Biased sources, motivated reasoning, and blithe assumptions: the TERF story » « My children will be heartbroken

Three words: “I was mistaken”

Donald Trump said that Alabama was at risk from Hurricane Dorian. It wasn’t. The weather service had never said it was. He was told that was incorrect.

So he or his staff whipped out a sharpie to add a line to a weather map, and the White House put out a video of Trump pointing to a fake map to “prove” he wasn’t wrong. That is so pathetic.

He can’t even say, “I was mistaken”.

Should I feel sorry for the grim flunky in the background who had the job of handing him the edited map?

Biased sources, motivated reasoning, and blithe assumptions: the TERF story » « My children will be heartbroken

Comments

  5. PaulBC says

    Even the Fonz can say “I was wrong” if he tries enough times. Never let it be said that 70s TV was not an educational medium.

  6. PaulBC says

    Another case where satire is entirely superfluous. “President pencils in bubble on weather map.” That used to be the stuff of Onion headlines. Now it is the world we live in.

  9. ethicsgradient says

    The ‘grim flunky’ is the Acting Homeland Security Secretary, Kevin McAleenan. Someone who ought to be coordinating a response to a natural disaster, or heading the search for domestic terrorists, is holding up a faked diagram because his senile boss cannot admit he was wrong, and hadn’t understood the briefing he had. Do you think he’s wondering where his life choices went wrong, or is he such a true believer that he’s persuaded himself that defending Trump’s intellectual honor is a necessary job?

  12. wzrd1 says

    They run the models every six hours. So, what was displayed on 29 Aug is not what one will experience on 4 Sep.
    What a dolt!

    At least he stopped saying stupid shit about nuking a hurricane.

    I’m hoping that it tracks a bit farther east, so that Hatteras doesn’t get the worst of it. As it stands now, it’s looking like it’ll hit the Cape dead on.

  13. thirdmill says

    No, you should not feel bad for that flunky in the background; anyone who agrees to work for Trump deserves every humiliation and every negative consequence that comes his way as a result. So does everyone who voted for Trump. Rarely have we seen karma working with such precision.

  15. PaulBC says

    The fact that it’s a black marker and the fact that it’s dishonest and possibly illegal doesn’t bother me as much as the idea that he thought it could help him in some way. (And I’m still like, what? Is it just a big joke? That makes more sense.) I think most grade school kids would be smart enough not to try a stunt like this. I am not a meteorologist, but am I right that a storm would not have an extra front that just sort of loops out of the main front like a bag. If I were going to alter a map like this, I think I’d at least go for some continuity.

    Random thought, maybe it’s not Trump at all, and he has the people who gerrymander congressional districts making weather maps for him now (granted, it’s not nearly misshapen enough for that).

  17. bcwebb says

    Trump will be releasing the new photo of his vast inauguration crowd as soon as his finishes drawing in all the little stick figures and happy faces. o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o o o o o oo o o o o o o o :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>) :>)

  18. anchor says

    “Should I feel sorry for the grim flunky in the background who had the job of handing him the edited map?”

    I agree with #13-thirdmill:
    No.

  20. microraptor says

    One hundred years from now, in international pop culture, that comb-over will be used to indicate a character is a gibbering idiot.

  22. John Morales says

    ObPointlessParadoxicalJoke:

    Charles M. Schulz — ‘I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong.’

  23. stroppy says

    The illegality of it, while not surprising (this is Trump after all) is disturbing. It’s illegal for a reason, especially in that what he says as president can impact lives and disaster planning on the ground. The depth of his egomania, corruption, and sheer incompetences is stunning, and that includes all of his enablers…every f’ing one of them.

  24. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    TRMS, Rachel Maddow, had an actual expert show us a series of prediction maps produced by the NOAA about predicted paths of Dorian. the map 4 days before the infamous tweet showed a few of the lines grazing Alabama. AND “45” had been insisting he was concentrating all his time on monitoring the storm. Any dedicated President would be clamoring for hourly updates instead of the standard 6 hour cycle. [I’m thinking of Gov. Dukakis giving update from a bunker in Natick during the Blizzard of ’78, as my example of a dedicated monitor of disastrous weather events]
    To tweet a “warning” based on 4 day old information is clear indication he ‘foked up’.
    Like the OP, I don’t understand why he couldn’t simply say, “oops, my mistake, glad it veered north instead of due west”
    I don’t understand why he didn’t try to scratch the 4 day old possible tracks onto the map, to say this is what I was shown before I tweeted that update”, instead of that obviously fake “bulge” which everyone would question.
    I want to describe it like a toddler’s map, when even a toddler would do a more plausible version of falsifying it.
    I’m surprised he didn’t claim mystical forces that he himself prevented it from hitting Alabama and caused it to hover outside of Florida. 9like a WALL was there)
    After claiming to be the Chosen One, makes sense to get more mystical.

