Even if it would have changed nothing, releasing the tapes in February would have been a sign that he wasn't just in it for personal profit
He sat on taped recordings that showed the President of the United States knew there was an airborne pandemic underway so he could release it closer to the election and make bank
This could have changed global strategy as far back as February, it could have motivated earlier lockdowns saving thousands of lives, it could have caused changes in public policy in other countries not privy to that intelligence, or it could have done nothing, but none of that would have made Woodward as much money as releasing it two months before the election
Woodward can get fucked, frankly
I don't think Trump was saying anything that wasn't well known at the time. He just wasn't saying it...which, when you're the freaking President, is kinda important.
edit: like, this is still Trump. When he says "in the air" he isn't referring to "airborne transmission", the medical term.
We didn't have suggested masking as part of public policy until what, May? That release might have sped that up and put the focus on airborne transmission over physical contact.
It also might have brought home the seriousness to people who don't live in France or Italy. Even our government was saying we were fine with little to no chance of transmission within Canada until March, as I recall. Even buying a week or two extra of lockdown could have saved lives.
This is all academic though, because the guy with this info who could have used it for public good decided to hold onto it until he could make personal gain.
The idea that this tape wouldve changed anything is just something I can't get my head around.
Places that took it seriously did so, and way back in feb/March. Places that didn't suffered and people just spread the idea that all the deaths were fake deep state liberal garbage.
How someone can come across anything and think that this will be the straw that breaks the camels back and gets us in order isnt something I can buy into.
People are dying because the lead executive in this country failed and his fan base will never stop supporting him. Others who knew it was serious back when the entire country of Italy was on fire took it seriously.
We didn't lock down until mid-March. Neither did most other Western countries. It wasn't until the NBA shut down that it suddenly got serious here, either.
You're underestimating how much of a change to the media cycle it would have been for the leader of the United States, who is also an absolute dunce, admitting to underplaying the seriousness of the virus. We might have had lockdowns in February. That could have been the story to do it instead of a guy coughing on microphones.
And even then it isn't really worth defending Woodward saying nothing until now, because it's so easy to see it was done for his own profit, and at a cost we can't fully estimate.
Trump would never have admitted to anything. He'd have called the tapes fake news and a hoax, just like he does with everything else, and his spokeswraiths would have lied through their teeth as usual. Informed people wouldn't change their behavior because they were already being cautious. Trump cultists wouldn't change their behavior because nothing reaches them short of personal catastrophe. Uninformed people would shrug and assume it's all political mudslinging and who has time to deal with a novel virus anyway; they've got families to support.
And I don't know for sure what Woodward's motivation was, but honestly? If a genie had offered me a choice back in March between saving a hundred thousand American lives from COVID or preventing Trump's re-election, I'd probably have gone for the latter. The world is a lot bigger than America.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended President Trump on Wednesday after a book by journalist Bob Woodward claimed Trump said he knew the coronavirus was “deadly” but went to great lengths to downplay the virus in public.
“When you are facing insurmountable challenges, it is important to express confidence, it is important to express calm,” McEnany told reporters in a briefing from the White House.
That is like the opposite of what you should be doing if the challenge is insurmountable.
I mean, she's not wrong to a degree; When you are facing a crisis the guy at the head of the totem doing a press confererence where he's panicing and talking about how utterly fucked you are isn't going to help anyone.
The issue is that trump's response was to simultaneously downplay the threat of the virus while undermining critical steps in preventing it's spread (IE his impatience with the shutdown, UI shenanigans and mask shaming).
As to "Insermountable"... the disease was always going to be bad in the US; your healthcare system isn't set up to handle this kind of catastrophe and the republican party would have balked at any sort of united response to the outbreak outside of platitudes and tax cuts for the wealthy to say nothing of how a sizable chunk of your nation is high on american exceptionalism and wouldn't grasp that the virus is a real threat; had trump taken it more seriously you *might* have saved around 60-70k but you'd still be facing a shit load of deaths and probably violent uprisings from right wing groups unironically screaming "FREEDOM!"
There is a path you can walk between inciting panic and its just going to go away like magic but trump chose to not walk it. Look at how obama handled the ebola stuff they didn't pull any punches but also were doing everything they could to keep everybody from panicking while not lying to people. Basically all trump needed to do is act like most powerful countries acted and we would probably have tens of thousands of people still alive.
Which is why I say that there is a degree of truth as opposed to saying she's completely right.
Because trump did cock this up by prioritizing the health of the economy and his re-election campaign over the health and safety of the american people and if there is any justice in the world he will supplant benedict arnold in the american psyche as the definition of "traitor."
Only problem there is, did 40+% of the American Public think Benedict Arnold was not just not a traitor, but a hero delivered by god?
Was there an active CulperAnon movement for Benny?
No? Then I don't see Trump being anywhere near the pariah that Arnold became.
I mean, yes, Benedict Arnold had a lot of fans. The US War of Independance was a lot more like US Civil War 1 than your history books like to portray.
Also, Benedict Arnold kind of saved the day at Saratoga.
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BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended President Trump on Wednesday after a book by journalist Bob Woodward claimed Trump said he knew the coronavirus was “deadly” but went to great lengths to downplay the virus in public.
“When you are facing insurmountable challenges, it is important to express confidence, it is important to express calm,” McEnany told reporters in a briefing from the White House.
That is like the opposite of what you should be doing if the challenge is insurmountable.
I mean, she's not wrong to a degree; When you are facing a crisis the guy at the head of the totem doing a press confererence where he's panicing and talking about how utterly fucked you are isn't going to help anyone.
The issue is that trump's response was to simultaneously downplay the threat of the virus while undermining critical steps in preventing it's spread (IE his impatience with the shutdown, UI shenanigans and mask shaming).
As to "Insermountable"... the disease was always going to be bad in the US; your healthcare system isn't set up to handle this kind of catastrophe and the republican party would have balked at any sort of united response to the outbreak outside of platitudes and tax cuts for the wealthy to say nothing of how a sizable chunk of your nation is high on american exceptionalism and wouldn't grasp that the virus is a real threat; had trump taken it more seriously you *might* have saved around 60-70k but you'd still be facing a shit load of deaths and probably violent uprisings from right wing groups unironically screaming "FREEDOM!"
There is a path you can walk between inciting panic and its just going to go away like magic but trump chose to not walk it. Look at how obama handled the ebola stuff they didn't pull any punches but also were doing everything they could to keep everybody from panicking while not lying to people. Basically all trump needed to do is act like most powerful countries acted and we would probably have tens of thousands of people still alive.
