The Gary Johnson thread

Heck, it might help him - what he needs most is attention, and maybe bad press is better than no press at this point.

barfo

 

Or maybe he's less likely to go bomb or order drone strikes on a place he doesn't care about.

 

I'm not sure not giving a shit about the outside world is a really great qualification for president. Bombing might not be a good idea, but ignorance isn't a solution.

Personally, I'm willing to give him credit for knowing something about Syria and caring at least somewhat. You seem to have a low opinion of your Johnson.

barfo

 

Oddly, Aleppo isn't on CNN much, if at all. Instead, it's a 24/7 Hiliar political commercial.

What do you know about Aleppo?

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/09/what-is-aleppo-syria/499142/

Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s nominee for president of the United States, is being mercilessly ridiculed for asking what Aleppo was when Morning Joe host Mike Barnicle mentioned the Syrian city on Thursday morning. But I’m grateful to Johnson. Many politicians in that situation would pretend they were familiar with Aleppo and then pivot to a more comfortable topic. (“Aleppo is, of course, a very serious issue that as president I would seek to address. But I gotta say: My top priority would be stopping wasteful government spending. That’s really the greatest threat to our national security,” etc.)

As a candidate for America’s highest office, Johnson should know what Aleppo is. But he’s certainly not alone in not knowing. And had he not asked the question,#WhatIsAleppo wouldn’t be trending on Twitter. BuzzFeed wouldn’t be asking its readers to find Aleppo on a map. People might not be discussing how Matt Lauer barely brought up Syria during NBC’s Commander in Chief Forum on Wednesday. We wouldn’t be talking as much about something we should be talking about more: the epicenter of Syria’s civil war and humanitarian crisis.

(why barely ask about Syria? That's one of the more Obama/Clinton foreign policy failures)

 

Not a huge amount. I know it's a city in Syria, I know that Assad and others have been bombing the shit out of it, I've seen lots of pictures of rubble and bloody children. Beyond that - nothing.

But then, I'm not running for president, am I? It's not my job to know shit like that.

After seeing the clips of Johnson, and then the video of him later trying and failing to explain, it now seems worse for him than it did when I'd just read the text of the exchange. He really did look stoned, and the later bit taken by an escalator, he couldn't even make sense. Don't know how many people will see that, of course, so it probably still doesn't matter.

barfo

 

Your candidate's foreign policy in action. The Nobel peace prize winner's, too.

 

The funny part is that that "quote" is indeed exactly the sort of thing a Libertarian would say. And it's stupider than saying "What's Aleppo?".

barfo

 

For you Gary Johnson fans, here you go.



You sure this is the guy you want?

barfo

 

That quote isn't what he said.

It's the lefty writer's fantasy.

 

Absolutely.

 

I know that. That's why I put "quote" in quotes.

barfo

 

Oh, I don't know. Getting busted for vandalism is what we expect from our president, no?

barfo