Performing an Autopsy on The Atlantic Expose Reveals the Anatomy of a Manufactured Scandal
Okay, we’re calling it — time of death, 17:15pm EST.
A holiday weekend, and the media’s desire to resuscitate in the press ICU, meant this goner lingered for a while. But all attempts to keep this scandal on life support have now failed and we can say this thing has officially flat-lined.
It took little time for the White House to come out with documents from that French trip in 2018. Those papers showed that it was not a vain President but the Secret Service who had determined that bad weather would preclude a Presidential visit. This was a detail that was known and reported back in 2018. In addition, the military-hating President did attend a cemetery ceremony the following day, on November 11. Yet here was Goldberg delivering a completely different version of events, and presenting it as scandalous.
One detail that is revealing about the media is that in light of this factual error blasting the claims out of the water the other portion of the story was fiercely defended. Very little has been made of the provably wrong details made by Goldberg, and instead of discrediting the rest of his report the press has instead fought desperately to insist the quotes attributed to Trump are ironclad. Goldberg had nothing but anonymous contacts insisting that Trump said these things, but this, as we know, is to be treated as gospel in journalist circles.
Since then others have come forward to dispute these reports of Trump’s disparaging remarks, with a unique difference — they have gone on the record with their rebuttals. John Bolton, who is clearly no fan of the President, has come forward to declare he was present during the trip and he never heard such comments from the man.
Few people were in attendance of the brief meeting regarding the trip, and General John Kelly was the one to bring up the danger due to weather. Kelly has not said anything about Trump’s comments, but his assistant, Zach Fuentes was also in said meeting and has come forward to declare Trump never said these things. Further, he declared that his former boss Kelly would not have tolerated this. “I did not hear POTUS call anyone losers when I told him about the weather. Honestly, do you think General Kelly would have stood by and let ANYONE call fallen Marines losers?”
Also going on the record saying these quotes never happened were other members of the administration who were in attendance that day; Jordan Karem, Derek Lyons, Stephen Miller and the US Ambassador to France, Jaime McCourt. This is a rousing thumping of this report from Goldberg and The Atlantic.
One final flailing effort can be seen in the Washington Post. This morning Aaron Blake was desperately performing CPR on the story. ”First, it’s worth noting that “I did not hear” is not the same as “it didn’t happen.” It’s admittedly difficult to offer a full denial unless you were with Trump the entire time, but many of the denials have been in this vein, which technically allows that the comments might have transpired while the deniers were out of earshot.’’
This is the level the press has resorted to on the matter. They no longer have facts and witness testimony to rely upon for a proven story, so the fallback is essentially saying, ”Well…none of this completely disproves in might not have happened…’’ So we are now in the age of reporting on rumors, and it is up to others to disprove the negative, as reported in the mainstream press.
Okay, we’re calling it — time of death, 17:15pm EST.
A holiday weekend, and the media’s desire to resuscitate in the press ICU, meant this goner lingered for a while. But all attempts to keep this scandal on life support have now failed and we can say this thing has officially flat-lined.
It took little time for the White House to come out with documents from that French trip in 2018. Those papers showed that it was not a vain President but the Secret Service who had determined that bad weather would preclude a Presidential visit. This was a detail that was known and reported back in 2018. In addition, the military-hating President did attend a cemetery ceremony the following day, on November 11. Yet here was Goldberg delivering a completely different version of events, and presenting it as scandalous.
One detail that is revealing about the media is that in light of this factual error blasting the claims out of the water the other portion of the story was fiercely defended. Very little has been made of the provably wrong details made by Goldberg, and instead of discrediting the rest of his report the press has instead fought desperately to insist the quotes attributed to Trump are ironclad. Goldberg had nothing but anonymous contacts insisting that Trump said these things, but this, as we know, is to be treated as gospel in journalist circles.
Since then others have come forward to dispute these reports of Trump’s disparaging remarks, with a unique difference — they have gone on the record with their rebuttals. John Bolton, who is clearly no fan of the President, has come forward to declare he was present during the trip and he never heard such comments from the man.
Few people were in attendance of the brief meeting regarding the trip, and General John Kelly was the one to bring up the danger due to weather. Kelly has not said anything about Trump’s comments, but his assistant, Zach Fuentes was also in said meeting and has come forward to declare Trump never said these things. Further, he declared that his former boss Kelly would not have tolerated this. “I did not hear POTUS call anyone losers when I told him about the weather. Honestly, do you think General Kelly would have stood by and let ANYONE call fallen Marines losers?”
Also going on the record saying these quotes never happened were other members of the administration who were in attendance that day; Jordan Karem, Derek Lyons, Stephen Miller and the US Ambassador to France, Jaime McCourt. This is a rousing thumping of this report from Goldberg and The Atlantic.
One final flailing effort can be seen in the Washington Post. This morning Aaron Blake was desperately performing CPR on the story. ”First, it’s worth noting that “I did not hear” is not the same as “it didn’t happen.” It’s admittedly difficult to offer a full denial unless you were with Trump the entire time, but many of the denials have been in this vein, which technically allows that the comments might have transpired while the deniers were out of earshot.’’
This is the level the press has resorted to on the matter. They no longer have facts and witness testimony to rely upon for a proven story, so the fallback is essentially saying, ”Well…none of this completely disproves in might not have happened…’’ So we are now in the age of reporting on rumors, and it is up to others to disprove the negative, as reported in the mainstream press.
