Pompeo can't find Ukraine on a map

[firstfloor]

Pompeo is a national disgrace:

The US state department has removed an NPR reporter from the press pool for Secretary Mike Pompeo's upcoming foreign trip, days after a tense interview with another NPR journalist.

The radio network said it was not given a reason behind Michele Kelemen's ban. A press representative said the decision amounted to retaliation.

[NorrinRadd]

I'm so old, I remember when Jupiter only had 12 moons and Saturn only had 9.

[Juvenal]

Ms. Kelly has published a short op-ed addressing the controversy:


Or better, refocusing away from the controversy to the justification for journalism itself.

[Juvenal]

Years ago, I used to keep a stack of maps in my car for getting around in unfamiliar places. Which reminds me of a story I once heard:

"Dad, how did people used to get around before GPS?"
"They used maps."
"Duh, I mean before Google Maps."

I don't, and won't, own a cell phone. I use email, excepting the rare occasions when I pull up the google voice app on my tablet when I don't want what I say to be memorialized, e.g., when I needed to use questionable tactics to keep a disabled vet from losing her scholarship last term, which would also have cost her her rent money and left her out on the street, or when I needed to give my chair some background on my goth girl this term in a plea to let her override the financial aid hold on the student's registration.

When I talk to my brother, it's with video, using a messenger app.

My students get bug-eyed on this.

"What do you do if your car breaks down?!"

I flag someone down, knowing they're certain to have a cell phone, natch.

[MaxVel]

I don't, and won't, own a cell phone. I use email, excepting the rare occasions when I pull up the google voice app on my tablet when I don't want what I say to be memorialized, e.g., when I needed to use questionable tactics to keep a disabled vet from losing her scholarship last term, which would also have cost her her rent money and left her out on the street, or when I needed to give my chair some background on my goth girl this term in a plea to let her override the financial aid hold on the student's registration.

When I talk to my brother, it's with video, using a messenger app.

My students get bug-eyed on this.

"What do you do if your car breaks down?!"

I flag someone down, knowing they're certain to have a cell phone, natch.

Nice humblebrag.


Has this progressed any farther than he said vs she said?

[Juvenal]

Nice humblebrag.

Nice snark.

Has this progressed any farther than he said vs she said?

You could't be bothered to read it the first time it was posted, so let's cut to the chase.

Assume I posted it again, and go straight to not reading it a second time.

[MaxVel]

Even when it's pointed out to him.

Claim (combined with thread title): Pompeo can't find Ukraine on a map.

Evidence: Journalist says so (??) / it's Juvenal's way of poking fun at Pompeo.
Conclusion: At best, he said / she said

Pompeo, our secretary of state, is now on record saying no American cares about Ukraine days before he travels to Ukraine.

Not contested.

Emails support NPR host after Pompeo calls her a liar in setting up contentious interview

By Paul Farhi
Jan. 26, 2020 at 5:30 p.m. EST

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says an NPR host lied in setting up an interview with him on Friday, but email records support the journalistÂ’s account of how the contentious exchange came to be.

Claim: Pompeo claimed she lied, but emails show that she didn't


Evidence:

Specifically, Pompeo claimed this:

“NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice,” Pompeo said in his statement. “First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record. It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency.”

(sourced from OP cited WP article)

So, Pompeo accused her of two lies:

First, last month in setting up the interview. Exact nature of lie unspecified.

Evidence: Pompeo says she lied 'last month'. Counter-evidence: Partial email exchange with Pompeo staff the day before the interview

“Just wanted to touch base that we still intend to keep the interview to Iran tomorrow,” Martin wrote. “Know you just got back from Tehran so we would like to stick to Iran as the topic as opposed to jumping around. Is that something we can agree to?”

Kelly responded, “I am indeed just back from Tehran and plan to start there. Also Ukraine. And who knows what the news gods will serve up overnight. I never agree to take anything off the table.”

Martin replied, “Totally understand you want to ask other topics but just hoping . . . we can stick to that topic for a healthy portion of the interview . . . WouldnÂ’t want to spend the interview on questions heÂ’s answered many times for the last several months.”

Kelly: “My plan is to start with Iran and, yes, to spend a healthy portion of the interview there. Iran has been my focus of late as well. And yes — I also would not want to waste time on questions he’s answered many times in recent months.”

Conclusion: Inconclusive. Not clear exactly what Pompeo thinks she lied about 'last month'; and not clear that she addressed that in correspondence. He said / she said. Pompeo hasn't supported his accusation, she didn't prove it false either.


