[billfor]

December 2012: Several journalists reported that MSNBC hosts were meeting privately with President Obama to discuss the impending “fiscal cliff” fight. May 2013: NPR’s Ari Shapiro reported that President Obama was meeting privately with “lefty columnists,” but hastened to add that there was “nothing nefarious” about it. November 2013: President Obama met again with liberal journalists, as Obamacare struggled with the failure of healthcare.gov and other problems. March 2015: Politico’s media reporter, Hadas Gold, reported that “a group of journalists and columnists,” all on the left, met privately with President Obama, but the White House refused to say “who else was at the meeting or what was discussed.”

[mejari]

Where have you copy-pasted this list from and what is it's relevance?

[basurihn]

I'm sure if you were at all open to his point, you could really figure it out.

[mejari]

Why bother posting the comment at all if you don't actually want to discuss it?

[grzm]

To be fair, your initial response was not particularly conducive to continuing the conversation. Why would they choose to respond to someone who is apparently antagonistic?

[mejari]

Which initial response?

My first comment in this thread was responding to a baseless comment about someone's own memory, so I didn't feel the need to put a lot of effort providing sources.

My first reply to billfor was a question asking for clarification on his comment.

I don't see in what way I'm being antagonistic. As to why would they choose to respond, I don't know, but they did choose to, so I don't see why asking for clarification is such a bad thing.

[grzm]

Apologies for not looking far enough up the thread. I am referring to this comment:

Where have you copy-pasted this list from and what is it's relevance?

Perhaps it wasn't your intent, but this can easily be read as "you're just copy/pasting stuff that doesn't have anything to do with the conversation". With contentious topics, extra care needs to be taken to ensure constructive conversation.

[basurihn]

He may have inferred from your tone a common algorithm:

1. Ask to clarify meaning when the meaning requires only superficial analysis. 2. Ask for sources. 3. Dispute illegitimate sources, while clarifying which sources are acceptable, without ability to see bias in "legitimate" sources. 4. Await response, assuming it will be hostile. 5. Respond with other hostile algorithm.