Which is why I say that there is a degree of truth as opposed to saying she's completely right.
Because trump did cock this up by prioritizing the health of the economy and his re-election campaign over the health and safety of the american people and if there is any justice in the world he will supplant benedict arnold in the american psyche as the definition of "traitor."
Only problem there is, did 40+% of the American Public think Benedict Arnold was not just not a traitor, but a hero delivered by god?
Was there an active CulperAnon movement for Benny?
No? Then I don't see Trump being anywhere near the pariah that Arnold became.
I mean, yes, Benedict Arnold had a lot of fans. The US War of Independance was a lot more like US Civil War 1 than your history books like to portray.
Also, Benedict Arnold kind of saved the day at Saratoga.
For those that know, the boot statue is a powerful piece of history and puts all the Robert E Lee equestrians to shame.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
Even if it would have changed nothing, releasing the tapes in February would have been a sign that he wasn't just in it for personal profit
He sat on taped recordings that showed the President of the United States knew there was an airborne pandemic underway so he could release it closer to the election and make bank
This could have changed global strategy as far back as February, it could have motivated earlier lockdowns saving thousands of lives, it could have caused changes in public policy in other countries not privy to that intelligence, or it could have done nothing, but none of that would have made Woodward as much money as releasing it two months before the election
Woodward can get fucked, frankly
I don't think Trump was saying anything that wasn't well known at the time. He just wasn't saying it...which, when you're the freaking President, is kinda important.
edit: like, this is still Trump. When he says "in the air" he isn't referring to "airborne transmission", the medical term.
We didn't have suggested masking as part of public policy until what, May? That release might have sped that up and put the focus on airborne transmission over physical contact.
It also might have brought home the seriousness to people who don't live in France or Italy. Even our government was saying we were fine with little to no chance of transmission within Canada until March, as I recall. Even buying a week or two extra of lockdown could have saved lives.
This is all academic though, because the guy with this info who could have used it for public good decided to hold onto it until he could make personal gain.
The idea that this tape wouldve changed anything is just something I can't get my head around.
Places that took it seriously did so, and way back in feb/March. Places that didn't suffered and people just spread the idea that all the deaths were fake deep state liberal garbage.
How someone can come across anything and think that this will be the straw that breaks the camels back and gets us in order isnt something I can buy into.
People are dying because the lead executive in this country failed and his fan base will never stop supporting him. Others who knew it was serious back when the entire country of Italy was on fire took it seriously.
We didn't lock down until mid-March. Neither did most other Western countries. It wasn't until the NBA shut down that it suddenly got serious here, either.
You're underestimating how much of a change to the media cycle it would have been for the leader of the United States, who is also an absolute dunce, admitting to underplaying the seriousness of the virus. We might have had lockdowns in February. That could have been the story to do it instead of a guy coughing on microphones.
And even then it isn't really worth defending Woodward saying nothing until now, because it's so easy to see it was done for his own profit, and at a cost we can't fully estimate.
Trump would never have admitted to anything. He'd have called the tapes fake news and a hoax, just like he does with everything else, and his spokeswraiths would have lied through their teeth as usual. Informed people wouldn't change their behavior because they were already being cautious. Trump cultists wouldn't change their behavior because nothing reaches them short of personal catastrophe. Uninformed people would shrug and assume it's all political mudslinging and who has time to deal with a novel virus anyway; they've got families to support.
And I don't know for sure what Woodward's motivation was, but honestly? If a genie had offered me a choice back in March between saving a hundred thousand American lives from COVID or preventing Trump's re-election, I'd probably have gone for the latter. The world is a lot bigger than America.
This probably isn't going to damage Trump's electoral chances in any meaningful way; Trump would have denied things just like he is now, but there are no revelations here the media wasn't guessing at over the summer. It just might have bought time to have the tapes be released sooner instead of published for Woodward's benefit.
And as someone who resides outside of America I gotta say your final two sentences are upsettingly in poor taste. There are people in this damn thread who lost friends and family to the virus, don't delegate them to being an imaginary political tradeoff for the sake of winning an internet argument.
The problem was less that Trump was downplaying the virus, and more that him and his supporters were sabotaging anything that took the virus more seriously than he was.
So by publicly ripping the curtain open on the orange wizard of oz you would stymie their efforts and let the institutions that wanted to treat the virus seriously to do so.
MWO: Adamski
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38thDoelets never be stupid againwait lets always be stupid foreverRegistered Userregular
I just don't see how anything would stymie them? There appears to be no check on Trump doing whatever he wants to the CDC. Public outrage has been ineffective the last four years on all subjects from messing with the EPA to the Dept of Education. I doubt seeing him make a stupid move would budge republican senators to impeach him (They all knew, a bunch of them made stock purchases/sales when they saw how he was going to handle this). A supreme being appearing and saying Trump is making a mistake would be shrugged off by Trump. In a government held together by norms nothing can stop him from doing what he wants as long as he has enough allies in the senate. So why would he play things any differently? Doing work is hard and also work. Saying everything is fine is easy and Trump is a very lazy person.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited September 2020
The CDC (among others) ignored their own brains to bow to politics and Trumps ill feelings towards anyone that contradicts him. The CDC will form an incredibly shameful part of this history, all said and done. Those who came before them, who put their lives at risk to help those in the midst of an Ebola epidemic or the beginning of the HIV crisis should be immensely saddened by what the CDC turned into.
It’s not about if Trump and others clearly knew this, I assure you, they did. WHO wanted to say it was airborne in January but China threw a shit fit over it, so they watered their language down. So it is much more about if they were willing to contradict dear leader on this. That we know they won’t do, as the likes of Birx who sat there and was SILENT about injecting disinfectant.
Hypotheticals about what would or would not have happened seem less relevant here then the fact that, back when there was no way of knowing what good releasing the tapes might do, Woodward decided to ignore all that and make his main goal to insure his book landed on the bestseller list.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Hypotheticals about what would or would not have happened seem less relevant here then the fact that, back when there was no way of knowing what good releasing the tapes might do, Woodward decided to ignore all that and make his main goal to insure his book landed on the bestseller list.
I mean
We also had a massive scientific body of work that the entire upper chamber of Congress, regulatory agencies, a large portion of the media, and half the country promptly ignored and allowed him to continue when it was worldwide knowledge about how deadly this shit was.
Hypotheticals about what would or would not have happened seem less relevant here then the fact that, back when there was no way of knowing what good releasing the tapes might do, Woodward decided to ignore all that and make his main goal to insure his book landed on the bestseller list.
