The wheels of Snopes grind slowly
Well, well, well. Better late than never?:
In a news conference after the [Charlottesville] rally protesting the planned removal of a Confederate statue, Trump did say there were “very fine people on both sides,” referring to the protesters and the counterprotesters. He said in the same statement he wasn’t talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, who he said should be “condemned totally.”
The Charlottesville incident happened in 2017. The Democrats have talked about it incessantly, as has the MSM and Biden himself, stating that Trump said neo-Nazis and white supremacists were “good people.” The right has known almost from the start that he didn’t say that, and it wasn’t hard to discover. All one had to do was actually listen to an unedited version of what he said. Apparently, until now, Snopes was somehow unable or unwilling to do that.
The question isn’t why; Snopes is left-leaning. The question is why they finally have admitted this now. Is there a mole at Snopes?
The furor from the left was so great that Snopes issued this semi-disclaimer:
Some readers have raised the objection that this fact check appears to assume Trump was correct in stating that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the Charlottesville incident. That is not the case. This fact check aimed to confirm what Trump actually said, not whether what he said was true or false. For the record, virtually every source that covered the Unite the Right debacle concluded that it was conceived of, led by and attended by white supremacists, and that therefore Trump was wrong.
But Snopes is misleading its readers again, at least somewhat. While Snopes is quite correct that Trump explicitly excluded neo-Nazis and white supremacists, it fails to discuss who these “good people” on the right to whom Trump was referring might be. To the best of my understanding, he was talking about some of the people who were trying to stop the historical statues’ destruction.
It remains a bit hard to see why Snopes would now write something that even partially exonerates Trump. Is this part of the campaign to get rid of Biden? I doubt it, because this news would help Trump against any Democrat opponent who replaces him. Perhaps Snopes just feels the story has served its purpose lo nigh these seven long years, and it’s time to retire it. But that doesn’t make sense to me, either. There’s no expiration date on the political power of lies.
One thing seems true to me: most Democrats will continue to believe that Trump is a racist white supremacist who supported racist white supremacists and still does.
Dan Bongino pointed out that Jake Tapper is on video stating unequivocally that Trump did not call the “white nationalists,” “good people,” but rather, he was referring to the people simply protesting the removal of the statues and that Trump actually condemned the “racists/white nationalists.” So if Biden was going to try to air out that old canard, Trump could have simply looked to Tapper and asked him to repeat what he is on record as having said, or perhaps read Tapper’s quote in rebuttal. This was done by the leftists at Snopes in order to warn Biden off this ploy and give Trump a opportunity to skewer Biden. At least, that’s Bongino’s theory, which I think certainly has merit.
One fun thing I saw at Legal Insurrection is a number of outraged replies from lefties who remain sold on the myth, and insist Snopes is lying.
as the late harry reid ‘cleanface’ according to his fbi file, ‘it worked didn’t it’ answering to the slam against Romney,
It’s interesting to review the history of Snopes. Started out on Usenet and was the project of a married couple. Fast forward a couple decade or so, and the couple has a very nasty divorce with millions of dollars at stake, and Snopes has a dozen full time writers on staff. (Not getting into details, they’re sordid, and neither half of that couple owns or is involved with Snopes today.)
Where did Snopes get millions of dollars and the ability to hire full time staff? From the same places the Left gets its millions of dollars. But it spent all those years posing as a middle-aged nerd couple’s hobby, when it reality it was building a well-funded propaganda operation for the Left. It’s not as though you never found useful information there, it’s not as though it never was a hobby, it’s just that they used that credibility they built up to do left-wing propaganda for the 2016 election.
It is a mystery but I can’t see any reason to air this now unless the intent is to make Biden look bad. The Bongino theory offered by Steve is interesting but I would expect Tapper to simply stonewall any reference to his comments, and any warning could have been given in private.
It’s an even bet that, if challenged, Biden would repeat the “fine people” lie he’s been telling for years. In many cases he wouldn’t recognize truth, or can’t.
well he goes by the costanza rule ‘its not a lie if you believe it’
miguel+cervantes on June 24, 2024 at 8:06 pm said:
well he goes by the costanza rule ‘its not a lie if you believe it’
________
The trouble with the popularity of that line is that it is true. If you actually do believe it, you’re not lying.
