Two Takes On McMaster's Defense Of Trump - Both Acknowledge He Spoke In Code And Translate

Part 1:  Washington Post writer Glenn Kessler examines National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster's handling of media questions about the President's revealing of classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.  

"When a White House is confronted with a negative news story, officials face a difficult challenge if the story is largely correct. A common PR technique is to deny things that are not in the story or to make sweeping declarations while ignoring the specifics." (emphasis added)

Kessler goes on to interpret different answers McMaster gave and what it actually means.  For example, here's the first quote:

What McMaster said:

“'What I’m saying is really the premise of that article is false, that in any way the president had a conversation that was inappropriate or that resulted in any kind of lapse in national security.' 

What Kessler says it means:

Now McMaster says the “premise” of the article is false. In other words, it made the president look bad, not that it was wrong." 

Kessler is using McMaster to generalize about how to obfuscate when the telling the truth isn't allowed.  You can read  all the examples at the Washington Post. This is a good lesson on interpreting those hired to defend the indefensible.


Part 2:  For a different take on this, more of a defense of McMaster, listen to NPR, where  Retired Lt. Col. John Nagl talks to host Rachel Martin about McMaster whom Nagl says he knows well from working together in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This interview itself is an interesting exercise as Nagl argues that McMaster is

• in an impossible position
• defending the indefensible
• lending his credibility to the president
• not telling the whole truth, but not lying either
• tarnishing his reputation only because the fate of the world could depend on it

 Below is the audio, and below that I wrote out a rough transcript of the interview.  But first a few comments.

Kessler, in the beginning of this post, parsed McMaster's words.  I think it's also important to do the same with Nagl's words  about McMaster and Nagl's intent in this interview.

On a general level - what is Nagl's purpose here?

• to defend McMaster?  In general, or to a defend a personal friend's reputation?
• to give the general listeners background so they can better understand McMaster?  
• to say McMaster knows Trump is lying, and is only defending Trump in a way that allows astute listeners, like reporter Kessler above, to see that he isn't really defending the president, but in order to stay in the administration to keep it from doing anything even worse?

I'll raise more specific questions down below.  Here's the audio from NPR and below it my rough transcript. [Now that this is finished, I see that NPR has the transcript up there too.]

Host Rachel Martin gives background and a bit of audio from HR McMaster responding to questions from the media.  Then she introduces retired Lt. Col. John Nagl, who has known McMaster for a long time.  She asks him:

Q: What do you hear Gen. McMaster trying to do in his public explanations of the president’s actions?
A: HR is in an absolutely impossible situation. and many of us, his friends were concerned that something like this was going to happen when he took this job working for this administration.
He is a man of extraordinary integrity and honor and he’s got a president who has clearly done damage to the United States and to our relationships with our allies around the globe, and meanwhile he’s walking a very fine line around the truth, parsing his words very carefully when he makes statements defending what the president did.
Q:  Parsing his words. Do you think he’s telling the whole truth when he’s defending the president’s actions?
A:  I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I’m reminded of an early class in West Point honor code. HR took that same class.  One of the scenarios the discussed is, what happens if you’ve been invited to a dinner and the dinner was horrible, and the hostess asks, “How did you enjoy dinner?”  What we’re taught to say at that point is,  “I really enjoyed being here and the company I was in.”
That’s what I think HR is doing right now.  I think he is not answering the question he was asked and I think that he is doing so, knowing, absolutely in full cognizance of the fact that he is not telling the whole truth, but he’s being very careful not to tell lies.
Q:  Although the stakes obviously are so much higher than those of insulting a hostess of a dinner party.
A:  The stakes, at this point, and in particular with the Comey revelations that came out last night, literally the fate of the earth could be in HR McMaster’s hands at this point.  The administration is clearly in free fall and HR McMaster is exactly the man the nation needs to have at the center of things at the White House to hold to hold all the pieces together
Q: So because  you know him so well, you think that’s the calculation he made, that it’s better to be there and have to obfuscate from time to time?
A:  I obviously think he’s in an absolutely impossible position.  The president expects him to defend the indefensible.  Nobody else in the administration has the credibility that HR has, and the president is using HR’s credibility in order to try to buttress himself.  HR can’t be completely comfortable with that.  His friends and I believe that it’s worth HR giving up some of his well earned reputation for integrity.  He can be a little tarnished around the edges, we can get the Pope to give him an absolution, because, literally, the fate of the world could depend on his love of country, his judgment, his intelligence, his service in the White House at this absolutely critical time. [emphasis added]