I mean
We also had a massive scientific body of work that the entire upper chamber of Congress, regulatory agencies, a large portion of the media, and half the country promptly ignored and allowed him to continue when it was worldwide knowledge about how deadly this shit was.
I don't see what any of that has to do with Bob Woodward's decision.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Hypotheticals about what would or would not have happened seem less relevant here then the fact that, back when there was no way of knowing what good releasing the tapes might do, Woodward decided to ignore all that and make his main goal to insure his book landed on the bestseller list.
I mean
We also had a massive scientific body of work that the entire upper chamber of Congress, regulatory agencies, a large portion of the media, and half the country promptly ignored and allowed him to continue when it was worldwide knowledge about how deadly this shit was.
I don't see what any of that has to do with Bob Woodward's decision.
It doesn't matter is what it has to do with it. Don't buy his book and reward his shit behavior, but let's stop pretending Trump wasn't enabled by nearly half the country and the media that's supposedly on "our side" that, for months, refused to call them on their bullshit.
We have a big problem that's going to require a lot of solutions and I'm of the opinion that wasting time on one weasel-ass journo because he's an easy target is self-defeating.
Hypotheticals about what would or would not have happened seem less relevant here then the fact that, back when there was no way of knowing what good releasing the tapes might do, Woodward decided to ignore all that and make his main goal to insure his book landed on the bestseller list.
I mean
We also had a massive scientific body of work that the entire upper chamber of Congress, regulatory agencies, a large portion of the media, and half the country promptly ignored and allowed him to continue when it was worldwide knowledge about how deadly this shit was.
I don't see what any of that has to do with Bob Woodward's decision.
It doesn't matter is what it has to do with it. Don't buy his book and reward his shit behavior, but let's stop pretending Trump wasn't enabled by nearly half the country and the media that's supposedly on "our side" that, for months, refused to call them on their bullshit.
We have a big problem that's going to require a lot of solutions and I'm of the opinion that wasting time on one weasel-ass journo because he's an easy target is self-defeating.
This doesn't follow at all. Like, I literally have no idea what the logical connection you are trying to draw here.
And, as always with these silly arguments about "wasting time", we here in this thread can certainly walk and chew gum at the same time on these matters.
At the end of the day the thing that doesn't matter is all this other shit you brought up. Woodward had literal tapes of damning admissions by the president of the united states about how he was lying to the public about a deadly pandemic and decided that his main criteria for what he would do about that was what would help him move the most copies. All this other stuff doesn't change that.
shryke on
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Hypotheticals about what would or would not have happened seem less relevant here then the fact that, back when there was no way of knowing what good releasing the tapes might do, Woodward decided to ignore all that and make his main goal to insure his book landed on the bestseller list.
I mean
We also had a massive scientific body of work that the entire upper chamber of Congress, regulatory agencies, a large portion of the media, and half the country promptly ignored and allowed him to continue when it was worldwide knowledge about how deadly this shit was.
I don't see what any of that has to do with Bob Woodward's decision.
It doesn't matter is what it has to do with it. Don't buy his book and reward his shit behavior, but let's stop pretending Trump wasn't enabled by nearly half the country and the media that's supposedly on "our side" that, for months, refused to call them on their bullshit.
We have a big problem that's going to require a lot of solutions and I'm of the opinion that wasting time on one weasel-ass journo because he's an easy target is self-defeating.
This doesn't follow at all. Like, I literally have no idea what the logical connection you are trying to draw here.
And, as always with these silly arguments about "wasting time", we here in this thread can certainly walk and chew gum at the same time on these matters.
At the end of the day the thing that doesn't matter is all this other shit you brought up. Woodward had literal tapes of damning admissions by the president of the united states about how he was lying to the public about a deadly pandemic and decided that his main criteria for what he would do about that was what would help him move the most copies. All this other stuff doesn't change that.
Trumps been caught on tape lying to the American people every day since his administration started and nobody cares.
And even this probably won't move the needle on his supporters, since most of them think the death count is falsified anyway.
So my question is, why does this sudden admission matter to the people who have listened to the science and medical community since day 1, and why does it matter to people who say hes been sent by God Himself?
It doesnt, it matters on the margins, it matters to the people who dont watch him lie on tape every day, or who think that all politicians lie, but that this kind of lying is bad. Its all about getting the margins, getting back obama/trump voters, not moving the base.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
It doesnt, it matters on the margins, it matters to the people who dont watch him lie on tape every day, or who think that all politicians lie, but that this kind of lying is bad. Its all about getting the margins, getting back obama/trump voters, not moving the base.
That's well and good, but I'm not talking about elections as much as the 1000 people dying every single day.
If these people can't be moved by that statistic, I highly doubt Trump being a lying rat in yet another completely proven way will change much.
Even if it would have changed nothing, releasing the tapes in February would have been a sign that he wasn't just in it for personal profit
He sat on taped recordings that showed the President of the United States knew there was an airborne pandemic underway so he could release it closer to the election and make bank
This could have changed global strategy as far back as February, it could have motivated earlier lockdowns saving thousands of lives, it could have caused changes in public policy in other countries not privy to that intelligence, or it could have done nothing, but none of that would have made Woodward as much money as releasing it two months before the election
Woodward can get fucked, frankly
I don't think Trump was saying anything that wasn't well known at the time. He just wasn't saying it...which, when you're the freaking President, is kinda important.
edit: like, this is still Trump. When he says "in the air" he isn't referring to "airborne transmission", the medical term.
We didn't have suggested masking as part of public policy until what, May? That release might have sped that up and put the focus on airborne transmission over physical contact.
It also might have brought home the seriousness to people who don't live in France or Italy. Even our government was saying we were fine with little to no chance of transmission within Canada until March, as I recall. Even buying a week or two extra of lockdown could have saved lives.
This is all academic though, because the guy with this info who could have used it for public good decided to hold onto it until he could make personal gain.
The idea that this tape wouldve changed anything is just something I can't get my head around.
Places that took it seriously did so, and way back in feb/March. Places that didn't suffered and people just spread the idea that all the deaths were fake deep state liberal garbage.
How someone can come across anything and think that this will be the straw that breaks the camels back and gets us in order isnt something I can buy into.
People are dying because the lead executive in this country failed and his fan base will never stop supporting him. Others who knew it was serious back when the entire country of Italy was on fire took it seriously.
We didn't lock down until mid-March. Neither did most other Western countries. It wasn't until the NBA shut down that it suddenly got serious here, either.
You're underestimating how much of a change to the media cycle it would have been for the leader of the United States, who is also an absolute dunce, admitting to underplaying the seriousness of the virus. We might have had lockdowns in February. That could have been the story to do it instead of a guy coughing on microphones.
