Classified Information Leaked?

• Tom Rogan, foreign policy writer for Washington Examiner and The Atlantic, and not Joe: “There is no question Houthi Signal chat included classified information.”

• The Atlantic withdraws story that leaked chat contained “war plans.”

• Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense: “So, let me get this straight. The Atlantic released the so-called ‘war plans’ and those ‘plans’ include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information. Those are some really sh*tty war plans.”

Classified material? War plans? What’s the reality?

Sir William Osler, the most prominent physician of his day, reminded us to believe nothing we read in the newspapers. If we see something we believe to be true, he warned, begin to doubt it at once.

In the days of the Soviet Union, their U.N. representative would often begin a propaganda outburst by saying, “As is well known…” Similarly, Tom Rogan (not to be confused with Joe) begins his claim of classified documents being leaked with, “There is no question…”

Here let me propound Murphy’s Law of Horse Poop: If someone begins by saying “As is well known…” it is probably not well known, or even known at all. And if someone declares “There is no question…” the entire statement is questionable. These are rhetorical tricks to lend credibility to horse poop.