I can't believe I have to pay attention to a falconer named Parrot.

 Life with Trump is getting a bit surreal...

The bizarre theory, which is outre even by the standards of the right’s usual Benghazi claims, also alleges that Osama Bin Laden’s body-double, rather than the terrorist mastermind himself, was killed in 2011. All those claims come from a falconer who says he uncovered secrets about Al-Qaeda, Iran, and U.S. intelligence in his work as a falconer for Middle Eastern power players. Alan Howell Parrot, the subject of a 2010 documentary about his falconry called Feathered Cocaine, has shot to new fame on the right after a video interview with him played over the weekend at the American Priority Conference, a pro-Trump event held at Trump’s Miami resort. In the video, Parrot, interviewed by conservative personality Nick Noe and the father of a former Navy SEAL who died in Benghazi, makes a series of bizarre claims alleging collusion between Iran, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton ahead of the attack. 

That's from "Trump Touts Falconer’s Benghazi Blood-Sacrifice Conspiracy Theory/Trump’s endorsement of the insane story shot it to national prominence, fueling the bizarre allegations about blood sacrifice and Bin Laden body doubles" at The Daily Beast which I'm reading because I had to go searching for the background to this question — by Savannah Guthrie — from last night's town hall with President Trump: 

"Just this week, you retweeted to your 87 million followers, a conspiracy theory that Joe Biden orchestrated to have SEAL Team Six, the Navy SEAL Team Six, killed to cover up the fake death of Bin Laden. Now, why would you send a lie like that to your followers?"

Trump's answer, from the transcript, was: "That was a retweet." That's a retweet! What's the matter, don't you understand retweets?!!

Savannah Guthrie interrupted Trump aggressively and actively battled him throughout last night's town hall, but she failed to pin him down and left me still wondering...

... whether Trump failed to get tested the day of the debate with Joe Biden. That debate was September 29th. Look at how annoyingly evasive Trump is and how Guthrie never figures out the right question to do anything more than exaggerate the annoying evasiveness. 

I want a clear answer to the question whether it's possible that Trump already had the coronavirus during the debate and whether, suspecting that he was becoming ill, he avoided getting tested on the day of the debate. 

From the transcript:

The Covington Catholic schoolboy's interview with NBC.

Nick Sandmann looks very different — much younger — in this video:



Via Real Clear Politics:

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC 'TODAY' HOST: Do you feel that you owe anybody an apology? Do you see your own faults in any way?

NICK SANDMANN, COVINGTON CATHOLIC STUDENT: As far as standing there, I had every right to do so. My position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips. I respect him. I'd like to talk to him. I mean, in hindsight I wished we could have walked away and avoided the whole thing.

Sexual harassment claim filed Monday night, and Wednesday morning, Matt Lauer is fired from his longtime job as co-anchor of the "Today" show.

There is zero tolerance in The Reckoning. Lauer is just summarily out on his ass, with his co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, announcing the news and morning the "dear, dear friend":



“How do you reconcile your love for someone with the revelation that they have behaved badly?” Guthrie asks. Answer: You get in line with The Reckoning. Once the allegation is made, the diseased part of the corporate body must be lopped off like a gangrenous limb.

Here's the NYT article:

“On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer,” Andrew Lack, the NBC News president, said in the memo. He said the allegation against Mr. Lauer “represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company’s standards. As a result, we’ve decided to terminate his employment. “While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years he’s been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.”

Monday night to Wednesday morning — that's less than 2 days of investigation and opportunity for Lauer to defend himself. The interests of the entity, NBC, are put above any fairness to Lauer, because otherwise, what's the rush?

We're not even told what Lauer is accused of doing. NBC just wants us to know that it is clean. The problem is solved.

Meanwhile, President Trump isn't about containing the damage. He'd like to extend it:

Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017

ADDED: Maybe NBC was happy to get an opportunity to break its contract with Matt Lauer. He managed to get a 2-year deal — at 2018 — despite all the criticism he got for asking Hillary Clinton some tough questions NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum on September 8, 2016. Fortune reported on November 30th:

News of the deal follows a season of turmoil for the morning program, as well as for Lauer, who suffered heavy criticism after a disastrous interview with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump on NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum in September. (Lauer failed to push back on a series of false statements Trump made during that interview, which spurred a broader conversation about journalists’ responsibility to factcheck politicians.)

So the framing after the election was Lauer wasn't tough enough on Trump, but I remember people saying he was too tough on Hillary. And at the time, I blogged:

Trump won the coin flip and got to choose to go second. Matt Lauer offered a ground rule, that neither candidate should use his/her time to attack the other. Clinton broke the rule in the end, and Lauer called attention to that, both to Hillary and at the beginning of Trump's turn. She was a fool to open the door, and Trump walked right through it.

Lauer was harder on Trump, interrupting and getting harsh with him. But Trump didn't let that faze him, and compared to Hillary, who was ploddingly severe and robotic, he was very good.

And I'd also said (before watching the whole thing):

I think Lauer thinks he has what it takes to performatively demonstrate his confident, alpha-male TV show character. I've only watched clips from the forum, and I found it off-putting, because Lauer was so disrespectful — interrupting and bullying — and the difference in how he treated Trump and Hillary makes his lack of professional journalistic gravitas glare.

Why did he decided to act that way instead of adopting a neutral demeanor and working through serious, substantive questions that would expose Trump's limitations? Maybe:

1. Lauer doesn't have the wit and heft to play the role of serious journalist on TV.

2. Lauer genuinely believed he could win a round of that old TV game show "Quien Es Mas Macho?"

The confident, alpha-male TV show character is just not the style these days, and anyway, what good was it, if it couldn't take Trump down?

The Rand Paul has a problem with women meme.

I've watched the clip of Paul with Savannah Guthrie on "The Today Show," and it shouldn't be that big of a deal, but it is, and now any time Paul talks over a female, we'll hear about it and this meme will grow. Rand Paul has his response: He's "pretty equal opportunity." He's "been universally short tempered and testy" — toward males and females — and he needs "to get better at holding my tongue and holding my temper."

That's a good answer. Equality is a great concept, and women mostly want equality, and, I think, most men want equality for women. But in real life, rudeness toward women is perceived differently. For one thing, it was traditional for more respect to be shown to women, so we — some of us — notice its absence. And the reaction well, but I'm an asshole to everybody doesn't satisfy those who want a culture of civility.

But even for those of us who don't want special sensitivity to women and who think it will hurt women's opportunities — in journalism, in politics, and elsewhere — we observe how well women are treated with an understanding of what has gone on in the past when women were subordinated and diminished and dissuaded from entering the fray. (I had a high school English teacher who asserted with confidence that women could never work as broadcast journalists because our voices were unsuitable to the medium.) With that background understanding, what is objectively equal treatment may feel unequal.

Of course, it's also true that Rand Paul has his opponents who will use whatever works, and I fully expect them to accuse him of sexism whenever they can now. Once it's a meme, that's how it goes. If he remains "short tempered and testy," whatever hits women will be highlighted as Rand Paul's problem with women. If he manages to take the edge off, because he's trying "to get better," what niceness is aimed at women will be characterized as patronizing and even exclusionary. His opponents will want to box him in. Whatever he does will be wrong.