Second claim by Pompeo: She lied in that she 'agreed to have our post-interview conversation off the record'.

Evidence: None. Counter-evidence: She made public her claims about what happened after the interview.

Conclusion: He said / she said. That she went public with after-interview stuff lends some weight to Pompeo's claim, but inconclusive.

In the emails Pompeo's aide, Martin, asked Kelly if she would be okay sticking with Iran.

“Just wanted to touch base that we still intend to keep the interview to Iran tomorrow,” Martin wrote. “Know you just got back from Tehran so we would like to stick to Iran as the topic as opposed to jumping around. Is that something we can agree to?”

Kelly responded, “I am indeed just back from Tehran and plan to start there. Also Ukraine. And who knows what the news gods will serve up overnight. I never agree to take anything off the table.”

The news gods strike again.

In an extraordinary statement issued on State Department letterhead on Saturday, Pompeo blasted Kelly for repeatedly asking him why he refused to express support for the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Kelly said afterward Pompeo berated her using profanity and challenged her to locate Ukraine on an unmarked map, which Kelly said she did.

Education

Kelly graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1993, with studying government and French literature. As a senior editor at The Harvard Crimson, she covered the 1992 Presidential election, and the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton.

In 1995, she completed her master's in European studies at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

He should have believed the woman.

Claim: Pompeo used profanity ans asked her to locate Ukraine on a map.

Evidence: Kelly claims he did this. No other confirmation of her claims. Counter evidence: None. Pompeo hasn't denied her claim (at least not in sources cited by OP)

Conclusion: He said / she said. Possible explanation: She agreed to off-the record post-interview, he ranted, she went public. Pompeo feels she agreed to interview on Iran, she asked whatever she wanted. He said /she said.


Really, this is pretty thin stuff for 'journalism'. I used to think you could do better.
(Practicing the snark, gotta stay sharp)

Nice snark.

Coming from a master at it, that's high praise indeed. Thanks.

You could't be bothered to read it the first time it was posted, so let's cut to the chase.

Assume I posted it again, and go straight to not reading it a second time.

Wrong, twice.

I admit on first reading I didn't bother to read the links in the WP article - I'm not big on argument by weblink - if you have a case to make, present everything up front, yourself. I doubt you'd accept 'It was inked in the article I cited' from your students.

[Juvenal]

Claim (combined with thread title): Pompeo can't find Ukraine on a map.

Evidence: Journalist says so (??) / it's Juvenal's way of poking fun at Pompeo.
Conclusion: At best, he said / she said

I saved this quite a while back because I was impressed that MaxVel responded to a complaint that he hadn't read a post by going back and making an actual attempt at reading the post, proving how poorly he'd done so with a detailed response. With thoughtful, even if misguided, commentary so scarce in these parts, I was saving it for a special occasion.

The TWeb reboot is a special occasion.

The thread title and opening were mocking Pompeo's claim against the reporter, working from the rebuttable assumption his own statements were honest and taking advantage of publicly available information about the reporter and the exchange.

To wit, we assume he'd shown an unmarked map to the reporter, that she'd pointed out Ukraine, that with a graduate degree in European studies she could not possibly mistake Ukraine — a country in eastern Europe, for Bangladesh — a country in south Asia, and lastly, that he believed what she was pointing to was in actuality, Bangladesh.

From the extraordinary statement.

It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.

If he wasn't lying, the implication that Pompeo mistook Ukraine for Bangladesh on the unmarked map follows immediately.

Not contested.

But worth noting.

Claim: Pompeo claimed she lied, but emails show that she didn't

Poor reading skills, but I have a newfound faith in your ability to learn. Go back, try again.

Evidence:

Specifically, Pompeo claimed this:

NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice, Pompeo said in his statement. First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record. It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency.

(sourced from OP cited WP article)

Which included a link to the original source. Here's the entire statement.

NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice. First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record. It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency. This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity.

It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.

The difference being that the abstracted quote didn't take advantage of the unhinged tantrum that followed to castigate Pompeo. Instead, it remained focused on the accusations against Kelly, an oversight worth noting.

So, Pompeo accused her of two lies:

That's not right, either. He claimed she lied, twice, and violated standards of journalism and decency in the process, and he did so in an official statement from the State Department that reads like it was written by an adolescent middle schooler who just found out her boyfriend was last seen in the library with another girl.

