NYT: What is Aleppo?
The other day, the Libertarian candidate for President, Gary Johnson stumbled when asked about a question about Aleppo, a Syrian city which has suffered greatly under ISIS. The New York Times wrote;
Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor and Libertarian Party presidential nominee, revealed a surprising lack of foreign policy knowledge on Thursday that could rock his insurgent candidacy when he could not answer a basic question about the crisis in Aleppo, Syria.
“What is Aleppo?” Mr. Johnson said when asked on MSNBC how, as president, he would address the refugee crisis in the war-torn Syrian city.
When pressed as to whether he was serious, Mr. Johnson indicated that he really was not aware of the city, which has been widely covered during the years that Syria has been engulfed in civil war.
The Times then proceeded to lecture us on how Johnson’s gap in his knowledge about Syria should warn us away from voting for him.
On Twitter the question “What is Aleppo?” was trending, with many critics arguing that Mr. Johnson had disqualified himself from the presidency.
Well, if you scroll down the article, you’ll come to the section where NYT editors put corrections to the story;
So, since the New York Times doesn’t know anything about Aleppo either, can we really trust them to tell us who should be the next President?
Category: Media
Outrageous, how can anyone running for POTUS not remember that. We should drive those Mexicans out of Texas once and for all.
And all the other 58 states!
Aleppo? Is that a new brand of pet food?
A city that has almost been bombed out of existence and that bunch of whiny latte-slrrpping Newyawkers don’t know anything about it either.
Nothing surprises me less.
If it isn’t about the ‘me-me-me’ millenials, it isn’t important.
Has the New York Times repudiated Walter Duranty’s Pullitzer yet?
Yeah, they care so much about accurate reporting in foreign affairs.
Those NYT corrections are a scream. As for Aleppo, to paraphrase Professor Erwin Corey, ‘The question is not what is Aleppo, the question is what am Aleppo.’
Have you guys heard about Hillary’s Aleppo gaffe? It’s Aleppo.
???
Nitpickers pick nits. It gives them things to focus on whilst crafting their latest “Trump is the antichrist from Revelations” screed.
If we could shut down wikipedia, most of these edumacated little twits would be left speechless.
The NYT caught being pompous, arrogant elitist buttwipes? I’m shocked! No, really!
Buttwipes
My response would be, “Show me where it is on the map” and see how quick they shut up.
I’d bet most of those “reporters” barely know where Syria is, let alone a city in it.
I suppose if I asked someone from NYT, they could immediately tell me all about Graignes, Holtzwihr, Poltava, or Castle Itter. Surely they wouldn’t just give me blank stares. Each of those places has real historical (at one time current) significance (more than once in the case of Poltava).
How about something closer to home, then? How about Northfield, Ellisville, Warner Springs, Bodie, Hauser Canyon or Mann Gulch? I’m guessing I’d hear nothing but crickets.
Gary, c’mon man! Waht about the “red line”, and “JV Team”…we demand answers on why Aleppo, and the ME overall is such a cluster.
Aleppo…Not to be confused w/ Aleppo in Allegheny County PA or Aleppo in Green County PA.
He is not a well liked figure here in New Mexico his VP is a anti gun nut so any warm feelings I had for him have gone bye bye….
An interesting sidebar to this is that the NYT has apparently taken the unusual step to circulate in recent weeks at least two internal memoranda which caution reporters from letting bias creep into stories. An explanation might well be that everyone working for the paper is a progressive liberal. Or there might be additional factors.
One possible factor is that as much as the press likes to portray itself as bold and fearless, it’s actually fairly timid in its reluctance to veer from the conventional. Journalists tend to follow each other on Twitter or go to the same NYC parties; to not adhere to the consensus is to risk becoming a pariah.
Still another factor is that many months ago it was estimated the Hillary Clinton campaign would cost an around $1 Billion. Trump’s campaign by comparison has been run on a shoestring. Advertising for political campaigns, for the most part, doesn’t act as a direct form of bribery. The effect is usually more subtle. If Candidate A spends a million dollars, and Candidate B does not, it means that any stories written about Candidate A are going to be more carefully crafted to not offend the candidate than they would otherwise.
The NYT, among others, would deny this, and cite the Chinese wall between business and news side, but it’s often apparent that the wall tends to be fairly porous.
I listened to the interview.
I do not remember the exact quote but he was essentially asked “What would you do about Aleppo?”
People paying attention to international affairs would recognize what the interviewer was asking but if you are not then you would be flat footed since most Americans likely never heard the term “Aleppo” out of context.
I was a little surprised the interviewer did not say “Aleppo, Syria” or the “refugee crisis in Aleppo”. It gave me the distinct impression that the question was intended to trip him up about his lack of foreign policy experience. It was a interviewer kick to the edge of the goal post hoping Johnson would not have the reach to catch it and it worked.
That being said a candidate for president should know this stuff.
Libertarians tend to not pay much attention to international affairs so I was not surprised he was caught flat footed on the question but did think ti was intentionally set up to catch him off guard. I think libertarian ideology appeals to people with a Americans should “mind their own business” mentality and his interviews thus far do indicate he is not particularly concerned with things going on outside the US.
Johnson is a nice genuine, seemingly honest gut. He is not a blustering narcissistic shitbag like Trump or manipulative corrupt sociopath like Hillary.
I flat out trust Johnson more than Hillary or Trump, but I think Jill Stein is simply more capable and informed. They both have similar views on foreign policy.
None of it matters, thought, the two parties have a stranglehold on this election and a third party will only win if the two major candidates are removed from the game somehow. And given the corruption, scandals, and cloud of nonsense following both there could be a few bombshells that completely destroys both campaigns but that is exceedingly unlikely.
Stein may be but is a total greeny wacko and probably is going to jail. I expect more adult behavior from a Presidential candidate and her VP choice than running around with spray paint doing up dozer blades
Johnson is an open borders, anti gun nut. He can’t stand the term “illegal aliens” and pretty much got hostile over it when it came up in an recent interview.
I lost track of how many times I’ve seen a news photo of an m109 howitzer described as a tank. Perhaps journalists should live by there own standards
Their own standards
I listened to the entire interview and not just the bites or headlines. The MSNBC guy was clearly trying a gotcha question and it came right out of left field after talking about something else. The first thing I thought of when listening to the interview was “why is he asking a question about a movie”? Johnson stumbled but gave a coherent answer after it. The snarky “are you serious” from the “reporter” was very unprofessional.
BTW: Don’t vote for that jackass for a variety of other reasons
The Green party sucks away votes from the Dems. With the libetardians coming out as pro illegal and anti gun they just might do the same thing.
And in today’s news the Clinton campaign is frantically circling the wagons over her comments calling Trump supporters as deplorable. In their memos to campaign spokespeople they bemoan the obvious Trump-supporting bias of the mainstream media, essentially saying Trump is given a free pass while Hillary is picked on. If you ever needed a snapshot of an ‘entitled’ worldview, that they consider the MSM biased against them (I imagine because they don’t – quite – sing Hosannas to Hillary daily) should be proof.