to think Biden was out of line in criticizing him.


mtierney said:

Rainbow, or unicorn?  When Biden took office, his most important goal was to erase Trump, not fight a pandemic, not to lead a nation, nor, as the Afghanistan debacle demonstrated, to make strategic deals with our enemies. This article reveals what many observers have noted — Biden has way too many advisors, pulling his puppet strings, a fact which has been documented over the 12 months.

Yesterday, Biden spoke forcefully about Donald Trump —  if only he could channel that energy on all the multiple issues on his presidential plate! But, I guess his handlers will get him under control — it is in their best interests to do so. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/us/politics/former-biden-advisers-pandemic-strategy.html

There are many strange and incorrect thoughts in this post, but the one I find most interesting is the talking point about "too many advisors".

Where does this come from? It's so weird. 


So now this nonsense is in another thread.


STANV said:

So now this nonsense is in another thread.

apparently mtierney believes anything published in the NY Times belongs in this thread.


mtierney said:

Rainbow, or unicorn?  When Biden took office, his most important goal was to erase Trump, not fight a pandemic, not to lead a nation, nor, as the Afghanistan debacle demonstrated, to make strategic deals with our enemies. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/us/politics/former-biden-advisers-pandemic-strategy.html

You may recall that the Afghanistan deal was struck by your false messiah.  I suppose Biden could have reneged on that deal.  Then you would be complain about U.S. service members dying in Taliban attacks.  Do you want me to map this out for you with crayons?

More generally, Biden's primary goal was to restored decency to the Presidency after 4 years of middle school shenanigans by, again, your false messiah.



Smedley said:

New Year, New Chart!

Hot take -- when asked, most people will claim to care about the vertical axis, but when observed, their media habits will suggest they care more about the horizontal one.


if anyone cares to visit the Ad Fontes site, you'll find that there's a wide disparity for an individual news source.  For example, this is the distribution of articles Ad Fontes analyzed from the NY Times. 

Even though the mean NYT article is on the left side of the chart, there are an awful lot of articles that line up under "Middle or Balanced Bias".  And that's the bias that some of us have been taking issue with -- the desire to compare two "sides" of an issue and present them in the name of "balance" as if they are the same.

All in all, I'm not sure an analysis like this sheds all that much light on the bias of one source versus another.  I doubt every one of the articles analyzed is the same in importance or influence, but they appear to be treated as if they are all equivalent (perhaps a "balance bias"?).


I find myself chuckling as well as groaning each time one of these charts is posted : they’re so cluttered and so small they’re nigh on meaningless even when enlarged. 
A quick comment on Smedley’s, just in passing, given some of the other publications plotted thereon I’m rather disappointed that The Shovel and Crikey are missing. 
(How can autocorrect not recognise ‘thereon’ as a conjoined word??)


joanne said:


(How can autocorrect not recognise ‘thereon’ as a conjoined word??)

“Because it’s misspelled?”


DaveSchmidt said:

“Because it’s misspelled?”

she was great in Bob's Hell


Not according to Oxford. How do you spell it? (Serious query - never knew there’s a difference) Also my dictionary is set to UK

DaveSchmidt said:

joanne said:


(How can autocorrect not recognise ‘thereon’ as a conjoined word??)

“Because it’s misspelled?”


joanne said:

Not according to Oxford. How do you spell it? (Serious query - never knew there’s a difference) Also my dictionary is set to UK

DaveSchmidt said:

joanne said:


(How can autocorrect not recognise ‘thereon’ as a conjoined word??)

“Because it’s misspelled?”

I think you missed the joke grin


ml1 said:

I think you missed the joke
grin

I wouldn’t say she missed it, Bob.


the people interviewed all voted for Obama and Trump.

i.e. the stupidest voters in America. Why are they printing their opinions?


Stupid people vote. Therefore their "opinions" count.


Why are they so stupid? Because their views don't match yours?

I love the smell of intolerance in the morning. 


Smedley said:

Why are they so stupid? Because their views don't match yours?

I love the smell of intolerance in the morning. 

How much do you value the opinion of someone who decided they could vote for Obama, and then vote for Trump?

One problem is, there are people like that out there. I suppose it's important to find out why anyone would do that.


Smedley said:

Why are they so stupid? Because their views don't match yours?

I love the smell of intolerance in the morning. 

What are their views? If they voted for Obama should we assume they supported his policies or thought he was the right choice to lead the country?

