This is very simple. Somebody needs to ask John Kelly, on the record, if it happened or not. Or Kelly can step forward to deny it of his own volition. If he does so, we move on and The Atlantic loses its credibility. But I feel confident the reporting will hold up -- it's certainly in keeping with what Trump has said and done publicly and on the record.
That said, I can't help but feel somebody like Tucker Carlson is watching and taking notes for 2024. You can get away with mishandling the pandemic, racist policies, undermining America's democratic norms and generally being unpleasant and bad for the country -- and that might be Carlson's agenda, too. But he'll be too smart to ever badmouth the military. Trumpism with a little bit of self-restraint and self-discipline will be a terrible and terrifying thing for the country. The original is bad enough.
2 comments:
Yes. As Jonah Goldberg said, the story is completely believable, but perhaps they should have sat on it until/unless someone would go on the record.
I don't know the right answer on that. I saw Damon Linker point out that one anonymous source is iffy, but four -- all of whom claim firsthand knowledge -- is something else entirely. I don't always agree with Goldberg's perspective, but I'm skeptical he'd be that sloppy in his own reporting.
Then again, I thought that about Dan Rather in 2004.
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