And even then it isn't really worth defending Woodward saying nothing until now, because it's so easy to see it was done for his own profit, and at a cost we can't fully estimate.
Trump would never have admitted to anything. He'd have called the tapes fake news and a hoax, just like he does with everything else, and his spokeswraiths would have lied through their teeth as usual. Informed people wouldn't change their behavior because they were already being cautious. Trump cultists wouldn't change their behavior because nothing reaches them short of personal catastrophe. Uninformed people would shrug and assume it's all political mudslinging and who has time to deal with a novel virus anyway; they've got families to support.
And I don't know for sure what Woodward's motivation was, but honestly? If a genie had offered me a choice back in March between saving a hundred thousand American lives from COVID or preventing Trump's re-election, I'd probably have gone for the latter. The world is a lot bigger than America.
This probably isn't going to damage Trump's electoral chances in any meaningful way; Trump would have denied things just like he is now, but there are no revelations here the media wasn't guessing at over the summer. It just might have bought time to have the tapes be released sooner instead of published for Woodward's benefit.
And as someone who resides outside of America I gotta say your final two sentences are upsettingly in poor taste. There are people in this damn thread who lost friends and family to the virus, don't delegate them to being an imaginary political tradeoff for the sake of winning an internet argument.
It was a dumb hypothetical and in retrospect I'm not sure why I thought that was a good way to communicate what I was trying to say.
My point was twofold: 1) I don't believe releasing the tape at the time would have made a damn lick of difference. Trump has been brazenly, provably lying about matters of life, death, and national security since day one and it doesn't matter. The media would have been all a-flutter for a day or three before the next shiny thing caught their attention. 2) If Woodward thought the tape could be put to better use trying to hurt Trump's re-election chances than pointing out at the time that he was lying to the American people (again), I could understand that. But again, I think it's a false dichotomy because of (1).
IMO: People want to find someone to blame besides Trump (and/or the somewhat-less-than-half of the country that voted for him), and to imagine that there was some way we could have avoided at least some of the fucking disaster this year has been. And I get that. I do. But... I don't think there is, or was. And it's moot now anyway. Here we are, all of us strapped into the roller coaster together, hoping that it'll pull into the station this November (or next January) and let us off, rather than flying completely off the rails.
I'm ok saying that one less thing in the mountain of things to hit him with on the leadup to November is fine if getting that info out early might have saved some of those 200000 lives.
There is no might have. I wouldn't have done anything at all. It would have been a soundbyte that got eaten by the frankly mind boggling catastrophe that is the Trump presidency and no one would even remember it now.
"But the media would have made it a thing and lives would have been saved!" no they wouldn't have. The media would have spent a day and a half, maybe two days, talking about how bad it was and then Trump would have shit himself and they'd spend the next two days talking about Trump's bowel movements.
Seriously, without looking anything up, name every major scandal from even the last six months.
You can't. I also can't. No one can because it's just an ongoing train wreck of events that should end any presidency but won't.
I'm not saying Woodward held back because this coming out closer to the election would potentially be another anchor around Trump's neck, I 100% think it's for the book sales, but I am super glad he waited whatever his motivation was.
I'm not (glad he waited), because even now, I dunno if this will significantly move the needle. I've given up guessing, let alone hoping. The last four years have taught me that.
I don’t see how this can move the needle now, but it couldn’t any time between March and Labor Day.
It can’t be both ways, useless then yet somehow impactful now.
I get the utilitarian aspect of the argument, that waiting till closer to the election makes the recordings more impactful. But between March and now there were people that did their best to save lives, some in the media or Congress or state governments or school boards or the CDC or anyone else trying to fight COVID and has been hamstrung by Trump. We will never know for sure if Woodward releasing the recordings earlier could have helped save lives, but it sure as hell couldn’t have hurt.
Bob Woodward didn’t release the tapes to remove Trump, he did it primarily for monetary reasons, removing Trump is secondary at best, assuming Woodward even cares.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
I think Woodward is an ass who is releasing his book now because it will garner more attention and money and the marginal impact on removing Trump is much greater now than the marginal impact on saving lives by earlier release can both be true.
Covid-19 required and requires a rational and unified response and that won't come without an election (or 50 competent state governments which doesn't exist).
Professionally outraged profiteer rubbing his hands together because the bigger the trainwreck, the bigger the ticket sales.
It's not terribly different than anyone else who's spent their lives publishing "inside the Whitehouse" tell all's. They're immoral shitty people, it doesn't matter who's side they pretend to be on.
What counts as journalism is the real tragedy here.
We should all be together on this. Virus and death bad, people good.
Visitors were still maskless in the Kirkland retirement home (as an example of how this knowledge could have saved specific lives at this time)
The first statewide school closures didn’t start happening until around 3/15, and mask mandates in NY and MI went in another month later. Even the well-intentioned government leaders like Inslee/Whitmer/Newsome, etc, didn’t have the info Trump gave Woodward on 2/7- they certainly would have responded earlier if they had it, which we could surmise would have saved lives
That all being said
Going back to 2/7, Woodward would not have any reason to think what Trump was saying was true and not bullshitting- Trump had said very little about the situation at this point (which is also an example of his failure)- so wouldn’t have felt it worthwhile to release anything then
I think looking back at the timeline (using our own threads as useful historical artifacts!) it’s clear that well-intentioned people in positions to enact life-saving policies did NOT have the info Trump told Woodward on 2/7 BUT I can’t really be mad at Woodward because in the context of the time, what Trump was saying just seemed like made up bullshit and not a lie/cover-up
It is so tremendously interesting how everyone, including Trump, is blaming Woodward, not Trump. There seems to be a psychological resistance to blaming Trump for his own actions. Learned helplessness?
It is so tremendously interesting how everyone, including Trump, is blaming Woodward, not Trump. There seems to be a psychological resistance to blaming Trump for his own actions. Learned helplessness?
We all know that Trump is a monster but some viewed Woodward as a hero and somebody who might care that they did wrong.
Or they're utterly in the tank for Trump and are just distracting however possible.
It is so tremendously interesting how everyone, including Trump, is blaming Woodward, not Trump. There seems to be a psychological resistance to blaming Trump for his own actions. Learned helplessness?
Everyone assumes Trump is a narcissistic moron who has the competency of a potato found under the sink.
Woodward pretends to be an enlightened journalist of the people who is peeling back the veil.
Trump is the emperor watching slaves fight in the arena for sport. People like Woodward sell the tickets to the common folk.