The crux of this, as I see it, is Nagl's statements about the fate of the world.  It's the only justification he gives for McMaster 'tarnishing his reputation' by 'defending the indefensible.'

"the fate of the world could depend on his love of country, his judgment, his intelligence, his service in the White House at this absolutely critical time."

But interviewer Rachel Martin never asks Nagl what it is that McMaster can do in the White House that could change the fate of the world.  She never asks him how he can "hold all the pieces together."

• Does Nagl think McMaster can talk Trump into being more reasonable?  
• That he can stop him from doing terrible things?  If so, like what?  And how would he stop him?  
• Does he think it's important to have someone like McMaster there simply as a witness?  
• And how does lending the president his credibility help the country?   

And while Martin does say that the stakes are much higher than not insulting a dinner hostess, she doesn't pursue whether that lesson is appropriate here.  

Not insulting the dinner hostess involves not hurting one person's feelings.  It's simple human courtesy between two people that has no bigger world consequences.  

But obfuscating to the American public about a US president revealing classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador, is NOT about simple human courtesies.  It is, as Nagl says, defending the indefensible.  

One last question is:  Why did NPR do this interview?  I guess I have the same questions for NPR as the ones I raised above for Nagl.  

The interview does add to my knowledge of McMaster, but why didn't Martin ask those critical, and to me obvious, questions about how exactly can McMaster help shape the fate of the world positively by being in the administration and dissembling to the press  as Nagl acknowledges he did?   

She didn't ask whether, perhaps, McMaster is overestimating his own abilities to 'hold the pieces together.'

Lots of questions here.  

Facebook Thailand Ordered To Block 131 Web Addresses

According to The Nation, the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society has sent out 24 orders already and will send out 107 more as soon as they can and that they expect the url's to be blocked.

"Earlier, authorities gave Facebook until late yesterday morning to make the web pages inaccessible in Thailand while threatening legal action. However, none of the URLs were blocked after the deadline passed.

The 131 web addresses in question were deemed to have content insulting to the monarchy, threatening national security, depicting pornography or being involved in fraud.

With more than 40 million users, Thailand is among the world’s most active countries on Facebook." 

 Insulting the king has always been a serious offense in Thailand, though with the old king now gone and his son the new king, I imagine this will be a more difficult thing to enforce because the new king has offered through his wild living, plenty of things to criticize.

I found the following to be seriously inappropriate on Facebook's part:

"In response, Facebook requested an official English version of the court orders before it proceeded with blocking the addresses in Thailand."

 Can you imagine a Thai company telling a US government agency that they can't comply until they get official orders in Thai?  Facebook needs to  hire some Thai lawyers completely fluent in English.


The article quoted Facebook's official policy:

“When governments believe that something on the Internet violates their laws, they may contact companies like Facebook and ask us to restrict access to that content. When we receive such a request, we review it to determine if it puts us on notice of unlawful content. “If we determine that it does, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory and notify people who try to access it why it is restricted,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

However, it appears that Thailand doesn't have a lot of power to act on its orders.

"Meanwhile, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha admitted yesterday that his government did not have the authority to suspend Facebook’s operations in Thailand following its refusal to immediately block the URLs. . .
'All we can do is ask for cooperation from foreign countries, the private sector and Internet service providers,” the premier said. 'It’s because we have no better options.' 

Sutton's Lives!

Last year, longtime funky local Anchorage greenhouse Sutton's had for sale signs and they said they were going out of business.

