I'm going to get it out of my system right now and not think about him for the rest of the day.
As we all know, an article in The Atlantic says that, according to multiple sources, "The president has repeatedly disparaged the intelligence of service members, and asked that wounded veterans be kept out of military parades." Given some of his on-the-record quotes about John McCain and others who've served, it's pretty easy to believe that…but that doesn't mean the story in The Atlantic is true.
Trump insisted in a tweet that "I never called John a loser," and dismissed it — as he does all reporting that puts him in a bad light — as FAKE NEWS. And of course, everyone instantly located an earlier tweet in which he did exactly that. But that doesn't mean the story in The Atlantic is true.
Most of the pundits on Fox rushed to deny the story in The Atlantic even though Jennifer Griffin, the national security correspondent for Fox News Channel, said she'd confirmed some of it. But that doesn't mean the story in The Atlantic is true. It just makes it a little harder for those who want to disbelieve it to disbelieve it.
And that's what this comes down to for most people: Can I justify not believing it or at least telling myself, "We'll never know for sure so I won't hold it against him?"
Most of us choose to believe every bad thing, however thinly-sourced, about the candidates we hope will lose and we believe every good thing, however thinly-sourced, about the candidates we hope will win. Will the article be confirmed to the point where even Trump-lovers can't pretend it isn't?
One thing that might make that happen for some would be a confirmation from John Kelly, the retired four-star general and former White House chief of staff who was present when some of the incidents in the article occurred. He sure couldn't be dismissed as part of some liberal cabal. But according to The New York Times…
…Mr. Kelly, who served for more than 40 years in the Marines, has told associates that a retired four-star general should not come out against a sitting president in the heat of a political campaign, even though former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, another retired four-star Marine general, publicly criticized Mr. Trump in June for lacking "mature leadership" and trying to divide rather than unite the country.
"He wants to avoid taking a position that might be perceived as political," said Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a retired four-star Marine Corps general and a close friend of Mr. Kelly, who had not spoken to him since the publication of the Atlantic article. "I also think he takes to heart the commitment to confidentiality in matters related to their interaction with the president."
I guess that's admirable in some ways but here's the problem with it: If Kelly knows the assertions in the article are untrue, it would not be political or in any way a breach of confidentiality to say so.
If some reporter lied and claimed that Trump confessed to twenty murders in a meeting where Kelly was present, Kelly would be doing a horrible disservice to the president he served (and to The Truth, which has to have some standing in all this) to say "No comment" or anything other than some form of "That story is not true." If there was any question of it being a breach, Trump would certainly release him from any pledge to stay silent so he could say that.
It also would not be a breach to say, if it were so which it almost certainly isn't, "I have no information about this matter because I was not present for the incidents cited in the article." What would be a breach that might be "perceived as political" is to come out and confirm the story. So his silence is making a lot of people think the piece is true.
And you also have to wonder: If Mr. Kelly thinks a retired four-star general should not come out against a sitting president in the heat of a political campaign, does he think it's okay for that retired four-star general to be an unidentified background source for an article in The Atlantic?
