Posted on 11/24/2015 1:25:42 PM PST by SeekAndFind
There's a difference between a lie and an honest mistake. However slight, it's a crucial distinction in politics, and especially in the campaign of Donald Trump.
On Saturday, the real-estate magnate insisted that after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he watched news footage of "thousands of thousands of people" celebrating in northern New Jersey -- "where you have large Arab populations," in his words.
Journalists have searched news archives for any evidence of such footage and turned up empty handed. Public officials and law enforcement in New Jersey say Trump's account is utterly false.
But Trump's assertion might not be a bald-faced lie. Psychologists suggest that people unconsciously fabricate memories all the time, and that Trump might have done the same.
"I can't say that he's not lying," said Deryn Strange, a psychologist at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. "But my research, and the research of my colleagues, certainly supports a more charitable interpretation: that this is a false memory."
There is a well-circulated video clip of Palestinians celebrating the attacks in the West Bank, as The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler has reported. Newspapers, including The Post, stated that police had detained some people in northern New Jersey who were allegedly partying on rooftops and watching the mayhem in New York. The Newark Star-Ledger later reported that “rumors of rooftop celebrations of the attack by Muslims here proved unfounded."
Trump might have conflated the two in his mind. "I can easily conceive how he could have developed this memory," Strange said. "All you need is a suggestion."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This is all the GOPe and other candidates way of getting Trump out of the way....
Only problem is, with us Trump supporters, we will NOT vote for anyone other than TRUMP, so you take your candidate and run them up against Hillary and let her in the White House...
Those are your choices....we’ve made ours: TRUMP POTUS....
EXCEPT .... they were investigating .... never confirmed. And it wasn’t thousands of people.
I do think Trump is getting the celebrations in Gaza mixed up w/ NJ reports.
It seems to me that the during the immediate days and weeks surrounding a big event a lot of stuff gets reported that turns out not to be accurate.
The pictures, showing the poor souls jumping out of the blown out windows of the WTC, were almost immediately scrubbed and some channels refused to show the video of that. So my question to YOU, is did they jump, or did I just imagine that they did, because the pictures are now gone?
Trump exaggerates; Hillary lies.
There clearly were people in New Jersey celebrating the attack. The number seems to be more like a dozen or so, maybe a few dozen, rather than thousands. But it was definitely NOT zero.
There is a foundation of truth in what Trump said, even if he got it a little wrong.
As I said, Trump exaggerates; Hillary lies.
It seems to me that all they have to do is go on youtube and download the clips.
Got a link to that story?
RE: It seems to me that all they have to do is go on youtube and download the clips.
There are no actual clips of Muslims celebrating 9/11 in New Jersey on YOUTUBE.
All we have is an interview Anderson Cooper did at with CNN investigative reporter Drew Griffin mentioning that he saw Muslims celebrating after the towers fell.
A pathetic, unimportant issue gets blown way out of proportion in an attempt to take Trump down. Worst of all are the supporters of other candidates who are pimping this BS so maybe, just maybe, their guy will finally take his rightful place on the thrown. Obviously the other candidates are missing something or they would be at the top.
There probably were some nutty Muslims across the River celebrating. There probably was a handful of nutty non Muslims also celebrating across the river. Nutty people do nutty things. But never in the 1,000's was it ever reported or police logs found.
It happened in Europe also.
A friend was at a children’s soccer league practice when it was announced and the Muslims who had brought their kids went nuts. They were screaming and hollering and praising Allah.
Why would there be a police record?
Celebrating the death of 3000+ US citizens is not illegal. They Muslims broke no law. It is evil, and generally “Bad form” as the British would say but not illegal.
Mr Trump was not the only person who saw this happen.
I lived in Hong Kong at the time and did not see it but I remember it being widely reported.
I agree 100% that the celebrations happened, and remember that very clearly. I’m just talking about videos/pictures of the celebrations, which no one has been able to verify (I’ve done quite a bit of digging - going back years, there is plenty of talk about videos, but no one has turned up the alleged videos themselves).
And, re: videos/pictures of people jumping out of the windows - those are all over the place.
Exactly. And, I think even "exaggerates" is too strong a word here. I think Trump honestly remembers seeing the celebrations, even if he is mixing things up in his head (as the human memory likes to do, especially 15 years later).
Fourteen years later, we have no record, therefore it didn't happen. Nice loop.
Thank you, I stand corrected. I remember at the time hearing that it was going on.
There is more going on with the Trump 9/11 stories than just trying to defeat Trump.
This is an Orwellian tactic designed to further the lie that the Media is the Keeper of The Truth. If the Media does not report it, it is not The Truth. When someone challenges the Media with facts, the Media doubles down by changing the narrative:
* During a lengthy stump speech, Trump makes a comment about watching as thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheered on 9/11.
* The Media says this is a lie.
* Trump doubles down, saying he saw people celebrating in New Jersey, and that there were Muslims cheering 9/11 around the world.
* Media calls this an obfuscation, as if he is trying to parse his words and disconnect “thousands” from those cheering in New Jersey.
* People access their own memories and remember that they say footage of Muslims cheering on 9/11, too.
* The Media says “That was footage of one Mosque in the Middle East and Islam is ROP, etc., so Trump lied.”
* Article surfaces about Police investigating reports of Muslims cheering 9/11 in New Jersey.
* The Media says “But it wasn’t ‘thousands and thousands’ like Trump claimed so Trump lied.”
* Most people generally remember seeing pictures of lots of people who looked like Muslims cheering 9/11, despite every Media outlet slamming Trump as lying.
* This article comes out and says maybe Trump wasn’t lying-lying, but only making things up in his head and lying about them.
* Other Media commentaries come out saying that Trump is lying, but even if he isn’t lying, it’s irresponsible for him to raise these issues not.
The same sort of word-parsing and debating is going on about whether or not Trump actually, literally saw people jumping from the WTC on 9/11 from his apartment with his own eyes, drilling down into whether or not he has a telescope in his apartment.
The aim here is to get people lost in the forest and make them forget about the trees. The facts are indisputable: Muslims around the world celebrated on 9/11; and people jumped from the WTC rather than burn to death.
This is also priming to pump to set Trump up as a “liar” or untrustworthy for something in the future. My bet is that the Media has something with more substance that they think is a “gotcha” for Trump, so they are sowing these seeds now. I predict we will see little things like this all the way up to a November surprise where they try to characterize him as having lied “like Bush” on something much more significant (at least, in their opinion).
The next lie from these democrats will be that 9/11 itself never happened!
Trump was quoting it last night.
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