The overarching criticism of the Trump administration is that it's staffed by incompetents, and led by one, too. Kelly's not on trial here. Her work speaks for itself.

As does Pompeo's. His interview with Kelly was on Friday, January 24, and his attack on Kelly is dated the next day on state.gov. Contemporaneously, the impeachment trial was underway in the Senate. As reflected in the impeachment itself, Pompeo personally removed the Ukrainian ambassador to provide room for the president's personal lawyer to lean on the new Ukrainian president. It's unremarkable that he was eager to avoid questions on Ukraine, enough so to task a staff member with trying to make it happen the night before the interview, and there was a snowflake's chance in Georgia that she would give him a pass on it.

Kelly responded, “I am indeed just back from Tehran and plan to start there. Also Ukraine. And who knows what the news gods will serve up overnight. I never agree to take anything off the table.”

His two-stage meltdown after the interview, on the other hand, was worth noting.

After the interview, he attacked her in private.

More, five hours after the interview, a recording surfaced that included an order from Trump to fire the ambassador for • Edited by a Moderator • Ukraine in response to a push from Lev Parnas, since arrested on campaign finance charges, and earlier this month, on additional charges of wire fraud.

After the recording surfaced, he took his private attack on her public, and wielded it as a crude cudgel against the entire media.

Lev Parnas, Giuliani Associate, Faces New Fraud Charges

Mr. Parnas, who already had been indicted on charges of campaign finance violations in October 2019, was accused in an updated indictment of conspiring to defraud investors in the start-up he created, Fraud Guarantee. The indictment also charged Mr. Parnas, who broke from President Trump and Mr. Giuliani late last year, with additional campaign finance violations.

The new indictment was announced by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan and by the F.B.I., which also brought the earlier case against Mr. Parnas and three other men. The new charges expand an already wide-ranging criminal investigation that has loomed over the president’s inner circle.

Worth noting.

First, last month in setting up the interview. Exact nature of lie unspecified.

Deliberately. The point wasn't to attack Kelly specifically, but to beat on the press in general. Being a tough guy, he decided to start out with a woman.

Evidence: Pompeo says she lied 'last month'. Counter-evidence: Partial email exchange with Pompeo staff the day before the interview

Conclusion: Inconclusive. Not clear exactly what Pompeo thinks she lied about 'last month'; and not clear that she addressed that in correspondence. He said / she said. Pompeo hasn't supported his accusation, she didn't prove it false either.

Kelly was just back from Iran after a January 7 interview of Javad Zarif, Pompeo's Iranian counterpart. The timeline says she'd have arranged both interviews in December. There's no doubt what Pompeo expected from the interview, and no doubt what he was objecting to.

Change of subject. Ukraine. Do you owe Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch an apology?

You know, I agreed to come on your show today to talk about Iran.

Considering he ended up paying her off, there was no question whether he owed her. Yovanovich, with over thirty years of service for State including two ambassadorships under Dubya and the Obama appointment to Ukraine, was hounded out by gossip over a donor dinner table by an indicted, two-bit chiseler working with Giuliani, the presidents' personal attorney. Pompeo owed her, and it was fair to ask how much.

In response, he ended the interview and then asked her to leave her recorder behind while he roasted her like an inconvenient inspector general. He didn't just expect an interview on Iran, he expected an interview with a chew toy. He got an interview with a reporter instead, as he should have expected.

Call it culture shock, maybe, going from FOX news, staffed by news babes hired to keep Ailes well supplied with oral appliances.

Second claim by Pompeo: She lied in that she 'agreed to have our post-interview conversation off the record'.

Evidence: None. Counter-evidence: She made public her claims about what happened after the interview.

Conclusion: He said / she said. That she went public with after-interview stuff lends some weight to Pompeo's claim, but inconclusive.

The evidence that it was on the record is that she reported on it.

Let's just leave that out there.

There's clear protocols on going off the record, and no, it's never done to give a source a chance to cuss you out with impunity. It's for background information that can be used without attribution with the tacit guarantee that it won't be disputed by the source. The only reason to keep his post-interview exchange private would be to allow Pompeo's premeditated mistreatment of a reporter to remain private.

A shameful violation of the basic rules of decency and diplomacy.

Claim: Pompeo used profanity ans asked her to locate Ukraine on a map.

Evidence: Kelly claims he did this. No other confirmation of her claims. Counter evidence: None. Pompeo hasn't denied her claim (at least not in sources cited by OP)

Conclusion: He said / she said. Possible explanation: She agreed to off-the record post-interview, he ranted, she went public. Pompeo feels she agreed to interview on Iran, she asked whatever she wanted. He said /she said.

