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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   36912 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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Yeah, baring evidence not presented yet, Cheatle just seems at worst incompetent and at best woefully hands-off, rather than malicious.

Did the congressional hearings ever explain the "sloped roof" thing? I can think of hypotheses under which she's not malicious there (it was never really a thing, some underling told her 2+2=5 and she didn't see an issue with repeating that), but the null hypothesis here still seems to be "she just made something up in the middle of an investigation", which would mean it's at least some evidence of malice. We don't get pissed at Nixon because we think he broke into the Watergate; just helping with the coverup was bad enough.

No answers were given, but one of the 'critters had done some research and noted that the slope on the roof in question is within the ADA parameters for a wheelchair ramp...

There's quite a bit of funny shit on the record there, including a different guy telling her that she should 'go back to guarding Doritos'.

but the null hypothesis here still seems to be "she just made something up in the middle of an investigation", which would mean it's at least some evidence of malice

I mean, not necessarily. Probably she spun a tale literally on the spot, just to have something to say. She failed the speech check this time. But when it does work, you don't notice. That's PR. No spokesperson is ever going to honestly say "we can't do our jobs well and I have no explanation."

Perhaps such an attitude technically is malicious, but no more so than any other PR in the history of PR.

Did the congressional hearings ever explain the "sloped roof" thing?

It was referred to several times. I think once she said something about it like, "I should have been clearer in my statement about that..." without really explaining what that meant. It was a truly abysmal and laughably uninvested performance by her. I couldn't tell if she was a professional time-waster, an incompetent of sociopathic proportions, or a malicious actor. It's bewildering how detached she was from her professional responsibilities.

I got the feeling she'd already given up on trying to keep her job

She was asked and, like most of her answers, basically didn't answer it straight -- though she did throw out something not quite related. All she said was that in general, the Secret Service prefers "sterile rooftops". Either way I don't assign the comment much weight at all -- it's bound to be superceded by whenever we get an actual investigation report.

No, the real question is how quickly we get the report and how detailed the public-facing version is.

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