Aleppo

Aleppo

A cranky opinion for

CRANKY OPINION SATURDAY

The following is the opinion of a cranky old man with limited knowledge on the subject opined.  Opposing opinions are welcome, but they are wrong.  As always, please, no name calling, and that means you, you big stupid-head!

Gary Johnson, third party candidate for President of the United States, did not understand the question, "What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?"

This story has been in the news now for several days, and still I’ll bet that if you walked up to 100 citizens and asked, “What should we do about Aleppo?” Ninety of the 100 would not have a clue about what you were asking.  Gary Johnson did not know.  The media made him look like a fool.  The media is very good at making someone look like a fool when they want.

I am not a Libertarian.  I have never had any intention of voting for Gary Johnson for President, but I am for fair media reporting. 

This Aleppo thing was a hatchet job.  The moderator’s reaction, “You’re kidding!” was a prepared part of the hatchet job.  The moderator’s tone of disgust as he talked down to Mr. Johnson in his explanation of Aleppo was a prepared hatchet job.  The moderator asked a question in a way to catch the candidate off guard, he got just the result he wanted and he was prepared to capitalize with his condescending attitude.

I watch the news a lot.  I read the news a lot.  I am not the brightest bulb in the chandelier and I am not running for President, but still…I had never heard of Aleppo.  Maybe the media hasn’t been reporting on it very well.

I guess a Presidential candidate should know about Aleppo, but to be fair, even the President does not know every country in the world and all their major cities and all their leaders.  The President has people who know all this stuff and when they need to know specifics, he calls on those people.

Here is how a media hatchet job works.

If you want to make a candidate look stupid you have him monitor a child’s spelling bee and after the child correctly spells a word, “potato,” you ask the candidate in a tone that indicates the child spelled it wrong, “Is that the correct spelling Mr. Candidate?”  That is intentionally setting someone up for failure.

If you want to make a candidate look stupid you surprise him with an unexpected question out of context, “Mr. Candidate, who is the current leader of Uzbekistan?”

If you interview a favored candidate you ask, “Mr. /Mrs. Candidate, if you were President, what would you do with regards to the terrible situation in Syria, and specifically the refugee crisis in their major city, Aleppo.”

If you want to make a candidate look bad you discuss his third party run and equate it with previous third party candidate, Ralph Nader, then completely out of context you ask, “What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?”

If you believe that being able to spell potato is important.  If you believe a candidate should know the leaders of every country in the world, if you believe candidates need to understand a question by the mere reference of a name…Aleppo, then perhaps we should just put all our candidates on “Jeopardy,” and the winner becomes President.

“I’m sorry Mr. Johnson, the answer needs to be in question form, that should be ‘What is Aleppo.’ And that means our new President is Hillary Clinton!”

The preceding was the opinion of a cranky old man, and not necessarily that of management…Mrs. Cranky.

BTW:

Thursday morning libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson went on MSNBC and responded to a question about Aleppo, Syria, by saying he didn't know what Aleppo was.

The New York Times ran a story about Johnson's gaffe that itself misidentified Aleppo as the "de facto capital of the Islamic State." (The actual de facto capital of the Islamic State is Raqqa.)

The Times then revised its story to identify Aleppo as an "ISIS stronghold." Unfortunately, this is also incorrect: Aleppo is the site of fighting between Syrian government forces and non-ISIS rebel groups. ISIS does not have a significant presence in the city.

The Times then, finally, revised its story to describe Aleppo simply as "wartorn,"which is accurate.  (Excuse me NYT, shouldn't that be war-torn?  It's OK, a newspaper can't  be President.)