06-13-2024, 11:27 AM
(06-12-2024, 08:18 PM)hollodero Wrote: Yeah I knew about that one. I think the headline is a tad misleading, these 51 people did not make a definite statement, but rather made this infamous "it has the earmarks of Russian disinformation" claim. And I can not really disagree with that statement, it had these earmarks. It sure still was an error of judgment and I will not try to defend them from that accusation. Whether bias and a political preference played a part, well I don't know, my guess would be that it did and that sure deserves critizism too. But they did not exactly swear it was false, they stated clearly that they do not know that for a fact and "just" expressed their strong scepticism - and well, the information came from Rudy and imho that alone was reason enough to be deeply sceptical.
Also, Mr. Ratcliffe disagreed with the assessment, which was news to me. A curious thing is how the FBI allegedly investigated the possibility of a Russian disinformation campaign, which is indeed weird. But maybe possible at this point.
I have to admit I didn't learn much from this article, aside from the fact that Mr. Smirnov can not be seen as a reliable source and hence information from him has to be seen as tainted and that Russian misinformation campaings are ongoing. Assumptions I would see as justified. It sure touches on social media suppressing the WaPo article on the laptop, which was a wrong decision, possibly justifiable by what they were led to believe at this point. Or it's because they are all evil, which they sure are. Also, Mr. Blinken's role sure is curious. But no one swore publicly it was misinformation while knowing it was not.
OK, that one I actually only could read through the HTML code (weird that the Times does not realize one can do that, but whatever). So I might have overlooked things. But it seems the only one who claimed with authority that this was in fact a Russian ploy was Biden himself, citing the 51 officials who never made this definite claim and actually explicitly said they could not state it as fact. So it remains that as far as I can tell there's still no one, except Biden, that came close to swearing publicly that the laptop story was fake.
What you're essentially saying here is that the 51 "experts" left enough wiggle room to claim plausible deniability. The problem is the real world doesn't work that way. If you release publicly that something has all the earmarks of Russian disinformation you are saying to the general public that this is Russian disinformation. Any intelligent person knows exactly how it will be perceived, and how it will be used by others like Joe Biden.
You could release a statement that Joe Biden has all the earmarks of a pedophile and then play clips of him sniffing kids, touching them in odd, even inappropriate ways and then referencing his daughter's diary (another incident of something lambasted as fake and later proven genuine) in which she writes that he would shower with her at a inappropriate age. You could then reference the following.
https://archive.ph/s9bmE
But in so doing, I am not claiming that Joe Biden is a pedophile, just that his behavior has all the "earmarks" of a pedophile. But do you think many people will come to any conclusion other than I am saying Joe Biden is a pedophile and here's the proof?
Hence my not being at all impressed by the "earmarks" argument or the plausible deniability claimed by using that term.
P.S. That youtube video is disturbing, I only included it to make a point. I honestly can't watch it. It's nothing against ToS, it's just creepy and gross and it skeeves me out.