Lesson 1:  Don't make assumptions without checking.

I didn't even go by Sutton's when I bought some seeds this summer.  I just assumed they were closed down.  I even told someone they were gone.  Today, I routed my bike ride by Sutton's to see how the property was transpiring.

Lesson 2:  Support your best local businesses.

I imagine that running a greenhouse is a real headache.  There's no time off during the summer at all, and lots of work to do in the off seasons as well.  So when you find a business you like, spend your money there, even if they might be a little more expensive than the big Outside franchises.  And don't assume that they will be more expensive.  Sutton's has always had this option I've never seen at the big box stores - buying by the plug.




What's a plug, you ask?  It's a tiny bit of earth in a seed tray with tiny cells good for one plant (though sometimes a couple more seeds get into one cell.)














Here's a plug tray of fennel.

Sutton's is a unique little greenhouse that just sort of grew over the years.  It doesn't follow any master designs laid out by plant marketers.  It doesn't look like any other greenhouse in Anchorage or most other places.











It's got its own style.

They even give a discount if you belong to the Alaska Botanical Garden, but I'd say, keep your card in your pocket and pay the price if you can afford it.  We want to keep these people in business this summer and thank them for offering a respite from large corporate retail.












There's still a for sale sign, but the lady I talked to said, "We're picky."  It seemed to me that it would be a perfect place for an organization that supports local citizens gardens and healthy eating.  She said there was a guy who was interested in buying who had the same idea.  

Lesson 3:  Spread they word so their work can live on and Sutton's doesn't get replaced with cookie-cutter apartments or condos.  Help them find a creative buyer.  

Meeting Folks And Learning Things Through Blogging - Do You Know What Psychogeography Is?

In most cases, notes from blog visitors is a good thing.  In other cases, well, it's still interesting.  

I've had several people contact me regarding the blog in the last week or so.  

John Hussey, of Liverpool, read my post on Hitler's 1942 visit to Paris and wanted to share his post on the same topic.  Mine was based a passage from on Doris Kearns Goodwin's book, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt:  The Home Front in World War II and the account of that day by Albert Speer.  I have a picture up of Speer and Hitler in front of the Eiffel Tower.  Hussey's account comes from the third person in that picture - sculptor Arno Breker.  

I finally got around to adding a link to John's post at the bottom of my original post.  But lest you think I'm trying to force you to go back to my post, here's a link to John's post on Hitler's visit to Paris. 

I also got a post from someone saying they had a rolled up canvas painting and did I know anything about it.  There was a picture of the artist's signature.  The name sounded familiar so I searched my blog - assuming the writer had seen something  on the blog that made her think I might be able to help - and found the post with the painter's first name and last name.  I googled that and quickly found an obituary of someone with the same (unusual) last name as the writer that also included the full name of the artist.  I also found out where the artist works through a LinkenIn account.  

Those two are the kind of emails I enjoy getting.  

Then there are the ones that I categorize as 'interesting.'  I learn something about internet promotion.  

A guy named Brian said he liked my post on hiking Doi Suthep in Chiangmai, Thailand and asked if I would put up a link to his website on boots.  He specifically gave me a link to long distance hiking trails in the US, but it seems like the site is really about boots.  I'm guessing he might write reviews that get him either free boots or other consideration from bookmakers, but I don't know that.  I'd emailed back to him for clarification - if I link to your site, where are you going to link back to mine.  His response:

"Thanks for your reply. I think you were misunderstood my proposal.
I will not give you a link from my site because Google hate 2 ways link
But I will share your article to thousands of my social followers after you add my link to your article."

The original email was in good grammatical English, but my questions got him off script.  So not only did he want a link from me, but he also wanted to repost my original post on his site.  Or maybe on his FB page.  I decided not to follow up on this second email.   I do get lots of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) spam, usually in the form of comments which I try to delete immediately.  This one was a little more personalized.  