My college had an honor code. Though I certainly didn’t get 100% on every test, I was never brought before the Honor Committee for lying.
So here’s my theory. Which I’LL admit I’m pulling from where the sun don’t shine.
Basically I believe the Dems are divided between the leadership which is mostly cynical grifters, and the rabble, who are often true believers. The true believers seem great when you are riding high and they are fueling your movement, but there’s always a danger of it spiraling out of control.
What if the leadership is starting to realize things are going too far? Let’s use 1984 a moment. You can sit there and gin up the rabble into hating Emmanuel Goldstein, but eventually people are going to start asking, “why haven’t you done something about him?” Yeah it’s in the Party’s interest to keep EG as an enemy as long as possible, but eventually people are going to start asking why? Either he is more powerful than Big Brother (not good for the Party) or he is cahoots with Big Brother. After all if EG was as evil as claimed and BB was as good as claimed, the question follows why BB hasn’t destroyed EG by now. (Insert your own joke about replacing God and now facing His dilemmas of Theodicy.)
Thus the Dems I think may be getting caught in their own vise of their voters believing the hype about Trump being Hitler. And surely any price is worth stopping Hitler, right?
Maybe it’s just some optimism, but I think maybe the Dems have suddenly woken up to the fact they’re sitting on a powder keg playing with matches. So this action by snopes is their effort to try and get away from the keg.
The real question is will this work or is the feedback loop too far gone?
Nate.
Good thought. When all other possibilities have been excluded….
But…I see no evidence that the rabble are discontented. Ten million illegals…no big deal and don’t even think of objecting, you racist. That’s not the message, it’s what the rabble say. I listen to a lot of them. Ditto for pretty much everything else except inflation which is sort of an Act of God and nobody’s fault except the Big Corporations.
VIolent crime by illegals…? Huh? Well, Americans do it so what’s the big deal?
I hear this sort of thing in a couple of discussion groups and in passing conversations.
What happens when the reputation of an institution becomes so partisan that outright lies are promoted as truth, as long as they serve the narrative? Well, sooner or later, the facts keep rising to the surface and the dominant feature of the organization becomes its inherent corrupted purpose. The organization, in the last stages, loses its legitimacy, its standing, its power, and eventually, its remit.
I think the organizations that have been captured by Gramsci’s March Through The Institutions, are starting to realize the law of the markets: When you alienate half of your potential client base, this might be self-destructive to your objectives. Maybe it’s better to build legitimacy and attract some of their interest, too.
Could be wrong. I see no benefit to Snopes for correcting the record on this story – unless they were trying to build credibility. They could even be doing it for pre-election positioning reasons, purely cynically.
But…I see no evidence that the rabble are discontented. Ten million illegals…[snip]
VIolent crime by illegals…? Huh? Well, Americans do it so what’s the big deal?
==========================
Are you looking for signs of discontentment or looking to see if they are discontented by the things that discomfort you?
yeah, they’re not panicking over illegals – they’re panicking over Trump (again).
Whenever the left does anything that seems counterproductive, look for the secondary gain. In this case, I think it simply damage control. Can’t have liberals considering what media ‘influencers’ like Jake Tapper has to say about this issue.Orange Man Bad is always bad. Those the left demonizes can never be redeemed. Fair play, hypocrisy and mercy are entirely foreign concepts, in fact an anathema to them. Only power counts simply because once the belief that we shall all be held accountable for our actions in this life is rejected, nothing but power and avarice remain.
Nate Correct. Point is the libs are not discontented by what lib policies are doing to the country. So the lib establishment is likely not under pressure to Do Something.
Panicking over Trump is the other side.
