President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

I didn't hang them, actually. Some people do, however, because they are proud of their achievements or they need to demonstrate their credentials to clients.

Only in your world would someone hanging his diplomas be more embarrassing than failing out of college.

 

I disagree with the outrage this has sparked online today. The New Yorker has written tens of thousands of words on Bannon. They've written lengthy profiles. They've talked with him. Those stories have given an audience to his views. Why were those articles presumably okay but it's this catastrophic sin to have him at the NY Festival? Remnick, one of the great journalists and editors of the past 30 years, is going to interview him. I think it's safe to take Remnick at his word that it'll likely be a combative interview. And like he said, having an audience there adds another element to it; it won't be a controlled environment for Bannon, the audience can say whatever they want.

Joshua Green wrote a best-selling book about Bannon. He just interviewed him again about an Elon Musk-Bannon controversy. He promoted his book constantly, as he should have. Was he wrong to write it, was the publisher wrong to publish it?

Why's it fine to write about someone but publicly interviewing them isn't?

 

Sure. It’s one thing for a doctor or lawyer, to hang their diploma, in their professional office. That might be reassuring to their client.

I have plenty of professional certificates I could hang, if I felt like I needed to demonstrate my credentials to clients.

But, I’m glad to know you don’t have your masters degree in urban planning hanging in your bathroom.

 

If David Frum can go from a leading advocate for the Iraq war, and the author of the “Axis of Evil” line, to a senior editor at the Atlantic, then I don't know why Bannon can’t appear at a New Yorker event.

 

You’re right. It’s not humiliating at all.

 

Yeah, no. I do have a couple of shelves in my office with the books I've written or in which I've had stories appear. Roger Ebert did that, so I feel like it's okay. A lot of writers have talismans in their places of work. It's nice to have easy reminders, when times are hard, that you've made it through them before.

 

I quit smoking pot at 18, so my memory is pretty good.

YMMV.

 

Sure. I sometimes think you have one of those weird photographic life memories. Like Marilu Henner. I could name a date, and you could say, "I was online, being a troll." I could name another date, and you'd be like, "Online. Troll." I could name another date. "Yep. Trolling. Definitely. I was trolling all day on the Interwebs." I could name date after date after date, and then finally maybe you'd be like, "Fuck, I've wasted my life."

 

And yours would be an endless string of... "I was being an asshole."

 

For one, I assume they’re paying him for this. For another, these things often just wind up being an opportunity for people to get abhorrent views out. Witness NPR having Jason Kessler on for the Charlottesville anniversary, promising a hard-hitting interview, then asking him to rank the races in order of intelligence. You’re right that David Remnick has earned a greater level of trust, but writing on awful people isn’t the same as giving them a microphone. I’d much rather read a David Remnick profile of Bannon than see Remnick interview Bannon.

You can cover someone without giving them a stage.

 

Bannon is yesterday's news. Why not get an employed racist Nazi fuck like Stephen Miller? He was invited because otherwise this event would sink like a stone unnoticed by the public at large. Now it's got notoriety. I sincerely doubt Remnick issued Bannon's invitation, but he'll have to read the "I[m canceling my subscription" letters anyway.