Hypotheticals about what would or would not have happened seem less relevant here then the fact that, back when there was no way of knowing what good releasing the tapes might do, Woodward decided to ignore all that and make his main goal to insure his book landed on the bestseller list.
I mean
We also had a massive scientific body of work that the entire upper chamber of Congress, regulatory agencies, a large portion of the media, and half the country promptly ignored and allowed him to continue when it was worldwide knowledge about how deadly this shit was.
I don't see what any of that has to do with Bob Woodward's decision.
It doesn't matter is what it has to do with it. Don't buy his book and reward his shit behavior, but let's stop pretending Trump wasn't enabled by nearly half the country and the media that's supposedly on "our side" that, for months, refused to call them on their bullshit.
We have a big problem that's going to require a lot of solutions and I'm of the opinion that wasting time on one weasel-ass journo because he's an easy target is self-defeating.
This doesn't follow at all. Like, I literally have no idea what the logical connection you are trying to draw here.
And, as always with these silly arguments about "wasting time", we here in this thread can certainly walk and chew gum at the same time on these matters.
At the end of the day the thing that doesn't matter is all this other shit you brought up. Woodward had literal tapes of damning admissions by the president of the united states about how he was lying to the public about a deadly pandemic and decided that his main criteria for what he would do about that was what would help him move the most copies. All this other stuff doesn't change that.
Trumps been caught on tape lying to the American people every day since his administration started and nobody cares.
And even this probably won't move the needle on his supporters, since most of them think the death count is falsified anyway.
So my question is, why does this sudden admission matter to the people who have listened to the science and medical community since day 1, and why does it matter to people who say hes been sent by God Himself?
Why are you again entertaining these hypotheticals that I've literally said in every post in this chain are irrelevant? I don't get it at all. Like, literally, I've said multiple times now I don't think it matters at all so I'm not sure why you keep bringing them up like they are relevant to what I'm saying.
The question is not about whether it would have moved the needle in some alternate reality, but about the priorities of Bob Woodward and what they say about him.
My outrage is that journalists like Woodward have covered for and actively promoted this monster for five years. The industry is rotten to its core and destroying our democracy because it's more interested in power and prestige than the truth.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
My outrage is that journalists like Woodward have covered for and actively promoted this monster for five years. The industry is rotten to its core and destroying our democracy because it's more interested in power and prestige than the truth.
I still wonder how much of this top driven oligarchy bullshit and how much of it is bottom driven with reporters "being impartial" or some shit.
It is so tremendously interesting how everyone, including Trump, is blaming Woodward, not Trump. There seems to be a psychological resistance to blaming Trump for his own actions. Learned helplessness?
Are they? I've seen A LOT of people blaming Trump for his statements. It's just many people are also saying "And fuck Woodward too". But maybe that's just where I'm reading.
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Hypotheticals about what would or would not have happened seem less relevant here then the fact that, back when there was no way of knowing what good releasing the tapes might do, Woodward decided to ignore all that and make his main goal to insure his book landed on the bestseller list.
I mean
We also had a massive scientific body of work that the entire upper chamber of Congress, regulatory agencies, a large portion of the media, and half the country promptly ignored and allowed him to continue when it was worldwide knowledge about how deadly this shit was.
I don't see what any of that has to do with Bob Woodward's decision.
It doesn't matter is what it has to do with it. Don't buy his book and reward his shit behavior, but let's stop pretending Trump wasn't enabled by nearly half the country and the media that's supposedly on "our side" that, for months, refused to call them on their bullshit.
We have a big problem that's going to require a lot of solutions and I'm of the opinion that wasting time on one weasel-ass journo because he's an easy target is self-defeating.
This doesn't follow at all. Like, I literally have no idea what the logical connection you are trying to draw here.
And, as always with these silly arguments about "wasting time", we here in this thread can certainly walk and chew gum at the same time on these matters.
At the end of the day the thing that doesn't matter is all this other shit you brought up. Woodward had literal tapes of damning admissions by the president of the united states about how he was lying to the public about a deadly pandemic and decided that his main criteria for what he would do about that was what would help him move the most copies. All this other stuff doesn't change that.
Trumps been caught on tape lying to the American people every day since his administration started and nobody cares.
And even this probably won't move the needle on his supporters, since most of them think the death count is falsified anyway.
So my question is, why does this sudden admission matter to the people who have listened to the science and medical community since day 1, and why does it matter to people who say hes been sent by God Himself?
Why are you again entertaining these hypotheticals that I've literally said in every post in this chain are irrelevant? I don't get it at all. Like, literally, I've said multiple times now I don't think it matters at all so I'm not sure why you keep bringing them up like they are relevant to what I'm saying.
The question is not about whether it would have moved the needle in some alternate reality, but about the priorities of Bob Woodward and what they say about him.
Because you don't get to unilaterally decide whats relevant and not?
And who fucking cares about Bob Woodward? Make him irrelevant, don't buy his book, poof he's done.
Hypotheticals about what would or would not have happened seem less relevant here then the fact that, back when there was no way of knowing what good releasing the tapes might do, Woodward decided to ignore all that and make his main goal to insure his book landed on the bestseller list.
I mean
We also had a massive scientific body of work that the entire upper chamber of Congress, regulatory agencies, a large portion of the media, and half the country promptly ignored and allowed him to continue when it was worldwide knowledge about how deadly this shit was.
I don't see what any of that has to do with Bob Woodward's decision.
It doesn't matter is what it has to do with it. Don't buy his book and reward his shit behavior, but let's stop pretending Trump wasn't enabled by nearly half the country and the media that's supposedly on "our side" that, for months, refused to call them on their bullshit.
We have a big problem that's going to require a lot of solutions and I'm of the opinion that wasting time on one weasel-ass journo because he's an easy target is self-defeating.
This doesn't follow at all. Like, I literally have no idea what the logical connection you are trying to draw here.
And, as always with these silly arguments about "wasting time", we here in this thread can certainly walk and chew gum at the same time on these matters.
At the end of the day the thing that doesn't matter is all this other shit you brought up. Woodward had literal tapes of damning admissions by the president of the united states about how he was lying to the public about a deadly pandemic and decided that his main criteria for what he would do about that was what would help him move the most copies. All this other stuff doesn't change that.
Trumps been caught on tape lying to the American people every day since his administration started and nobody cares.
And even this probably won't move the needle on his supporters, since most of them think the death count is falsified anyway.
So my question is, why does this sudden admission matter to the people who have listened to the science and medical community since day 1, and why does it matter to people who say hes been sent by God Himself?