And here's another, less subtle, but still more personalized request:

Hi,
I was look at your blog recently and noticed this article: whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2012/06/packaging-good-bad-ugly-tofu-bagels.html 
I noticed it's now a little outdated and thought it might be worth updating for your readers and consumers.
I just wondered if you'd consider a newer up to date article from ourselves - Direct Packaging Solutions - I'm happy to update the article and work to make it better for your readers as well as making sure everything is up to date and relevant. I'd also be open to working on anything you might have in the works yourself, that perhaps you feel would be better written from a expert point of view; We've been in the packaging industry for just over 15 years.
Let me know.
Thanks. 

Obviously another SEO guy who googles for things on packaging and then sends emails like this.  Again, more personalized and sophisticated than the spam comments with links to their sites, but still an attempt to get more hits for his client's website.  

But what about Psychogeography, your ask?

A followup email from John Hussey caused me to look up a book called Paris: the Secret History, and I found this snippet on psychogeography in a review of the book.

"The Situationists practised what they called "psychogeography", described by Debord as "the study of specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals". Hussey makes it sound far more exciting. ''Psychogeography' was a game, or series of games," he explains, "in which the participants set out to create an atmosphere that had the power to disrupt the routine and functions of everyday life. Drink, drugs, music, boredom, despair, fear and awe all had a role to play.'"

While I didn't have that word - psychogeography - like many Alaskans, I have been very aware of the impact of our geography on our emotions and behavior.  In geographically extreme areas, it's much more pronounced.  But the geography of cities also have their impacts on the people living in them.  

Fix Your Bike - Anchorage

I parked at my usual bike rack at UAA, but when I looked up, there was this strange new installation.

Lo and behold, it's a bike repair station.  There's a rack to hold the bike on top.  Tools hanging down at the bottom and a pump on the right.

But why here?  I can understand the pump.  But do you have to break down at this particular spot?  Fortunately, I took one more picture of this new feature.

So I could look this up.  I could buy one in red for $1,096.   But there's also a US map that shows all the places one can find these.  So I got the map for Anchorage.  (Well, it looks like I got the US map and you have to scroll up to Anchorage on your own.)





And today I got a tag-along bike through Craigslist for when my granddaughter comes to Anchorage in June.

Variations On The Theme of Knowing and Ignorance

I don't like to just repost what others have done.  I feel some need to include some sort of value-added.  The value here is fairly minimal.  It's merely putting these together with what I see as the common themes of ignorance, the difficulty of knowing, and the greater difficulty of being able to assess what you know.


I got a link that sent me to McSweeny's Internet Tendency.  It turns out McSweeney is a publishing house in San Francisco.  Had I known that last week, I might have tried to stop and and see who is behind these two posts.

• IF PEOPLE TALKED ABOUT OTHER THINGS THE WAY THEY TALKED ABOUT GENDER IDENTITY  by KAYA YORK

Here are two examples from the piece of talking about other things like people talk about gender:

Cats: “A Manx is not a cat. Cats are defined as having tails. Maybe it’s a koala.”
Ice cream: “Avocado is not a valid ice cream flavor because I’ve never heard of it and it does not appeal to me.”

There are lots more such examples.

• THAD, THE WORST STUDENT IN YOUR INTRO CLASS, HAS SOMETHING TO SAY

by RJ HAPPEL

Oh my!  There must be a kind of genius that allowed Happel to create this essay of twisted logic.

• The Tangled Story Behind Trump’s False Claims Of Voter Fraud

'Zombie Research' and how the study that led people (like Trump) to incorrectly conclude that non-citizens were voting in big enough numbers to impact election results was used to impact an election.  This comes from Nate Silver's Fivethirtyeight website.  It's about a very sophisticated ignorance - the kind that always made it hard for me to submit academic articles, because I was always certain there was some important piece that I had missed entirely.

• "The greatest enemy of knowledge is NOT ignorance, it's the illusion of knowledge."

