Wow. Robert Reich is pretty popular today thanks to this pair of tweets making the rounds:
This morning I phoned my old friend, a former Republican member of Congress, to discuss Trump's latest outbursts. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/Fo34mKTBui
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) October 12, 2017
This morning I phoned my old friend, a former Republican member of Congress, to discuss Trump's latest outbursts. (2/2) pic.twitter.com/0x74CjKi2E
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) October 12, 2017
Whoa, guys. Whoa.
Quite the conversation Robert Reich had with a former Republican member of Congress. This is worth a read. pic.twitter.com/PiBKFlSRf7
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) October 12, 2017
You’re sure he had this conversation, are you?
wow, this is very very very very real https://t.co/7BESCRDV9Q
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) October 12, 2017
About as real as those woke-six-year-old anecdotes, maybe?
I don't see Robert Reich just lying to people or anything https://t.co/zjho8c2EQX
— Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) October 12, 2017
From a February 2017 Mediaite post:
UC Berkeley professor and former Democratic Secretary of Labor Robert Reich suggested the anti-Trump riots on campus were actually a right-wing plot to delegitimize liberals.
“I was there for part of last night, and I know what I saw and those people were not Berkeley students,” Reich said. “Those people were outside agitators. I have never seen them before.”
“There’s rumors that they actually were right-wingers. They were a part of a kind of group that was organized and ready to create the kind of tumult and danger you saw that forced the police to cancel the event,” Reich insisted. “So Donald Trump, when he says Berkeley doesn’t respect free speech rights, that’s a complete distortion of the truth.”
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And speaking of complete distortions of the truth …
Remarkable: 6300 RTs, total credulousness despite >> https://t.co/G1wHIpcbJU
Folks just want to believe stuff..https://t.co/jvci9deS0B
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) October 12, 2017
From a 1997 Slate piece:
Asked about these denials, Reich said, “Our recollections differ.” And it’s certainly true that, in Washington, quote-denying is endemic. But some of Reich’s dialogues are checkable, and turn out, when checked, to be inaccurate in ways that serve Reich’s rhetorical ends.
…
I asked Reich what was going on in each of these cases. In reply, he pointed to his Note to the Reader: “I claim no higher truth than my own perceptions. This is how I lived it.” He said that his notes accurately reflected how he felt and what he perceived. In the three cases cited above, he felt varying degrees of hostility. “I am not representing the book to be anything other than it is, which is my account of my experiences, my perceptions, what I saw and heard around me,” he said. “That’s all I can say.”
In effect, Reich is saying that he’s not writing journalism or history. He’s writing … well, what? He elides the very distinction between history and myth, memoir and novel, reality and perception. The problem is that those are real people he misquotes, real history he rewrites.
So why exactly should we be inclined to take Reich at his word today?
https://twitter.com/justkarl/status/918498210645241858
Yeah, Reich’s not exactly known for telling the truth. Not intentionally, anyway. As a general rule, when you’re dealing with Robert Reich, make sure you have a ginormous grain of salt nearby.
Do you really believe this? Seems cleanly staged as conversations go. Not that the content is baseless; the dialogue just seems contrived.
— Belle Godwin (@doublebelle) October 12, 2017
Also not the first time he's done this. Seem to recall one where his "friend" indulged in Menschian fanfic some months ago.
— Liam Donovan (@LPDonovan) October 12, 2017
In his memoir preface he wrote "I claim no higher truth than my own perceptions."
— Brian Jencunas (@BrianPJencunas) October 12, 2017
Sounds about right.
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