I did not know anything about Michael Wolff prior to excerpts (in the case of the New York Magazine, an entire chapter) of his book "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump Whitehouse" exploded all over the airways yesterday. Wed. night the pundits on MSNBC were absolutely giddy about the news.
But it's always good to step back and not be giddy when news serves one's own confirmation bias. And there is a whole lot to recommend in the article
@franklin posted suggesting folks tune out the news altogether. I gotta say, as dismayed as I am by Trump, I'm every bit the news junkie he is. I just never imagined I'd be spending this phase of my life so singularly focused.
But, I hope I have not flushed objectivity down the drain completel. Here are two Washington Post articles pointing out why we need to keep things in perspective where Michael Wolff is concerned:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...career-of-controversy/?utm_term=.6672825a5a72
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-trump-administration/?utm_term=.54d89a645cdd
And for those who have
@DutchJazzer on ignore, I think he pointed something out that is worth repeating, in so many words:
On the one hand, the claim has been out there forever, and is a focus of the Mueller investigation: the Trump campaign colluded with Russia's efforts to help Trump win. We know, at least I don't doubt, that Putin did want to help Trump, and he did so via social media, email dumps, etc. Since those Russian "active measures" alone represented an attack on our national sovereignty, by interfering with the democratic institution of free elections, understanding that and preventing a repeat has always been primary to me petsonally. I think feeling that way is my responsibility as a citizen of this country. But the degree to which the Trump campaign did, or did not, collude with Putin is still unknown. Maybe Mueller will provide an answer. Maybe he will not.
But on the other hand, Wolff's book claims Trump never wanted to win the 2016 election at all. And there's likely good reasons to suspect that might have been the case.
I can't reconcile those two claims. One possibility is Trump did not expect to win, but did try to win, that Wolff is mistaken, Trump did want to win. Another is that there was never any real collusion. But things like Donald Jr's meeting suggest otherwise.
Trump wants the book yanked, not published at all. That's an extraordinary move for a President. The publisher's response is to move the date up. The book is being released today.