In Defense of Trump

[wesfau2]

I freely admit my bias.  I don't think he's qualified to serve in this capacity and I think he's mucking the job horribly.

That said, I'd like someone to address...explain...defend, if you can...this garbage drivel.




I suspect I'll hear how the question is illegitimate and Trump was a hero for not playing into the hands of the enquirer.  It will be suggested that he is a mastermind that knows exactly what he is doing when he falls back on his first and favorite "presidential" talking point.

I hope I'm surprised.

[The Prowler]

I freely admit my bias.  I don't think he's qualified to serve in this capacity and I think he's mucking the job horribly.

That said, I'd like someone to address...explain...defend, if you can...this garbage drivel.




I suspect I'll hear how the question is illegitimate and Trump was a hero for not playing into the hands of the enquirer.  It will be suggested that he is a mastermind that knows exactly what he is doing when he falls back on his first and favorite "presidential" talking point.

I hope I'm surprised.

I can explain it.

Someone didn't write him a response, so he just winged it. You know, he talks to himself regarding foreign policy matters, because he has big brain and he knows words, great words.

[Kaos]

I freely admit my bias.  I don't think he's qualified to serve in this capacity and I think he's mucking the job horribly.

That said, I'd like someone to address...explain...defend, if you can...this garbage drivel.




I suspect I'll hear how the question is illegitimate and Trump was a hero for not playing into the hands of the enquirer.  It will be suggested that he is a mastermind that knows exactly what he is doing when he falls back on his first and favorite "presidential" talking point.

I hope I'm surprised.

Your post is garbage. 

Lesson over. 

[War Eagle!!!]

What do you expect him to say? What is a "sharp rise"? What does that mean? Did it go from 5 to 10? 100 to 120? 500 to 750? How do you expect him to answer something so vague? And what constitutes an "incident"? And why does this "sharp rise", whatever that means, directly correlate to Trump?

Xenophobic and racist tones? Are you fucking kidding me? Asking a President that? It's bullshit. How the fuck do you even address that you aren't a racist?

The other question was for the prime minister and not sure how that was handled...but expecting Trump to answer some bullshit question that may or may not be true while accusing him of being a racist against a nation of people in which thier Prime Minister is sitting right there is complete bullshit.

Sorry, not only do I think the top questions are illegitimate, but I think it's bullshit too. You can't say presumptive shit like that. If there is a "sharp rise" in incidents, damn sure state the facts in your question.

[War Eagle!!!]

I can explain it.

Someone didn't write him a response, so he just winged it. You know, he talks to himself regarding foreign policy matters, because he has big brain and he knows words, great words.

Since you joined the X, there has been a sharp rise in gay jokes. Mr. Prowler, I wonder what you say to those people in the gay community that you are part of a group on the x with anti-gay slurs and undertones being used. Why do you associate on this board when many people in the LGBT community don't appreciate the anti-gay rhetoric that this board portrays?

[GH2001]

Since you joined the X, there has been a sharp rise in gay jokes. Mr. Prowler, I wonder what you say to those people in the gay community that you are part of a group on the x with anti-gay slurs and undertones being used. Why do you associate on this board when many people in the LGBT community don't appreciate the anti-gay rhetoric that this board portrays?

You're talking to someone who WANTS to view with a slant. The media has tremendous influence in shaping opinion or in this case, telling him what he already thinks is so (red meat). He must be back to being flame throwing prowler again. Monday he will be back to trying to sound pragmatic again. No conviction at all.

[GH2001]

I freely admit my bias.  I don't think he's qualified to serve in this capacity and I think he's mucking the job horribly.

That said, I'd like someone to address...explain...defend, if you can...this garbage drivel.




I suspect I'll hear how the question is illegitimate and Trump was a hero for not playing into the hands of the enquirer.  It will be suggested that he is a mastermind that knows exactly what he is doing when he falls back on his first and favorite "presidential" talking point.

I hope I'm surprised.

Nice way to frame a legitimate response and write it off as asinine. You must have read rules for radicals. The "marginalize it rule" is a big one in their arsenal. 

[wesfau2]

Nice way to frame a legitimate response and write it off as asinine. You must have read rules for radicals. The "marginalize it rule" is a big one in their arsenal.

It is asinine.

He can't even pretend to speak extemporaneously.  It's increasingly bizarre (as we move temporally farther away every day from election night) to keep casting back to the baseline achievement of every president: win the election.

[GH2001]

It is asinine.

