This page was last updated on January 17, 2017.
Imagine if ‘birther’ claims had targeted Trump; Oren M. Spiegler (OMS); Beaver County Times; January 17, 2017.
Mr. Spiegler is such a prolific letter writer the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review gave him a little tribute back in 2003. Google “Oren M. Spiegler” and you’ll get more hits than you know what to do with. Unfortunately, prolific is not a synonym for competent. Mr. Spiegler claims to be a Republican. In my critique of “Breathing more freely,” I cited reasons why I was “beginning to believe Mr. Spiegler is simply another Republican impersonator,” but he sealed the deal with “Greatest foreign policy debacle.” Subsequent letters provided more confirmation. The group of local Republican impersonators also includes Messrs. William A. Alexander, Arthur Brown, Edward J. Hum, Bill Ralston, and George Reese, all claiming to be disgruntled Republicans. While he has previously claimed to be a Republican, this appears to be the first time Mr. Spiegler claimed to be a registered Republican in a BCT letter. If true, Mr. Spiegler joins Mr. Hum in going the extra mile to further his impersonation of a Republican.
ALERT! Though I missed it by several months, Mr. Spiegler finally did the honorable thing and ended his charade and deregistered as a Republican.
You can find links to previous critiques of Spiegler letters I critiqued here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The BCT has or had a limit of 12 letters per writer per year. In 2014, the BCT either ditched that limit or made a huge exception for Mr. Spiegler. By my count, the BCT published at least 25 Spiegler letters in 2014. Mr. Spiegler and/or the BCT dialed things back a bit in 2015; the BCT published only 15 Spiegler letters.
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“In one of the latest deliveries of tragic comedy from the camp of our president-elect, we find Donald Trump in high dudgeon over reports indicating that he may have conspired with Russia to sink Hillary Clinton’s prospects of becoming president, and that there is embarrassing, damning, blackmail-worthy information about him and his sexual escapades.
“With his usual ‘dignity,’ the president-elect’s response was, ‘It’s all fake news, it’s phony stuff, it didn’t happen,’ adding that ‘sick people’ had ‘put that crap together ... it’s an absolute disgrace.’ For added measure, he asserted that such smears are reminiscent of Nazi Germany, an interesting position to be adopted by the man who has attracted the support of many who yearn for the Nazi era to return.”
[RWC] Here’s some of what OMS chose not to mention about the document. BuzzFeed (a sister of NBC News and not the author) released the subject dossier, saying, “The dossier, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians. BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier but have not verified or falsified them. … The document was prepared for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former British intelligence agent. It is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors.”
The document has been around since before the election. According to NBC News, “It was originally generated as part of opposition research by anti-Trump Republicans and then shopped by Democrats.”
The reason so-called news outlets didn’t report the allegations is because, as BuzzFeed noted above, “The document was prepared for political opponents of Trump … [and] includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations … [and] is not just unconfirmed: It includes some clear errors.”
As I’ve written before, I’m not a fan of Nazi comparisons.
“Imagine how enraged Trump would have been had someone perpetrated a hoax alleging for years that Trump is not a native of this country and if such a falsehood had attracted millions of deluded believers.”
[RWC] Yeah, this and the birther stuff are the same.
“Perhaps, as the expression says, we are witnessing that “what goes around comes around.”
[RWC] Blah, blah, blah.
© 2004-2017 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.