He got an interview on Iran.

As painful as it is to point out the rudimentary, it's not he said, she said when they're both saying the same thing. The rejected request to stick to Iran from the previous night says explicitly that Ukraine was also on the table, as well as any other topics the "news gods" might provide, and post-dates any arrangements from the previous month. They call it "news" for a reason.

I've pointed this out enough times that it shouldn't bear repeating, but here we are again.

I'm not the partisan you're looking for. Religion and politics care about facts, or they wouldn't go to such pains to contradict them when they're inconvenient. That doesn't make facts care about religion or politics. It doesn't make facts religious or political, or through some obscure, mystical process of essential symmetries create a place for equal treatment of their alternatives.

With whatever apologies are due to Habermas, relying on minimal facts never got anyone closer to the truth. To do that, assemble more facts. To do that, there's science, and there's journalism.

People who fear the truth attack both.

That's worth noting.

Really, this is pretty thin stuff for 'journalism'. I used to think you could do better.
(Practicing the snark, gotta stay sharp)

Keep practicing.

Coming from a master at it, that's high praise indeed. Thanks.

Who said mediocrity should never be rewarded.

Wrong, twice.

If it were true, how would you know?

I admit on first reading I didn't bother to read the links in the WP article - I'm not big on argument by weblink - if you have a case to make, present everything up front, yourself. I doubt you'd accept 'It was inked in the article I cited' from your students.

Not big on reading threads, either, I suspect.

You asked if there was anything further, after I posted a reply from Kelly that you never read. Irony, right? And didn't notice. Unwitting, maybe? When you've finished scrolling up to see it, maybe you'll understand better why it seemed wisest to assume what you've further proved without requiring additional corroboration.

I expect students to participate in learning. That includes learning to ask questions and pursue the answers independently.

You're asking whether Pompeo's charges were true when you should have been asking why he was making the charges, without providing evidence, and then using the allegations to attack the entire media. Pompeo did nothing to Kelly his boss didn't permit. This administration targets reporters, deliberately, even after being made aware the result is death threats and mistreatment that extends well beyond our borders.

That's worth noting.

[MaxVel]

Nice snark.



You could't be bothered to read it the first time it was posted, so let's cut to the chase.

Assume I posted it again, and go straight to not reading it a second time.

Let';s start with this.

The opinion piece from Kelly you cited and partially quoted requires subscription. I don't subscribe.

What you cited doesn't answer my questions, or progress things further than he said/she said about the substance of the matter.


And you're wrong about the rest.

[Juvenal]

You're asking whether Pompeo's charges were true when you should have been asking why he was making the charges, without providing evidence, and then using the allegations to attack the entire media. Pompeo did nothing to Kelly his boss didn't permit. This administration targets reporters, deliberately, even after being made aware the result is death threats and mistreatment that extends well beyond our borders.

That's worth noting.

Let';s start with this.

The opinion piece from Kelly you cited and partially quoted requires subscription. I don't subscribe.

What you cited doesn't answer my questions, or progress things further than he said/she said about the substance of the matter.

And you're wrong about the rest.

You didn't read the rest. You're phoning it in.

[MaxVel]

I saved this quite a while back because I was impressed that MaxVel responded to a complaint that he hadn't read a post by going back and making an actual attempt at reading the post, proving how poorly he'd done so with a detailed response. With thoughtful, even if misguided, commentary so scarce in these parts, I was saving it for a special occasion.

The TWeb reboot is a special occasion.

The thread title and opening were mocking Pompeo's claim against the reporter, working from the rebuttable assumption his own statements were honest and taking advantage of publicly available information about the reporter and the exchange.

To wit, we assume he'd shown an unmarked map to the reporter, that she'd pointed out Ukraine, that with a graduate degree in European studies she could not possibly mistake Ukraine — a country in eastern Europe, for Bangladesh — a country in south Asia, and lastly, that he believed what she was pointing to was in actuality, Bangladesh.

From the extraordinary statement.

It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.

If he wasn't lying, the implication that Pompeo mistook Ukraine for Bangladesh on the unmarked map follows immediately.

If you're going to stoop to Pompeo's level of assumption about the ignorance of others, go ahead.

But worth noting.



Poor reading skills, but I have a newfound faith in your ability to learn. Go back, try again.


Which included a link to the original source. Here's the entire statement.

NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice. First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record. It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency. This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity.

It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.

The difference being that the abstracted quote didn't take advantage of the unhinged tantrum that followed to castigate Pompeo. Instead, it remained focused on the accusations against Kelly, an oversight worth noting.



That's not right, either. He claimed she lied, twice,

And so far we have nothing from either side on the first claim, about how the interview was set up a month before it took place. I'm not inclined to believe Pompeo, nor am I inclined to believe a journalist. And the articles that say emails support her account show nothing at all about this first claim of a lie on her part. I note also that the reported emails from Pompeo's staffer have been redacted. Odd, that....

and violated standards of journalism and decency in the process, and he did so in an official statement from the State Department that reads like it was written by an adolescent middle schooler who just found out her boyfriend was last seen in the library with another girl.

The overarching criticism of the Trump administration is that it's staffed by incompetents, and led by one, too. Kelly's not on trial here. Her work speaks for itself.

As does Pompeo's. His interview with Kelly was on Friday, January 24, and his attack on Kelly is dated the next day on state.gov. Contemporaneously, the impeachment trial was underway in the Senate. As reflected in the impeachment itself, Pompeo personally removed the Ukrainian ambassador to provide room for the president's personal lawyer to lean on the new Ukrainian president. It's unremarkable that he was eager to avoid questions on Ukraine, enough so to task a staff member with trying to make it happen the night before the interview, and there was a snowflake's chance in Georgia that she would give him a pass on it.

Kelly responded, “I am indeed just back from Tehran and plan to start there. Also Ukraine. And who knows what the news gods will serve up overnight. I never agree to take anything off the table.”

His two-stage meltdown after the interview, on the other hand, was worth noting.

After the interview, he attacked her in private.

More, five hours after the interview, a recording surfaced that included an order from Trump to fire the ambassador for • Edited by a Moderator • Ukraine in response to a push from Lev Parnas, since arrested on campaign finance charges, and earlier this month, on additional charges of wire fraud.

After the recording surfaced, he took his private attack on her public, and wielded it as a crude cudgel against the entire media.

Lev Parnas, Giuliani Associate, Faces New Fraud Charges

Mr. Parnas, who already had been indicted on charges of campaign finance violations in October 2019, was accused in an updated indictment of conspiring to defraud investors in the start-up he created, Fraud Guarantee. The indictment also charged Mr. Parnas, who broke from President Trump and Mr. Giuliani late last year, with additional campaign finance violations.

The new indictment was announced by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan and by the F.B.I., which also brought the earlier case against Mr. Parnas and three other men. The new charges expand an already wide-ranging criminal investigation that has loomed over the president’s inner circle.

Worth noting.

Politicians are going to play politics, and journalists are going to try to get their pieces on the front page. I have little reason to trust the integrity of either party.

Deliberately. The point wasn't to attack Kelly specifically, but to beat on the press in general. Being a tough guy, he decided to start out with a woman.

Your assumption. Maybe true.

Either she's a seasoned, well qualified, hardened journalist, who can handle anything the 'incompetents' Trump employs can throw at her, or she's a helpless woman who needs you to white-knight for her. Can't have it both ways.

Kelly was just back from Iran after a January 7 interview of Javad Zarif, Pompeo's Iranian counterpart. The timeline says she'd have arranged both interviews in December. There's no doubt what Pompeo expected from the interview, and no doubt what he was objecting to.

Change of subject. Ukraine. Do you owe Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch an apology?

You know, I agreed to come on your show today to talk about Iran.

Considering he ended up paying her off, there was no question whether he owed her. Yovanovich, with over thirty years of service for State including two ambassadorships under Dubya and the Obama appointment to Ukraine, was hounded out by gossip over a donor dinner table by an indicted, two-bit chiseler working with Giuliani, the presidents' personal attorney. Pompeo owed her, and it was fair to ask how much.

In response, he ended the interview and then asked her to leave her recorder behind while he roasted her like an inconvenient inspector general. He didn't just expect an interview on Iran, he expected an interview with a chew toy. He got an interview with a reporter instead, as he should have expected.

Call it culture shock, maybe, going from FOX news, staffed by news babes hired to keep Ailes well supplied with oral appliances.

You're avoiding the issue, which is 'Is there any solid evidence to support either side of the claim that there was a lie in setting up the interview a month ago?'. So far, none.

The implication from Pompeo is that it was agreed to discuss Iran and not Ukraine, and that she agreed to that, then reneged in the interview, despite emails with a staffer the day before that made it clear that Pompeo didn't want to discuss Ukraine.

“Just wanted to touch base that we still intend to keep the interview to Iran tomorrow,” Martin wrote. “Know you just got back from Tehran so we would like to stick to Iran as the topic as opposed to jumping around. Is that something we can agree to?”

Kelly responded, “I am indeed just back from Tehran and plan to start there. Also Ukraine. And who knows what the news gods will serve up overnight. I never agree to take anything off the table.”

Martin replied, “Totally understand you want to ask other topics but just hoping . . . we can stick to that topic for a healthy portion of the interview . . . Wouldn’t want to spend the interview on questions he’s answered many times for the last several months.”

The evidence that it was on the record is that she reported on it.

Let's just leave that out there.

Yeah, let's trust a journalist that they had an agreement to report something. Nah-uh.

She may not have agreed to be off the record, he claims that it was clearly agreed to be off the record.

There's clear protocols on going off the record, and no, it's never done to give a source a chance to cuss you out with impunity. It's for background information that can be used without attribution with the tacit guarantee that it won't be disputed by the source. The only reason to keep his post-interview exchange private would be to allow Pompeo's premeditated mistreatment of a reporter to remain private.

A shameful violation of the basic rules of decency and diplomacy.

Agreed. If we accept her version of all the events. I'm skeptical. The question as to whether she violated an agreement about the topic of the interview remains unanswered. Certainly she knew Pompeo wasn't up for a discussion about Ukraine.


I can't really square what she said in the interview: "I confirmed with your staff [crosstalk] last night that I would talk about Iran and Ukraine." with the emails cited above. She told the staff that she wanted to talk about Ukraine, and there is no indication that they agreed to that. If anything, the opposite. Her line in the interview looks like a stretch to me.

He got an interview on Iran.

As painful as it is to point out the rudimentary, it's not he said, she said when they're both saying the same thing. The rejected request to stick to Iran from the previous night says explicitly that Ukraine was also on the table, as well as any other topics the "news gods" might provide, and post-dates any arrangements from the previous month. They call it "news" for a reason.

And it's painful to point out, again, that a request is not an agreement. And we don't have any evidence about the original agreement (if there was one), and insufficient evidence to determine if the post-interview conversation was agreed to be off the record or not. Pompeo doubtless has his agenda, and she doubtless has hers. I'm not inclined to believe either sans evidence. You believe her.

I've pointed this out enough times that it shouldn't bear repeating, but here we are again.

I'm not the partisan you're looking for. Religion and politics care about facts, or they wouldn't go to such pains to contradict them when they're inconvenient. That doesn't make facts care about religion or politics. It doesn't make facts religious or political, or through some obscure, mystical process of essential symmetries create a place for equal treatment of their alternatives.

With whatever apologies are due to Habermas, relying on minimal facts never got anyone closer to the truth. To do that, assemble more facts. To do that, there's science, and there's journalism.

People who fear the truth attack both.

That's worth noting.



Keep practicing.



Who said mediocrity should never be rewarded.



If it were true, how would you know?

I am the only one who would know if I read the OP and the links or not. So there's that. You were wrong, twice. I hope you'll take it like a man.

Not big on reading threads, either, I suspect.

You asked if there was anything further, after I posted a reply from Kelly that you never read.right? And didn't notice. Unwitting, maybe? When you've finished scrolling up to see it, maybe you'll understand better why it seemed wisest to assume what you've further proved without requiring additional corroboration.

I expect students to participate in learning. That includes learning to ask questions and pursue the answers independently.

You're asking whether Pompeo's charges were true when you should have been asking why he was making the charges, without providing evidence, and then using the allegations to attack the entire media. Pompeo did nothing to Kelly his boss didn't permit. This administration targets reporters, deliberately, even after being made aware the result is death threats and mistreatment that extends well beyond our borders.

That's worth noting.

You want to defend the media, go ahead. I'm no fan of either side. I know both lie, and twist, and spin, and omit, and distort.

[MaxVel]

You didn't read the rest. You're phoning it in.

If you're going to play games because people don't automatically agree with you, whatever. I have just posted a detailed reply to the longer post.

I thought you were meant to be the one who was skeptical and believed things based on hard evidence. Apparently less so than me.


I've personally been an eyewitness to so-called journalists intentionally lying and smearing, putting their fingers on the political balance in a national election campaign. I don't have any inclination to take any of them at their word, nor do I take politicians at their word, either.