He can't even pretend to speak extemporaneously.  It's increasingly bizarre (as we move temporally farther away every day from election night) to keep casting back to the baseline achievement of every president: win the election.

Yet you don't think the questions are asinine.

You're seeing what you want to see. There isn't much sense debating it Wes. An agree to disagree scenario.

[Kaos]

It is asinine.

He can't even pretend to speak extemporaneously.  It's increasingly bizarre (as we move temporally farther away every day from election night) to keep casting back to the baseline achievement of every president: win the election.

Wrong.

It was a bullshit gotcha question along the lines of "when did you stop punching your wife in the face?"

Fuck the interviewer.

[War Eagle!!!]

It is asinine.

He can't even pretend to speak extemporaneously.  It's increasingly bizarre (as we move temporally farther away every day from election night) to keep casting back to the baseline achievement of every president: win the election.

Just because it is different, doesn't mean it is wrong or ineffective.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-lectured-trump-declares-the-big-difference-between-a-trump-and-obama-news-conference/2017/02/15/8a4c6138-f3a9-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-banner-main_trumpdebrief-10pm:homepage/story&utm_term=.03c1c09284a7

For the past eight years, a presidential news conference was a chance to hear from Professor Obama, the long-winded lecturer in chief who expounded on domestic politics and international relations with nuance, depth, range and, most of all, a lot of words.

Under the new administration, brevity is in.

President Trump, who has carved out a niche online as the tweeter in chief, is willing to go beyond 140 characters while fielding questions from reporters at the White House. But sometimes, it seems, not by much.

Trump’s joint news conferences with foreign leaders are brisker affairs. He is not interested in filibustering answers to run out the clock, the way Obama did, but prefers racing through them in a mix of simplistic declarative sentences, ad-libs and non sequiturs.

When he does fall back on talking points, as all politicians inevitably do, they are not the kind that come from a briefing book prepared by an aide. Rather, Trump’s talking points often appear to spring from his own id and have little or nothing to do with the subject at hand.

Wednesday offered another example.

Appearing in the East Room with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump answered a question about whether the United States was giving up on a two-state solution to Middle East peace, a major change in policy, with 74 words that amounted to his being okay with two states, one state or “the one that both parties like.”

To a question about his proposal to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — a move that could inflame tensions with the Palestinians — Trump was even briefer, offering a 38-word response that he’d “love to see that happen” and that his administration was “looking at it very, very strongly . . . with great care, believe me.”

He did not explain why, what factors he was considering or when it might happen.

Most perplexing was Trump’s response to a pointed challenge from an Israeli journalist who suggested that many in the Jewish community say that his brand of politics is propagating racism, xenophobia and a rise of anti-Semitism in the United States.

Trump spent slightly more time answering this thorny question: 230 words. But the first 56 of them centered on one of his most reliable talking points: boasting about his electoral college victory over Hillary Clinton.

“We were not supposed to crack 220,” he said. Turning to Netanyahu on his right, Trump sought some affirmation: “You know that, right?”

Taking on the question more generally, Trump then offered a number of sweeping promises — “We are going to have peace,” “We are going to stop crime” — before pointing out that he has “so many friends” who are Jewish, including his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, both sitting in the front row.

Trump wrapped up by predicting that “a lot of good things” would happen to the country under his watch: “You’re going to see a lot of love. You’re going to see a lot of love. Okay? Thanks.”

Trump didn’t even bother denying the accusations laid out in the reporter’s question.

In all, Trump spoke fewer than 1,000 words in response to questions from four reporters. By comparison, when Obama joined Netanyahu for a joint news conference in Jerusalem in 2013, he employed more than 2,350 words in fielding queries from four reporters.

Trump’s economy of words at his White House news conferences matches other aspects of his governing style. He is said not to read books and prefers aides to deliver policy reviews in one-page documents replete with bullet points.

Obama, in his final year, carved out hours of his time to discuss his legacy with historians and magazine writers in long-form interviews, even penning his own treatises of 5,000 words for academic journals. Trump prefers to engage in the sound-bite pithiness of cable news and quick-cut optics of reality TV.

During a hastily arranged joint appearance with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last weekend in the wake of North Korea’s ballistic missile test, Trump stepped to the lectern after Abe and appeared to disregard a written statement prepared by staffers.

Instead, he spoke 23 words off the cuff: “I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent.”

Trump neglected to mention another U.S. ally in equal, if not greater, potential jeopardy: South Korea.

If Obama, a former constitutional law professor, came across as overly cerebral and, on occasion, haughty, Trump’s style makes him appear unprepared or, at times, disinterested.