I first wrote about the  Dunning-Kruger effect  a year ago April.  This video is actually an example posted by Alberto Cairo - the professor who taught the online class I took on infographics for journalists -  of how videos are an improvement over simple graphics (Cairo's area of expertise.)  His post includes three more such video examples on:   the visualization of uncertainty, the first of  a series about elementary statistical methods titled Methods 101, and a discussion about Cairo's book, The Truthful Art.  






(The 'greatest enemy of knowledge' quote comes at the end of the video.

The notion that I had to confront the 'knowledge' my students already had embedded in their brains about any given topic before they could really consider a different 'truth' came about a third of the way into my teaching career, and radically changed how I taught. If someone 'knows' something, it's really hard to displace that 'knowledge' with something else unless you get that person to consciously confront the existing 'knowledge' and how it was acquired.

Lists Are Good

I made a list today and did most of the things on it.

Some are done:

• I copied some pages from The Camp of the Saints √ - a book supposedly on Steve Bannon's must-read list.  The library was saying I couldn't renew it.  I'd been taking notes, for a blog post, but I just couldn't finish it.  Partly because it's so disgusting.  Partly because I was reading it carefully so I could blog about.  Copying pages I'd put into my notes means I can find the quotes I want when I'm ready to post about it.  I then took it and three other books back to the library.√  
• I got the hoses out in the front√ and the back√.  Washed down the chaise lounge (not on the list, but should have been), and watered the flower beds in front√ and some in back√.  I also swept the cottonwood catkins off the deck twice.  (That wasn't on the list).  
• I picked up the seedlings we'd left with friends while we were gone.√  
• I called a couple of folks ☐☐ about things I need to do, but I had to leave messages, so they're still hanging.  (I use those little boxes to mark things I did, but didn't get completed.  I'd made the calls, but had to leave messages.  So not really settled.)
• I recorded a statement for an insurance company about an accident I witnessed Wednesday afternoon in Alameda, California.  Our friends were showing us this little island in San Francisco Bay that used to have a navy and army base.  We heard a bang.  Across the street a car had pulled out of a parking space and hit a car that was passing by.  I left my card with the driver of the car that was hit and told him I'd seen it if he needed a witness.  The insurance company called.  I realized, as she asked me questions, how little I had paid attention.  I'd focused on the key aspects - the fact that car had pulled out and hit a passing car - but I couldn't tell her what street it was, what kind of cars were involved.  That wasn't on my list either.  
• I didn't call the IRS, but I called my mother's accountant √ to let him know I'd gotten a letter saying there was a discrepancy in her 2014 income taxes.  That was the year that deductions for the caregiver got messed up and it took me over a year of monthly phone calls to the IRS and help from the Alaska IRS ombudsman to clear things up.  I didn't call the IRS because I couldn't find all the forms from that year.  I'd finally put them away, thinking that horror was behind me.  Apparently it isn't.  Calling the IRS was on the list.  Instead I went through files looking for the forms and instead I found other stuff that had been dumped in the file cabinet.  Sorting that stuff wasn't on the list.  

Lists do focus me and tend to keep me from forgetting all the things I'm supposed to do.  And from getting distracted with things not on the list.  And checking things off the list is a good feeling.  I get to see all that one did in a day and don't feel that I totally wasted the day.  Getting a blog post up wasn't on the list.  Maybe I thought I'd have the Camp of The Saints post ready.  No, I knew that would take longer.

Fighting Back And Staying Sane

We came back home to a beautiful spring day.  While we were gone I got bits and pieces of 'the news,'  but mostly I was focused on grandchildren and friends.  These and the natural world are the true antidotes to the overdose of stupid* the USA is experiencing.

So, here, I'm going to give some excerpts from recent Alaska Dispatch News pieces along with their antidotes.

From Sen. Cathy Giessel:

"Some express dislike, even disdain, for businesses that employ thousands of our fellow Alaskans.  That animosity clouds the source of our prosperity, of what made the last two generations of families and businesses in our state an astonishing success."

