Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The article is the epitome of weak sauce. And if I might play your game, "Politico counts when it helps you, but doesn't when it doesn't."

You can't continue a thought from one post to the next. You said TPM was biased. I asked how, and pointed out that the facts in that article are the same facts that are in every other article on the subject, including one in Politico.

This is incoherent. That the West wanted Shokin out, that other nations wanted him out, could be for political reasons. You don't know.

No, I do know, because I have read reporting about the Ukraine for a long time, and do not approach this story through the prism of whether the narrative is good for Trump or Biden. The West wanted him out for much more fundamental reasons, and people who credulously repeat what Trump says without pointing out that it is a dishonest effort to smear Biden are doing his work for him.

Yes, and the investigation of those crimes had been closed. Then, later, because he found himself on the FBI's radar once more, the investigation of his old crimes was reopened. Are you suggesting the closure of the investigation against Manafort in 2011 would be exculpatory in the event he hadn't become Trump's campaign manager and put himself in the cross hairs in 2016 by committing different crimes? Could he have argued, "Yeah, you can get me for the 2016 stuff. But you closed the 2011 investigation, so the stuff at issue there is now off limits." I think Cosby used a similar defense.

No, I'm not. I'm saying that Biden did not try to kill an investigation that was already over.

Ok. So Hunter worked for a dirty company for $50k a month. And dad made some calls regarding an investigation of the company, albeit after the investigation had ended, but... nothing to see here!

No. I am aware of NO facts that Joe Biden "made some calls regarding an investigation of the company." NONE. Nor are you.

Why are you working so hard to pretend there's something there? Maybe you're playing devil's advocate, but the skepticism you usually have of the power of prosecutors seems to disappear when there's a Democratic presidential candidate involved.

This is called a pretext.

No shit, Sherlock. The question is why you are taking his pretext at face value.

They didn't end the right or wrong way. There is no right or wrong way.

Clearly you use the word "debacle" in a way that's different from other people who speak English.

What about the "substantive" conversation you desire, which would be anything but substantive (which would indeed be advocacy and political arguments dressed as fact finding) is fulfilling in a way my horse race handicapping is empty?

Substantive conversation can be but is not necessarily worthwhile, and and the same is true of political analysis, but horserace coverage is almost entirely worthless.

I do not see it. I think what you are really citing when you cite my "emptiness" is my ability to shrug and refrain from joining the chorus as you offer article after article and make argument after argument about Trump's culpability here.

Nope.

You want me to agree with you is what you want. You want me to have the outrage I think you have.

Nope. I'm more interesting in talking to people who don't share my beliefs. But you don't seem to believe in anything.

“The truth is useless. You have to understand this right now. You can't deposit the truth in a bank. You can't buy groceries with the truth. You can't pay rent with the truth. The truth is a useless commodity that will hang around your neck like an albatross -- all the way to the homeless shelter. And if you think that the million or so people in this country that are really interested in the truth about their government can support people who would tell them the truth, you got another thing coming. Because the million or so people in this country that are truly interested in the truth don't have any money.” - (cited by Uri Dowbenko in Bushwhacked, Sept. 2002).

That's truly sad, as is the way you use it.

It's illusory, never really found, particularly in courthouses or on the floor of legislatures. The horse race, OTOH, is of value. It will have a winner, and a loser. That is fact which cannot be spun.

Horse race journalism is not about who wins and loses. It's about the spectacle.