IIRC, that was a time when the pulling down of statues was what all the cool kids were doing. People wanted to come to Charlottesville to prevent this from happening and to stand against this iconoclasm. I remember reading a mainstream article about this…was it in the New Yorker??… before the catastrophe resulting from all these other radicals from both sides joining in that weekend. That article quoted the ACTUAL “fine people” planning to assemble and who spoke to reporters on behalf of both sides regarding the question of keeping/discarding the statue. All this before Neo-nazis had entered the scene. After the white supremacists rally and the resulting death, I saw that the media just skipped right over the original set of actors and their motivations, and instead presented the events as though it had all begun with a call to nazis to assemble. That’s why it was so easy to frame Trump’s remarks; it was because the original purpose of the protests was immediately memory-holed by the media.
So let me get this straight, if you’re a white nationalist who hasn’t looted a store you’re not a good person but if you’re a BLM activist who did loot a store you’re an idealist and good person.
Charlottesville was the first domino the ones on the other sides were leftist proto antifa they were given the permit by corrupt mcauliffe the security was suspended why was this to create chaos
Progs hate jefferson and liberty thats why they fanned the sally hemmings story around the time of the clinton inpeachment weve seen how they have even gone after douglas and chamberlain because they want to pour salt on the open wound of slavery
Trump pointed this out like with scalias dissent in lawrence how far they were willing to go past whatever inconvenience might be with bowers when they are indignant about the matter you know they are over the target
In a fairly short interval they destroyed a small sample of the historical recordvof this country like the whole brouhaha about confederate bases and we saw how they actually cater to slave trading empires like the ashanti the dahomey and the songhai
After assuring, presumably, the non-nazi, non-raciss cultural-conservationist elements—as miniscule as they well might be— objecting to de-stateuing Robert E. Lee on horseback, that the monument would be relocated to a less in-yer-face locale outside of downtown Charlottesville, to be properly preserved there indefinitely and open to public viewing, the decision was taken by the actual Prog–Apparatchiki crazies in command to have the REL statue sent to a foundry of which the name and location was a closely guarded secret; less the Bad People would march on it with tiki torches and no doubt their illegal stash of full-auto assault weapons. Proud of their work as they were, a video was widely distributed by foundry bien pensants of General Lee’s decapitated head dissolving into the boiling liquid bronze mush. Take that, you Magats! Revenge video most likely still up, try finding links with your preferred non-Google search engine or via AI.
its not about the issue, ostensibly its about the Revolution, so they knew Jefferson the writer of the Declaration was an obstacle, there can be no liberty only license,
similarly the kerfluffles over trayvon martin, michael (Lne), and freddy gray, they wanted a state of chaos, in Florida you can only go so far, even though Rick Scott did bend a knee, but the defense atty was quite good, they destroyed half of ferguson and a quarter of baltimore, what was left, this was largely due to the termites of the Community relations board, inside the Justice Department,
I have long been disgusted by what happened in Charlottesville. The fighting between the groups was organized by someone in state government. Two of the three open sides of the park were closed off by police and State Troopers. The only way the protesters could leave was right where the counter protesters were. The one death was that of a woman who had a heart attack. The man who “drove into the crowd” never left the street and crashed his car trying to get away.
As I saw this unfold, while Trump WAS President, I thought, “Oh this is how it’s going to be”. J6 did not surprise me.
And already the mud machine trundles on. Got into a bit of family fighting over Trump saying at a speech about the cultural and religious decimation (such as renaming plans for George Washington High School) that he (Trump) “Thought” Washington didn’t own slaves. Stupid and unforced error, and now being trumpeted from some quarters. Probably little effect but does not help him.
Charlottesville still disgusts me on multiple levels. I despise the “Unite the Right” goonsquad of transatlantic actual Fascists, and whatever Klantards were showing up, but if we were honest (and almost no coverage of Charlottesville was honest) they were not the main problem. Hell, not even the AntifA domestic terrorists and those influenced by them into mob violence.
There were indeed “Fine People” on both sides among the non-totalitarian non-racist crazies both protesting the removal and protesting those protesting the removal. Ironically as a died in the wool anti-confederate Yankee I sympathize more with removing the statute to some place for historical remembrance rather than destroying it.