Why are you again entertaining these hypotheticals that I've literally said in every post in this chain are irrelevant? I don't get it at all. Like, literally, I've said multiple times now I don't think it matters at all so I'm not sure why you keep bringing them up like they are relevant to what I'm saying.
The question is not about whether it would have moved the needle in some alternate reality, but about the priorities of Bob Woodward and what they say about him.
Because you don't get to unilaterally decide whats relevant and not?
And who fucking cares about Bob Woodward? Make him irrelevant, don't buy his book, poof he's done.
I wasn't going to buy his book. But that's irrelevant to the question of "Is Bob Woodward a real piece of shit for keeping this information hidden for 6 months so he could sell more books?". And the answer is pretty obviously yes. And the hypotheticals about what it might or might not have done had he chosen differently are irrelevant to that, as I keep pointing out to you. And you've yet to make any case at all for why they should. Neither He, nor you nor I, know what would have been the outcome of releasing recorded information about how the POTUS was deliberately systematically lying to the american public about how dangerous covid was. There's no real way, especially when he made the decision, to assess that. And it doesn't fucking change the point anyway. /He did it so he could release the information right before his book dropped to hype the release and boost sales and that's pretty fucking vile.
And again, we can walk and chew gum here. We can both access yet more of Trump's monstrous conduct wrt this pandemic and also call Woodward a piece of shit who only cares about the money and prestige these book drops will get him.
shryke on
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Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
Bars in Florida are officially reopening on Monday with indoor service. I’m glad we can finally move on from this pandemic and get drunk and rowdy together safely.
Wait, you mean the pandemic isn’t over and this will probably make it worse?
Florida, nooooo!
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Hypotheticals about what would or would not have happened seem less relevant here then the fact that, back when there was no way of knowing what good releasing the tapes might do, Woodward decided to ignore all that and make his main goal to insure his book landed on the bestseller list.
I mean
We also had a massive scientific body of work that the entire upper chamber of Congress, regulatory agencies, a large portion of the media, and half the country promptly ignored and allowed him to continue when it was worldwide knowledge about how deadly this shit was.
I don't see what any of that has to do with Bob Woodward's decision.
It doesn't matter is what it has to do with it. Don't buy his book and reward his shit behavior, but let's stop pretending Trump wasn't enabled by nearly half the country and the media that's supposedly on "our side" that, for months, refused to call them on their bullshit.
We have a big problem that's going to require a lot of solutions and I'm of the opinion that wasting time on one weasel-ass journo because he's an easy target is self-defeating.
This doesn't follow at all. Like, I literally have no idea what the logical connection you are trying to draw here.
And, as always with these silly arguments about "wasting time", we here in this thread can certainly walk and chew gum at the same time on these matters.
At the end of the day the thing that doesn't matter is all this other shit you brought up. Woodward had literal tapes of damning admissions by the president of the united states about how he was lying to the public about a deadly pandemic and decided that his main criteria for what he would do about that was what would help him move the most copies. All this other stuff doesn't change that.
Trumps been caught on tape lying to the American people every day since his administration started and nobody cares.
And even this probably won't move the needle on his supporters, since most of them think the death count is falsified anyway.
So my question is, why does this sudden admission matter to the people who have listened to the science and medical community since day 1, and why does it matter to people who say hes been sent by God Himself?
Why are you again entertaining these hypotheticals that I've literally said in every post in this chain are irrelevant? I don't get it at all. Like, literally, I've said multiple times now I don't think it matters at all so I'm not sure why you keep bringing them up like they are relevant to what I'm saying.
The question is not about whether it would have moved the needle in some alternate reality, but about the priorities of Bob Woodward and what they say about him.
Because you don't get to unilaterally decide whats relevant and not?
And who fucking cares about Bob Woodward? Make him irrelevant, don't buy his book, poof he's done.
I wasn't going to buy his book. But that's irrelevant to the question of "Is Bob Woodward a real piece of shit for keeping this information hidden for 6 months so he could sell more books?". And the answer is pretty obviously yes. And the hypotheticals about what it might or might not have done had he chosen differently are irrelevant to that, as I keep pointing out to you. And you've yet to make any case at all for why they should. Neither He, nor you nor I, know what would have been the outcome of releasing recorded information about how the POTUS was deliberately systematically lying to the american public about how dangerous covid was. There's no real way, especially when he made the decision, to assess that. And it doesn't fucking change the point anyway. /He did it so he could release the information right before his book dropped to hype the release and boost sales and that's pretty fucking vile.
And again, we can walk and chew gum here. We can both access yet more of Trump's monstrous conduct wrt this pandemic and also call Woodward a piece of shit who only cares about the money and prestige these book drops will get him.
Except the part where the case was made he's been caught lying almost every single day for 3+ years and ain't a damn thing changed, which you keep saying is irrelevant because you say so. Because every single safety mechanism designed to prevent this kind of behavior in a sitting executive has failed due to the bad faith politics of the GOP and the access-hungry media jerkwads we have at the white house briefings.
This isn't even the first thing he's lied about (and been caught in that lie) about the coronavirus.
Just gonna reference my effort post from above to say that Woodward wouldn't have good reason to think Trump’s bullshit meant anything in February- it was by late March->April (the Easter bullshit) that he would have known how noteworthy the tapes were, but by then we had the air study, the well-intentioned people had already started doing what they could, and the issue was becoming violently politicized.
I think I’ve come around to this:
1. At the time the info could have saved lives, Woodward wouldn’t have known how important the tape was
2. At the time he knew how important the tape was, its impact on saving lives is greatly diminished
Captain Inertia on
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jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
Woodward has far more to answer for with his work at WaPo than this book.
Hypotheticals about what would or would not have happened seem less relevant here then the fact that, back when there was no way of knowing what good releasing the tapes might do, Woodward decided to ignore all that and make his main goal to insure his book landed on the bestseller list.
I mean
We also had a massive scientific body of work that the entire upper chamber of Congress, regulatory agencies, a large portion of the media, and half the country promptly ignored and allowed him to continue when it was worldwide knowledge about how deadly this shit was.
I don't see what any of that has to do with Bob Woodward's decision.
It doesn't matter is what it has to do with it. Don't buy his book and reward his shit behavior, but let's stop pretending Trump wasn't enabled by nearly half the country and the media that's supposedly on "our side" that, for months, refused to call them on their bullshit.
We have a big problem that's going to require a lot of solutions and I'm of the opinion that wasting time on one weasel-ass journo because he's an easy target is self-defeating.
This doesn't follow at all. Like, I literally have no idea what the logical connection you are trying to draw here.
