IF IT'S TRUE ...

Have you noticed how when the media will make some news based on alleged actions/events, the pols then refer to it as a source and go on to make a case?

Add this to the already well practiced craft of stating opinion and conjecture as fact. Then there's lifting things out of context.

You know how it's all the speculation how Joe is not all there upstairs? He's as sharp as a tack.

Quoting a favorite usage of his, "Look ...". 

Here he is making the case for how he would be strong with the Russians and how the current administration has been derelict. Case in point, the alleged Russian payments of bounty for American soldiers killed by the Taliban.

Notice how he cited the New York Times article then several times predicated his response with "Assuming the report is accurate" and, "If it's true". Okay, his ass is covered with those disclaimers. 

But ...

The weight of his case after the legally shrewd dodges comes off as if he's stating a fact. Rachel Maddow is the past master of this sort of opinion making. 

Try it out for size: "If what we hear is accurate [as in anybody can say anything and if you choose you can report it as news as long as you state it as an "unconfirmed source", or "we've been told" and add the "allegedly's" and "if it's true's"] and if it's true — that she passes out sexual favors in the men's room as a way of going up the corporate ladder — then we should all take issue with her deviant behavior and censure her for such debasing activity. She should be fired! She is disgusting and despicable". 

Did the "if it's true" hover over your reading and understanding of the claim? Or, did the salacious claim leave an impression against the stridently always-right left leaning TV entertainer?

With all that said ... I give you Joe: