[nathanbedford]

By any stretch of the imagination, President Trump has been vindicated on his tweet.

No is entirely too early to claim the application and certainly not by "any stretch of the imagination." It is true, however, that he has moved closer toward vindication as a result of these revelations.

As I said on the very morning when he came out with these tweets at 5 AM, the style of the tweets was extremely ill advised. He has been drubbed unmercifully in the leftist media because his tweet was so ineptly styled. I said then and I say now, he should have consulted with competent attorneys, he should have mobilized the Attorney General, he should have presented his allegations to the public with the full panoply of his office and supported with at least some facts. He left himself open to criticisms for misusing the word "wiretap," for claiming that it occurred in the Trump Tower, and for alleging involvement by Barack Obama himself, without any support then or since then. The tweets were half cocked and the vindication has long since passed the attention span of the public.

That is a pity because it was so easily avoided.

As usual, Mark Levin had it right, the story is about the leaking but Donald Trump's tweets gave the left media the excuses needed to disparage and even ignore Trump except for his tweets and, therefore, the seriousness of the leaking

I hope Trump is vindicated and it looks like he will be but he has lost miles in approval ratings in the meantime because he tweeted before he consulted, all as I argued that morning with you. I never took the position that he had no basis for the claim only that the atmospherics were being mishandled. Perhaps the impulsive tweets can be overcome as revelations of Democrat criminality emerge with every news cycle.

[Political Junkie Too]

Really? You're going to say it's too early to say that Trump is vindicated, after defending your claim that it was early enough to declare Trump's promises as broken?

-PJ

[sargon]

As I said on the very morning when he came out with these tweets at 5 AM, the style of the tweets was extremely ill advised. He has been drubbed unmercifully in the leftist media because his tweet was so ineptly styled. I said then and I say now, he should have consulted with competent attorneys, he should have mobilized the Attorney General, he should have presented his allegations to the public with the full panoply of his office and supported with at least some facts. He left himself open to criticisms for misusing the word "wiretap," for claiming that it occurred in the Trump Tower, and for alleging involvement by Barack Obama himself, without any support then or since then. The tweets were half cocked and the vindication has long since passed the attention span of the public

As shown by the above paragraph, your penchant for second-guessing the President is unparalleled. By the way, the President did put the words in "wires tapped" in quotes.

When President Trump issued that tweet, he immediately changed the Media narrative, and suddenly all the masturbatory reporting about the Russian angle stopped.

The President goaded the Democrats and Media (but I repeat myself) into changing the topic, and now they look like fools for wallowing in their partisan skepticism.

As I've said before, it's fortunate that the President doesn't find it necessary to rely too heavily on the peanut gallery here for suggestions on how to handle these situations with the Media.

Donald Trump seems to have been doing a passable job at this task now for the last year or two—gratuitous hand-wringing notwithstanding. He knew exactly what he was doing when he issued that tweet, and your inability to credit—or even comprehend—his strategy in doing so does not change that fact...

[kevao]

As usual, Mark Levin had it right, the story is about the leaking

Yes, the story was about the leaking. However, if this story is true, then it eclipses the leaking. It appears that the Trump intercepts did not come out incidentally in the course of foreign intelligence surveillance; rather, Rice asked IC to deliberately cull Trump's phone calls from the metadata. In other words, Trump's communications were targeted for political purposes.

[LS]

You’re wrong. Trump’s tweet was the ONLY thing that ensured there would be an investigation of snooping vs. an investigation of him.

And once again you’re buying into phoney “approval ratings” by the SAME DAMN PEOPLE WHO MISSED THE ELECTION BY A MILE.

[Repeal The 17th]

You have been out of the United States for too long.
Your opinions are no longer relevant.

[grey_whiskers]

Give it a rest, Nathan. Trump is the master of the sucker punch.

To quote Stephen Byerley in Isaac Asimov's Evidence:

“Exactly. I mean that I’m going to let him go ahead, choose his rope, test its strength, cut off the right length, tie the noose, insert his head and grin. I can do what little else is required.”

[William Tell]

"As usual, Mark Levin had it right, the story is about the leaking but Donald Trump's tweets gave the left media the excuses needed to disparage and even ignore Trump except for his tweets and, therefore, the seriousness of the leaking."

Did you live through Watergate? It took several years for the details surrounding Watergate to be revealed, despite Woodward and Bernstein being on the story from the initial hearings for the burglars. Before it was over, more than 60 people had been convicted of crimes.

I am very convinced that this story is not about leaks. It is about unlawful surveillance. Time will tell. But we are are only in the first inning.

Nixon's recordkeeping, in the form of the tapes, assured that Nixon would eventually be revealed as a co-conspirator by having advised that he could raise hush money to buy silence from the burglars. His own arrogance regarding the extreme value of his time in office was, at least in part, his undoing.

Obama and his minions share that same arrogance. I fully expect that every detail of their crimes is documented in our various intelligence agencies. In cleverly distributing the unlawful intelligence, expecting that he could then benefit from leaks of the information, Obama has ensured that the information will be uncovered.

I'm investing in popcorn. I expect that this mess is going to bring a lot of people down. Who do you guess will play the part of John Dean in this remake of a political classic? We already have Bob Creamer playing the part of Donald Segretti, arranging dirty tricks to undermine the opposition. How wonderfully fitting that both of these massive conspiracies were undertaken to gather dirt on political opponents. In Nixon's case he won and that bought him some time. In this case, Obama and Hillary lost. This bodes ill for them.

[ConservativeMind]

You take the same argument the Democrats and Republicans have continued to use for two years - ‘the dangerous, ill-conceived use of Twitter’ - and conclude he is damaging himself. Yet, it always appears Trump defeats these critics as time goes on.

Apparently, Cruz and Hillary would have been well-served by a similar, dangerous, use of Twitter, because something powerfully positive comes out through its use.

At least you have company with MSNBC and CNN liberals with your stance.

[Fresh Wind]

I never took the position that he had no basis for the claim only that the atmospherics were being mishandled.

And you are absolutely right.

Part of the problem is that people got hung up over the "wiretap" terminology, which is as obsolete as talking about dialing a phone. But people still use those terms even though phones don't have dials, and capturing phone calls doesn't require some agent to creep into a phone closet with clip leads and a tape recorder. And when a captured call is between an office in the Trump Tower and some other location, as some of those calls surely were, does it even matter where the "tap" was? Or, for that matter, the physical location of a server that might have been hacked?

An inherent problem with Twitter is the severe length limitation which forces the user to abbreviate his thoughts, and that often introduces distortion. I am not saying that Trump shouldn't use Twitter, but I agree that he does need to be more careful when he does.

[faucetman]

NONSENSE!

You people just don’t get it!

Trump is the “WHOLE PACKAGE”. He wouldn’t be “Trump” without the Tweets. He wouldn’t be Trump without the “inartful” language. “Believe Me!”

I don’t want to “change” Trump, like so many of you do. I like him just the way he is. A little off color, a little brash, a little impetuous, a little unrefined..... wait, okay, maybe “a LOT” of those things.

SO WHAT? He got to be PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES being that way. (in spite of the ENTIRE government, press, pollsters, FAKE news media, and Republicans being out to GET him. (at least he had the Russians /s)

He’s “REAL”!

For you snobs, that means “authentic”.