And, as always with these silly arguments about "wasting time", we here in this thread can certainly walk and chew gum at the same time on these matters.
At the end of the day the thing that doesn't matter is all this other shit you brought up. Woodward had literal tapes of damning admissions by the president of the united states about how he was lying to the public about a deadly pandemic and decided that his main criteria for what he would do about that was what would help him move the most copies. All this other stuff doesn't change that.
Trumps been caught on tape lying to the American people every day since his administration started and nobody cares.
And even this probably won't move the needle on his supporters, since most of them think the death count is falsified anyway.
So my question is, why does this sudden admission matter to the people who have listened to the science and medical community since day 1, and why does it matter to people who say hes been sent by God Himself?
Why are you again entertaining these hypotheticals that I've literally said in every post in this chain are irrelevant? I don't get it at all. Like, literally, I've said multiple times now I don't think it matters at all so I'm not sure why you keep bringing them up like they are relevant to what I'm saying.
The question is not about whether it would have moved the needle in some alternate reality, but about the priorities of Bob Woodward and what they say about him.
Because you don't get to unilaterally decide whats relevant and not?
And who fucking cares about Bob Woodward? Make him irrelevant, don't buy his book, poof he's done.
I wasn't going to buy his book. But that's irrelevant to the question of "Is Bob Woodward a real piece of shit for keeping this information hidden for 6 months so he could sell more books?". And the answer is pretty obviously yes. And the hypotheticals about what it might or might not have done had he chosen differently are irrelevant to that, as I keep pointing out to you. And you've yet to make any case at all for why they should. Neither He, nor you nor I, know what would have been the outcome of releasing recorded information about how the POTUS was deliberately systematically lying to the american public about how dangerous covid was. There's no real way, especially when he made the decision, to assess that. And it doesn't fucking change the point anyway. /He did it so he could release the information right before his book dropped to hype the release and boost sales and that's pretty fucking vile.
And again, we can walk and chew gum here. We can both access yet more of Trump's monstrous conduct wrt this pandemic and also call Woodward a piece of shit who only cares about the money and prestige these book drops will get him.
Except the part where the case was made he's been caught lying almost every single day for 3+ years and ain't a damn thing changed, which you keep saying is irrelevant because you say so. Because every single safety mechanism designed to prevent this kind of behavior in a sitting executive has failed due to the bad faith politics of the GOP and the access-hungry media jerkwads we have at the white house briefings.
This isn't even the first thing he's lied about (and been caught in that lie) about the coronavirus.
Yes, I'm saying it's irrelevant and explaining why. You have yet to explain why it is relevant, let alone why it should be the only relevant criteria. You keep trying to frame this in terms of these hypotheticals without offering any reasoning for why those have to be relevant to the question.
I'm saying Woodward is a piece of shit for hiding this information in order to sell more books. What might or might not have happened if he'd actually said what he knew doesn't change those motivations or that argument. Continuing to bring up what might or might not have happened doesn't matter to that point. And you haven't ever explained why it should be the only thing that matters here rather then what I'm pointing out.
Posts
Trump would never have admitted to anything. He'd have called the tapes fake news and a hoax, just like he does with everything else, and his spokeswraiths would have lied through their teeth as usual. Informed people wouldn't change their behavior because they were already being cautious. Trump cultists wouldn't change their behavior because nothing reaches them short of personal catastrophe. Uninformed people would shrug and assume it's all political mudslinging and who has time to deal with a novel virus anyway; they've got families to support.
And I don't know for sure what Woodward's motivation was, but honestly? If a genie had offered me a choice back in March between saving a hundred thousand American lives from COVID or preventing Trump's re-election, I'd probably have gone for the latter. The world is a lot bigger than America.
Also, Benedict Arnold kind of saved the day at Saratoga.
For those that know, the boot statue is a powerful piece of history and puts all the Robert E Lee equestrians to shame.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
This probably isn't going to damage Trump's electoral chances in any meaningful way; Trump would have denied things just like he is now, but there are no revelations here the media wasn't guessing at over the summer. It just might have bought time to have the tapes be released sooner instead of published for Woodward's benefit.
And as someone who resides outside of America I gotta say your final two sentences are upsettingly in poor taste. There are people in this damn thread who lost friends and family to the virus, don't delegate them to being an imaginary political tradeoff for the sake of winning an internet argument.
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So by publicly ripping the curtain open on the orange wizard of oz you would stymie their efforts and let the institutions that wanted to treat the virus seriously to do so.
MWO: Adamski
It’s not about if Trump and others clearly knew this, I assure you, they did. WHO wanted to say it was airborne in January but China threw a shit fit over it, so they watered their language down. So it is much more about if they were willing to contradict dear leader on this. That we know they won’t do, as the likes of Birx who sat there and was SILENT about injecting disinfectant.
I mean
We also had a massive scientific body of work that the entire upper chamber of Congress, regulatory agencies, a large portion of the media, and half the country promptly ignored and allowed him to continue when it was worldwide knowledge about how deadly this shit was.
I don't see what any of that has to do with Bob Woodward's decision.
It doesn't matter is what it has to do with it. Don't buy his book and reward his shit behavior, but let's stop pretending Trump wasn't enabled by nearly half the country and the media that's supposedly on "our side" that, for months, refused to call them on their bullshit.
We have a big problem that's going to require a lot of solutions and I'm of the opinion that wasting time on one weasel-ass journo because he's an easy target is self-defeating.
This doesn't follow at all. Like, I literally have no idea what the logical connection you are trying to draw here.
And, as always with these silly arguments about "wasting time", we here in this thread can certainly walk and chew gum at the same time on these matters.
At the end of the day the thing that doesn't matter is all this other shit you brought up. Woodward had literal tapes of damning admissions by the president of the united states about how he was lying to the public about a deadly pandemic and decided that his main criteria for what he would do about that was what would help him move the most copies. All this other stuff doesn't change that.
Trumps been caught on tape lying to the American people every day since his administration started and nobody cares.
And even this probably won't move the needle on his supporters, since most of them think the death count is falsified anyway.
So my question is, why does this sudden admission matter to the people who have listened to the science and medical community since day 1, and why does it matter to people who say hes been sent by God Himself?
That's well and good, but I'm not talking about elections as much as the 1000 people dying every single day.
If these people can't be moved by that statistic, I highly doubt Trump being a lying rat in yet another completely proven way will change much.
It was a dumb hypothetical and in retrospect I'm not sure why I thought that was a good way to communicate what I was trying to say.