The REAL Problem were the local authorities, who betrayed the protestors by removing police protection and herding them through the counterprotestors, including AntifA. Who unsurprisingly attacked them. Without this, the Charlottesville drama would have been a goddamn flash in a pan, or at most a footnote on campaign rhetoric without violence as both sides squared off. But it wasn’t. The blood and turmoil is on their hands. It was also a warning about how nakedly political and unjust prosecution and the application of “Justice” would be.
Which brings us to what happens. James Fields was a piece of work, by all accounts (though granted, how many accounts have you heard? and where are they from?) A literal, clinically retarded Neo-Nazi who drove through a street to try and get away, killing someone. And for this he was railroaded into a First Degree Murder conviction. Those who know me should know well that I despise Nazis and Neo-Nazis, and spend much of my time killing their digital ghosts or humiliating their modern imitators. And Fields was far from a man I’d befriend, even if we do have some shared cognitive issues.
But that’s the thing. He was in reasonable fear for his life given the violence at the rally. We have confessions from an AntifA Protestor (really more of gloating) about how he brandished a rifle and pointed it at the head of a driver to try and get him to go, with little provocation. Oh, but the Fact Checkers come out and say that Fields couldn’t have been the one the rifle was pointed at! AS IF THAT MAKES IT ALL BETTER!
Fields may have been scum, but the point of the justice system is that even scum gets a fair shake and deserves to have justice. And had they hit him with a manslaughter charge or maybe even murder in the third degree, I might have not batted an eye. But they didn’t, and I felt even then it boded poorly. I could already see the people lining up to go on about how “He’s a Neo-Nazi, are you defending them?” As if that makes the injustice proper. And I figured that it would come back.
The horrible reality is that in some levels we are all James Fields. We are all trapped by the police and the AntifA in Charlottesville, a conspiracy between corrupt and politicized local administration and the street level militants. And that’s a problem without what I view as a good answer. Trump at least is somewhat respectable and has people who will defend him because they know he is not a racist, fascist, terrorist, etc. But he’s a high value, high visibility target that attracts attention, while people like Chauvin and Fields languish.
Edit: I also realized it boded poorly because it gave legal sanction to AntifA mobs blocking the traffic with impunity and endangering those in cars, threatening them with violence if they stayed but threatening them with violence or legal persecution if they fled. Fields was a wedge case I feel in that, and we are rather lucky that they have had limited success capitalizing on that in other cases of blocking traffic.
The trouble with the popularity of that line is that it is true. If you actually do believe it, you’re not lying.
I’ve always interpreted that line as “It’s not a lie if you ‘believe’ it.” Meaning that you don’t really believe it, but if you’re a pathological liar you can adopt the mindset of “believing” it and convince others that you do.
I suspect Biden (at least back when he was more sentient) knew damn well Trump didn’t say that the white supremacists were “fine people,” but could get away with the lie by “believing it.”
there have been a hundred thousand charlottevilles, there has been a formal jew catcher like Walz’s character, name escapes me but Jews are being hunted in New York, in Los Angeles, in every major city even my old hunts of sunny isles florida, occasionally even doug emhoff awkwardly notices this, as he did in a lead in to kasie hunt’s little rant, with karoline leavitt, where she dismissed the plight of jews everywhere, there is a certain irony, in how the significant other has been fanning the
waves of Jew hatred in a cynical way, somewhat similar to the way George Wallace,
a conventional dixiecrat tried to outseg sparkman and ironically ventured into a broader populist critique, to ethnics in the North East and MidWest
the management of CNN, has stopped making any progress they had done under Zasloff,its not as bad as Mehdi Hasan at MSNBC or Ali Velshi well you mileage may vary on that score,
so one wannabe antifa, got caught in the mousetrap, Heather, who the made into the next coming of Rosa Luxemberg, seriously,but the peril to jews seems everywhere from Sydney to Machkala, to cite a recent example,
Turtler – my feelings exactly. It was a setup,
And then they made a martyr of that severely overweight lady that was killed.
Reminds me of how Trump supporters were handled in San Jose.
The wheels on the Snopes go round and round…