This sounds good enough that I'm sure many people think, 'Yeah, that's right.'  But let's get real.

• I don't know any people who have disdain for businesses that employ thousands. They have disdain for businesses that treat their employees badly, that leave the environment worse than they found it, that take the wealth of Alaska to their various corporate headquarters outside the state rather than reinvesting here.
• It wasn't generations of families and businesses that caused our astonishing success.  It was the huge deposits of oil and the fact that the state owned the oil that caused our financial success and jobs.  Yes, oil companies played a big role in extracting that oil, but they also made huge profits from that oil.

I could go through her whole commentary line by line and point out what she doesn't mention.  But not now.

The antidote?   The amazing tulip in our front yard.    (I've photoshopped these images because the backgrounds tended to be messy and photoshop can be a fun distraction.  The originals are below.)




From an Ed Rogers commentary on Trump firing Comey (originally in the Washington Post)

"What it [Comey's firing] is, however, is the president following sound advice from a serious, credentialed and experienced leader in whom he has entrusted great responsibility.
The Rosenstein memo makes the reasoning behind Comey's firing nonpartisan and completely bulletproof."

Barf bags are in the seat pockets in front of you.  Real journalists, not Trump apologists, write, also in the Washington Post and reprinted in the ADN,

"The president already had decided to fire Comey . . . Trump gave Sessions and Rosenstein a directive:  to explain in writing the case against Comey. 

Rosenstein threatened to resign after the narrative emerged from the White House Tuesday evening cast him as the prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and the president acted only on his recommendation, said the person close to the White House . . ." [emphasis added]

For severed political spin nausea, here are some hosta shoots poking out of the ground.

OK, you get the point.  I don't need to add more examples of bullshit here.  I'm sure you've got way more than enough, so just take the antidotes.  Here are some lilac buds.

Some lily leaves exploding out of the earth.

 And there was a mailbox with a week's worth of mail.  Photoshop seemed like a good way to transform these mostly pieces of junk.

Here are the original pictures.  Except for the lily leaves.  I accidentally put the final version in, but I have to move on.  I hope my pictures inspire you to go out and look closely at the wonders of nature that surround us.

*Stupid is only one of the ills we are suffering. And using terms like stupid doesn't help cut through the conflicting ways of interpreting the world around us.  Probably it's more about the evil of people who produce create bogus facts and attack truth who are rewarded by the people who eagerly feed on the alternative realities like a drug for their emotional holes.

Morning Visit To Japanese Tea Garden

We did an early morning visit with our grandson to the Japanese garden in Golden Gate Park.  A wonderful time to visit - early morning sunshine and hardly any other people.  And the koi and the various bridges over the water and the pagodas all kept the youngen's attention.

Quick SF Observations - Preschool Education, Aggressive Cars, Butterfly Wing

I've been watching a couple of kids (almost three and someone older) negotiate some pretty fancy playgrounds the last couple of days and I'm impressed at all the learning they're doing.  It's all about testing balance and strength and grip.  They're learning what their muscles can do, how far they can stretch or lean.  I watched my grandson today (the one under three) as he worked his way across a net.  He had to step on a shaky surface, keep from slipping through the holes, find handholds, and pull himself up onto a platform.  When he finally made it to the top he did a little dance shouting, "I did it!"

This is serious work.  Can you jump from rock to rock?  How do you get up different kinds of 'ladders'?  And while both the kids worked hard to master their challenges, it was also amazing the difference in ability the four months difference makes.

Sometimes they need a little help - a hand to hold, a suggested hand hold - but mostly they were better off just working it out themselves.

This is why I haven't had time to write here.

But here are a couple more pictures from the last two days.

This butterfly wing was caught while feeding on orange slices at the California Academy of Sciences rain forest exhibit.




And these two cars were in the underground garage.  These were two human-less parked cars, that struck me as appearing unusually aggressive.  Maybe there should be a special word for anthropomorphic for objects that were created by humans (as opposed to natural objects.)  And, I guess words that distinguish between living and non-living things.