But both presidents have used their unique styles to obfuscate on knotty issues.

Obama’s answers often drowned his audience — in this case, reporters — in an ocean of words, making modest shifts in the administration’s position nearly indecipherable and requiring attentive listening even as it became difficult to remember the question.

Trump’s quick changes of topic can make it challenging for reporters to pin him down. Trump and his press secretary, Sean Spicer, often move on to another questioner so quickly that reporters are unable to ask a follow-up. And the White House has been accused of favoring conservative-leaning news outlets in hopes of getting friendly questions and coverage.

Trump is also adept at employing verbal assaults on his political rivals, including reporters, to divert attention and gain the upper hand.

He opened his answers Wednesday by reiterating his attack, first leveled on Twitter, against the “fake media” for its treatment of his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who resigned earlier in the week amid reports that he had misled the administration about his contact with Russian government officials.

Later in the day, however, Trump had less to say about the circumstances of Andrew Puzder, who withdrew as Trump’s labor secretary nominee amid widespread bipartisan opposition.

In an impromptu session outside his office, Spicer told reporters that a presidential statement on Puzder was forthcoming. A few moments later, an aide handed Spicer a note, and the spokesman amended his guidance: The president would have nothing to say after all.

[Snaggletiger]

It is asinine.

He can't even pretend to speak extemporaneously.  It's increasingly bizarre (as we move temporally farther away every day from election night) to keep casting back to the baseline achievement of every president: win the election.

I see both sides here, but I admit that my thoughts are purely assumptions and conjecture.  The answer on its' face is a total deflection and fails to address any part of the question(s).  Depending on your perspective, it can indeed be both asinine and bordering on retarded, assuming that's his honest response.

My assumption is also that he fully understood every aspect of the question and it wasn't:

Mr. President, what is 2+2?

Trump:  ORANGE!!!

I think in his mind, he took it as another shot by a reporter and he had two choices, either attack the guy and the media outlet he works for, (Which he has done numerous times in the past) or go 100% "Coach Speak". 

Mr. President, what about the rise in anti-Semetic attacks etc.?

Trump:  We're just focused on the game this weekend. Trying to get better.  One game at a time. Next question.

[wesfau2]

I see both sides here, but I admit that my thoughts are purely assumptions and conjecture.  The answer on its' face is a total deflection and fails to address any part of the question(s).  Depending on your perspective, it can indeed be both asinine and bordering on retarded, assuming that's his honest response.

My assumption is also that he fully understood every aspect of the question and it wasn't:

Mr. President, what is 2+2?

Trump:  ORANGE!!!

I think in his mind, he took it as another shot by a reporter and he had two choices, either attack the guy and the media outlet he works for, (Which he has done numerous times in the past) or go 100% "Coach Speak". 

Mr. President, what about the rise in anti-Semetic attacks etc.?

Trump:  We're just focused on the game this weekend. Trying to get better.  One game at a time. Next question.

If that is his strategy, then he's fucking awful at it and it makes him look like a simpleton.  Deflect to something topical if you must, but to keep pounding that "achievement" makes him look increasingly loony.

[Godfather]

Skip to 1:21

[Snaggletiger]

If that is his strategy, then he's fucking awful at it and it makes him look like a simpleton.  Deflect to something topical if you must, but to keep pounding that "achievement" makes him look increasingly loony.

Don't come back at me. I'm well respected and I've won a lot of major awards around here.

[Snaggletiger]

If that is his strategy, then he's fucking awful at it and it makes him look like a simpleton.  Deflect to something topical if you must, but to keep pounding that "achievement" makes him look increasingly loony.

In response...loony?  Don't see it that way.  Fucking awful at it?   

[Kaos]

Obama, in his final year, carved out hours of his time to discuss his legacy with historians and magazine writers in long-form interviews, even penning his own treatises of 5,000 words for academic journals.


This is a much bigger problem than Trump sluffing off a stupid question from a gotcha reporter.

[AUJarhead]

Don't come back at me. I'm well respected and I've won a lot of major awards around here.

Herpes isn't an award.

[Snaggletiger]

Herpes isn't an award.

But, Ramone said it was.

[AUChizad]

IMO, the second paragraph was as good an answer as you can give that question. Basically "Bitch, my daughter's Jewish, my son in law's Jewish, and my three grandkids are Jewish, and you're implying I'm anti-Semitic? Fuck outta here with that bullshit."
The first paragraph though...