If they voted for Trump is it because they believed they were duped by Obama who might not even have been born in the USA or because they changed their views on policies?

Are we to be "tolerant" of every point of view? 


Must I tolerate the views of a person who voted for Obama in 2012 because they oppose having a President of the Mormon Religion or who voted for Trump in 2020 because they oppose having a President of the Catholic Religion? There are such people however few they may be in number.

Can I call a voter stupid if he does not know that Romney is a Mormon or Biden is a Catholic? 


nohero said:

How much do you value the opinion of someone who decided they could vote for Obama, and then vote for Trump?

As much as I value a window on anything I don’t understand.

STANV said:

Are we to be "tolerant" of every point of view?

Before I decide not to tolerate something, I like to understand it. If you already understand these voters (or don’t find interviews like this one enlightening), then that Opinion piece isn’t for you.


"stupid" is an oversimplification.  But it's probably not incorrect to conclude that anyone who voted for Obama and Trump is probably some combination of ill-informed, irrational, and lacking a well-formed set of ideas about the role of government.  And add in that they probably aren't very aware of what a president's actual role is, and what a president realistically can and cannot do.


ml1 said:

"stupid" is an oversimplification.  But it's probably not incorrect to conclude that anyone who voted for Obama and Trump is probably some combination of ill-informed, irrational, and lacking a well-formed set of ideas about the role of government.  And add in that they probably aren't very aware of what a president's actual role is, and what a president realistically can and cannot do.

And the solution, IMO, is to make sure that not only they vote, but that as many Americans as possible vote. I think it far more likely that a broader sampling of voters will dampen ill-informed, irrational ideas than any attempt to try and restrict voting to the well-informed and rational (not that you yourself were actually suggesting voting restrictions).

I think the other major missing piece is that the feedback loop between who wins office and people tying that to results in their lives is too long. Winning elections should be empower the winners to carry out the ideas they ran on, so that voters can more immediately and realistically decide if their winning power was good or bad. There are too many veto points in our system (from the federal level, like the filibuster, to the local level, like a small group of people able to veto new housing, etc).


A lot of people lie on polls. A lot of people are ignorant of politics in general. A lot of people vote for the person perceived to be the winner by the polls. There are a lot of stupid Americans. Put it all together, and we have this mess we’re in today. 


DaveSchmidt said:

nohero said:

How much do you value the opinion of someone who decided they could vote for Obama, and then vote for Trump?

As much as I value a window on anything I don’t understand.

STANV said:

Are we to be "tolerant" of every point of view?

Before I decide not to tolerate something, I like to understand it. If you already understand these voters (or don’t find interviews like this one enlightening), then that Opinion piece isn’t for you.

what can possibly be enlightening about the opinions of these voters, except to let us know what kind of stupidity exists within the electorate?

these people are not understandable. There is no logic or reason to their beliefs. They are not reachable by political campaigns. Their voting decisions are essentially random.

The only thing that might possibly be useful to know is how many of them there are. But a piece like this doesn't tell us that.


Smedley said:

Why are they so stupid? Because their views don't match yours?

I love the smell of intolerance in the morning. 

why are they so stupid?

If you have to ask that, I can't explain it.

and be careful - you're starting to sound like mt.


This is a group i'm very interested in, so will read the article. 

At a guess:  In 2008, Obama was "Hope and Change," right?  And a lot of people really needed those, after a few decades of voodoo economics.  But then over the course of Obama's 8 years, for starters: (1) the wing nuts got hold of his "difference," and (2) there were predictable problems getting Obamacare started.  (Any big new program is going to need tweaks, and iirc he no longer had the congressional majorities, and of course the GQP has been the Party of No for ages.)  So then along comes Trump, who promises the best health care plan ever, and speaks in terms "they" can understand, and with the simplicity and repetition of a polished con, about how "they" have been disregarded and disrespected by the "elites" (and reading this thread, you can see he/they have a point there), and he's going to fix all that (never mind that he has no ideas, just promises).  And bingo.  Now to go actually read the article and see if any of this is true...

eta: Not to lump all BHO-->TFG voters together.  The above is just one path that seems plausible to me.

eta: So okay, having read the article, i see that it's looking at the present situation while my response is about past actions.  Oops. But i'll let my response stand, because i do think these are people the D's need to understand and appeal to (these are Obama voters, so not unreachable), for the sake of winning in 2022/24, and for the sake of the country.


In order to add a comment – you must Join this community – Click here to do so.