My point was twofold: 1) I don't believe releasing the tape at the time would have made a damn lick of difference. Trump has been brazenly, provably lying about matters of life, death, and national security since day one and it doesn't matter. The media would have been all a-flutter for a day or three before the next shiny thing caught their attention. 2) If Woodward thought the tape could be put to better use trying to hurt Trump's re-election chances than pointing out at the time that he was lying to the American people (again), I could understand that. But again, I think it's a false dichotomy because of (1).
There is no might have. I wouldn't have done anything at all. It would have been a soundbyte that got eaten by the frankly mind boggling catastrophe that is the Trump presidency and no one would even remember it now.
"But the media would have made it a thing and lives would have been saved!" no they wouldn't have. The media would have spent a day and a half, maybe two days, talking about how bad it was and then Trump would have shit himself and they'd spend the next two days talking about Trump's bowel movements.
Seriously, without looking anything up, name every major scandal from even the last six months.
You can't. I also can't. No one can because it's just an ongoing train wreck of events that should end any presidency but won't.
I'm not saying Woodward held back because this coming out closer to the election would potentially be another anchor around Trump's neck, I 100% think it's for the book sales, but I am super glad he waited whatever his motivation was.
It can’t be both ways, useless then yet somehow impactful now.
I get the utilitarian aspect of the argument, that waiting till closer to the election makes the recordings more impactful. But between March and now there were people that did their best to save lives, some in the media or Congress or state governments or school boards or the CDC or anyone else trying to fight COVID and has been hamstrung by Trump. We will never know for sure if Woodward releasing the recordings earlier could have helped save lives, but it sure as hell couldn’t have hurt.
Bob Woodward didn’t release the tapes to remove Trump, he did it primarily for monetary reasons, removing Trump is secondary at best, assuming Woodward even cares.
Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.
Covid-19 required and requires a rational and unified response and that won't come without an election (or 50 competent state governments which doesn't exist).
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
It's not terribly different than anyone else who's spent their lives publishing "inside the Whitehouse" tell all's. They're immoral shitty people, it doesn't matter who's side they pretend to be on.
What counts as journalism is the real tragedy here.
We should all be together on this. Virus and death bad, people good.
PAX East occurred 2.5 weeks later with extra hand sanitizer (as an example of how this very community viewed the risks at this time https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/235013/cases-of-coronavirus-confirmed-in-massachusetts-should-i-be-worried#latest)
Visitors were still maskless in the Kirkland retirement home (as an example of how this knowledge could have saved specific lives at this time)
The first statewide school closures didn’t start happening until around 3/15, and mask mandates in NY and MI went in another month later. Even the well-intentioned government leaders like Inslee/Whitmer/Newsome, etc, didn’t have the info Trump gave Woodward on 2/7- they certainly would have responded earlier if they had it, which we could surmise would have saved lives
That all being said
Going back to 2/7, Woodward would not have any reason to think what Trump was saying was true and not bullshitting- Trump had said very little about the situation at this point (which is also an example of his failure)- so wouldn’t have felt it worthwhile to release anything then
I think looking back at the timeline (using our own threads as useful historical artifacts!) it’s clear that well-intentioned people in positions to enact life-saving policies did NOT have the info Trump told Woodward on 2/7 BUT I can’t really be mad at Woodward because in the context of the time, what Trump was saying just seemed like made up bullshit and not a lie/cover-up
/sigh
We all know that Trump is a monster but some viewed Woodward as a hero and somebody who might care that they did wrong.
Or they're utterly in the tank for Trump and are just distracting however possible.
Everyone assumes Trump is a narcissistic moron who has the competency of a potato found under the sink.
Woodward pretends to be an enlightened journalist of the people who is peeling back the veil.
Trump is the emperor watching slaves fight in the arena for sport. People like Woodward sell the tickets to the common folk.
Why are you again entertaining these hypotheticals that I've literally said in every post in this chain are irrelevant? I don't get it at all. Like, literally, I've said multiple times now I don't think it matters at all so I'm not sure why you keep bringing them up like they are relevant to what I'm saying.
The question is not about whether it would have moved the needle in some alternate reality, but about the priorities of Bob Woodward and what they say about him.
I still wonder how much of this top driven oligarchy bullshit and how much of it is bottom driven with reporters "being impartial" or some shit.
Are they? I've seen A LOT of people blaming Trump for his statements. It's just many people are also saying "And fuck Woodward too". But maybe that's just where I'm reading.
Because you don't get to unilaterally decide whats relevant and not?
And who fucking cares about Bob Woodward? Make him irrelevant, don't buy his book, poof he's done.
I wasn't going to buy his book. But that's irrelevant to the question of "Is Bob Woodward a real piece of shit for keeping this information hidden for 6 months so he could sell more books?". And the answer is pretty obviously yes. And the hypotheticals about what it might or might not have done had he chosen differently are irrelevant to that, as I keep pointing out to you. And you've yet to make any case at all for why they should. Neither He, nor you nor I, know what would have been the outcome of releasing recorded information about how the POTUS was deliberately systematically lying to the american public about how dangerous covid was. There's no real way, especially when he made the decision, to assess that. And it doesn't fucking change the point anyway. /He did it so he could release the information right before his book dropped to hype the release and boost sales and that's pretty fucking vile.
And again, we can walk and chew gum here. We can both access yet more of Trump's monstrous conduct wrt this pandemic and also call Woodward a piece of shit who only cares about the money and prestige these book drops will get him.
Wait, you mean the pandemic isn’t over and this will probably make it worse?
Florida, nooooo!
Except the part where the case was made he's been caught lying almost every single day for 3+ years and ain't a damn thing changed, which you keep saying is irrelevant because you say so. Because every single safety mechanism designed to prevent this kind of behavior in a sitting executive has failed due to the bad faith politics of the GOP and the access-hungry media jerkwads we have at the white house briefings.
This isn't even the first thing he's lied about (and been caught in that lie) about the coronavirus.
I think I’ve come around to this:
1. At the time the info could have saved lives, Woodward wouldn’t have known how important the tape was
2. At the time he knew how important the tape was, its impact on saving lives is greatly diminished
Yes, I'm saying it's irrelevant and explaining why. You have yet to explain why it is relevant, let alone why it should be the only relevant criteria. You keep trying to frame this in terms of these hypotheticals without offering any reasoning for why those have to be relevant to the question.
I'm saying Woodward is a piece of shit for hiding this information in order to sell more books. What might or might not have happened if he'd actually said what he knew doesn't change those motivations or that argument. Continuing to bring up what might or might not have happened doesn't matter to that point. And you haven't ever explained why it should be the only thing that matters here rather then what I'm pointing out.
2. Why the hell do we care