  25. thirdmill301 says

    Peter Morris, No. 21, Nixon had a working Congress that did its job; Trump does not. If Nixon had had Trump’s Congress, he’d have finished his term. If Trump had had Nixon’s Congress, he’d have been long gone already.

  26. A Masked Avenger says

    @PaulBC, #15:

    The fact that it’s a black marker and the fact that it’s dishonest and possibly illegal doesn’t bother me as much as the idea that he thought it could help him in some way. (And I’m still like, what? Is it just a big joke? That makes more sense.) I think most grade school kids would be smart enough not to try a stunt like this.

    Without attempting to actually diagnose Trump, this kind of thing is consistent with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. A fixed delusional belief that you’re smarter than everyone else, that they all like and admire you, etc., promotes the expectation that you can literally do or say anything and be believed. This expectation is never contradicted, because when he isn’t believed the person with NPD will seamlessly transition to blaming someone else. E.g., if people keep asking about the Sharpie™, expect Trump to insist either that the NWS drew it on, or else to out the aide who handed him the chart, accuse him of originating the claim about Alabama, and firing his ass.

  28. blf says

    (Cross-posted from poopyhead’s current Political Madness All the Time thread.)

    Some more tidibits on sharpiegate, Trump shows fake hurricane map in apparent bid to validate incorrect tweet:

    […]
    Trump denied all knowledge. According to the Washington Post, when he was asked about the doctored map later on Wednesday, Trump said his briefings had included a 95% chance probability that Alabama would be hit.

    Asked if the chart had been drawn on, he insisted: I don’t know, I don’t know.

    […]

    On Wednesday night, apparently stung by the criticism, Trump tweeted another hurricane map. This one showed numerous, multicoloured lines projecting the path of Dorian. Some of the lines reach into Alabama. The map has a “South Florida Water Management District” logo in the bottom corner.

    The president [sic] wrote: This was the originally projected path of the Hurricane in its early stages. As you can see, almost all models predicted it to go through Florida also hitting Georgia and Alabama. I accept the Fake News apologies!

    But the map is dated 28 August at 08.06 EDT. Trump sent his tweet about Alabama on 1 September, by which time forecasts made clear it was not in danger.

    The map also clearly carries the disclaimer: “NHC advisories and county emergency statements supersede this product. This graphic should complement, not replace, NHC discussions.”

  29. blf says

    (Cross-posted from poopyhead’s current Political Madness All the Time thread.)

    More sharpiegate (from the Guarniad’s current live States blog):

    Trump’s re-election campaign is now fundraising off Sharpiegate, giving supporters the chance to buy markers so that they, too, can alter maps showing the potential path of a hurricane and unnecessarily raise alarm in a state out of the storm’s way: Buy the official Trump marker, which is different than every other marker on the market, because this one has the special ability to drive @CNN and the rest of the fake news crazy!

    Of course, this tweet from Trump’s campaign manager [Brad Parscale ] gets the order of events surrounding Sharpiegate a little backwards.

    The media isn’t still covering the altered map because it’s going crazy. It’s covering the story because the president [sic] is apparently having trouble letting the matter go, repeatedly tweeting (as recently as this morning) his false claim that his warning about the hurricane hitting Alabama was accurate.

    So if there’s anyone who this story is driving crazy, it doesn’t seem like it’s the media.

    And, a few minutes earlier:

    [… O]ne last thing [sic] about Sharpiegate: it appears the altered map of Hurricane Dorian, which was changed to include Alabama in the storm’s potential path, was the work of the president [sic] himself.

    The Washington Post reports:

    It was Trump who used a black Sharpie to mark up an official National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration map, which he displayed during an Oval Office briefing on Wednesday, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

    ‘No one else writes like that on a map with a black Sharpie,’ the official said of the map, which added Alabama into the hurricane’s potential pathway inside the loop of the marker.