Foreign Sources in Political Campaigns

For John, BLUF:  Did the President set up Reporter George Stephanopolis in answering the question about opponent information from another country?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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"As Trump told Stephanopoulos, there is nothing wrong with listening to information that anyone, foreign or domestic, might have that is relevant to a presidential candidate."

From The Althouse Blog, 14 June 2019.

Here is the Professor Althouse excerpt from Mr John Hinderaker's blog post: />

"But what is blindingly obvious, yet absent from every Democratic Party news account feigning horror at the ABC interview, is that the Hillary Clinton campaign didn’t just receive 'foreign dirt' on the Trump campaign.  It paid for foreign sources to fabricate lies about Trump, which it then disseminated to the press.  Listen to 'foreign dirt'?  The Clinton [campaign] paid for it!"

Yes, I agree.  But it is a case of tunnel vision, target fixation.  In the flying dodge the problem with target fixation is that the aircraft impacts unscorable at twelve.

One thing to think about is that information wants to be free.  So, should we be locking it up?  Should the salacious "information" in the Steele Dossier have been locked away?

What I worry about is summed up in this Blog Comment:

whitney said...
Doesn't matter.  Everyone's locked into their positions now.  You're either in the Trump evil crowd or Trump not evil crowd. Perhaps the structure can survive past Trump but the divisions will remain.  The gulf is too wide, violence is going to be met with violence and Chaos will ensue.  All the symptoms of late-stage Empire are around us.  It will be different than the other falls but there will be similarities.  No amount of preparation will save you because preparation is based on predicting the future and predictability will be lost first.

6/14/19, 6:44 AM

Unlike Whitney, I don't think we are there yet, but we could get there.

What gives me hope is talking to people.  On City Life this morning we had myself, the Co-Host, Jim Peters, and three guests, plus the Producer.  We had 2016 voters for Mrs Clinton and for Mr Trump, but we were civil in our discussion.  And, there was little to no interest in Impeachment.  If we can maintain that civility we will get through this.

Hat tip to Ann Althouse.

Regards  —  Cliff