Talk:Robert Malley

Adviser to Obama?

TNR says that Malley 'is not and has never been a Middle East adviser to Barack Obama. Obama's Middle East adviser is Dan Shapiro.' However this is not quite the same as 'foreign-policy adviser', which is the article's wording. What's the truth?—ZephyrAnycon (talk) 18:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

He has a negative record on Israel. 67.87.92.56 (talk) 02:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I've just now added a paragraph about Malley's ties (now former ties) to the Obama campaign, as reported by The Times of London. As of now it's the second paragraph because it's prominent news about him. Noroton (talk) 18:36, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

We are not wikinews - the intro is not supposed to summarize "prominent news" about someone, it is for an overview. I moved the paragraph to "Career" where it belongs. Tvoz/talk 21:31, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Obama adviser paragraph

I wrote up the controversy that broke about May 10 and made it the second paragraph, stating in my edit summary back then that the topic was important "now" but later on may not be. I think we should continue having that paragraph up there for a while longer, and so after an editor moved it down, I've just moved it back up. The reason is that the controversy has generated a ton of interest in the article from readers, with traffic stats going from 10-56 page views from May 1-8 and shooting up to 710 on May 9 and continuing in the days thereafter at more than 300 per day (see here). It seems to me to be useful to have something about this at the top (for one thing, it confirms for readers that this is indeed the person they were looking for; it's also good to have a neutral summary of the incident for those who only know about this from some opinion piece or worse). So I think the paragraph is important enough to stay up there for a time. Why don't we keep it that high until traffic stats go down to, say, 100 a day for a few days? I assume that'll take about a week. Let's serve the readers. The incident is important right now in understanding the subject. Noroton (talk) 21:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The paragraph is phrased in a very misleading way. Obama's campaign - the most authoritative source on whether he was an advisor or not - has said the following:

"Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Mr Obama, responded swiftly: “Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future."

Thus, this position should be made clear at the beginning of the paragraph. You cannot "impose" on a campaign an advisor they deny was ever an advisor. That is simply absurd. Second, please use the more nuanced word "distanced themselves from Malley" rather than the sensationalistic "sever ties", "sacked" etc. That's good for bloggers or yellow journalism, not proper for encyclopedic reporting. SelfEvidentTruths (talk) 01:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

They don't deny he was an adviser. They say he was an "informal adviser". Meaning he advised the campaign. By the way, what is the practical difference between a "formal" and "informal" adviser? We note that the Obama campaign has called him an "adviser". That really is the important point.

Second, politics and political campaigns are inherently controversial. You don't ever accept without question a campaign statement as "the most authoritative source" because that's not WP:NPOV. I'll again check out the news coverage from reliable sources (WP:RS) to see if "sever ties" or "distanced" is closer to what they say. The phrase "severed ties" is a New York Times type of phrase. A tabloid wouldn't be caught dead with it. Noroton (talk) 03:01, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

From the (London) Times article we use as a source: "prompting the likely Democratic nominee to sever all links with him." First paragraph. Hardly tabloid language.

New York Times May 13: "On Friday, Robert Malley, who was a special adviser on Arab-Israeli affairs to President Bill Clinton, severed his ties to the Obama campaign"

I would have no problem adding this information to the article (quoted from the same New York Times story):

“He has no formal role in the campaign and will not play one in the future,” Mr. Vietor said.

A senior foreign policy adviser to Mr. Obama said Mr. Malley had contributed “one paper to one of our policy teams several months ago, and that was the extent of it.”

Noroton (talk) 03:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Exactly! I don't see how, by any stretch of imagination, writing one paper to one of many policy teams over the course of several months can be defined as being an "advisor." Especially, when Malley himself and the campaign explicitly deny this was an "advisory role". Just b/c some conservative newspaper in Britain used that term, does not make it true. Note how the New York Times, which usually emphasizes accuracy, does not use the term "advisor" and only states that "Mr. Malley said he had been an informal adviser to the campaign" and immediately brings the response of the Obama campaign: "Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said that description applied to “literally hundreds of people.”" SelfEvidentTruths (talk) 16:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Marcuri (talk) 17:33, 19 November 2008 (UTC) I'd like to point out that the sources used for this information might be unreliable. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128308, http://dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=17632 Citations 10 and 11 respectfully, seem to be from less than credible news sources. They do not turn up as sources for news from google news for instance however I don't know what the criteria is for a news source to be credible on wikipedia. As of right now this page still seems biased. Those two citations are used to reference this statement "as of the end of the 2008 US Presidential election, Malley is described as a "senior foreign policy advisor"."

Again: we are not wikinews - the intro is not supposed to summarize "prominent news" about someone, it is for an overview. I moved the paragraph to "Career" where it belongs. Tvoz/talk 21:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

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Strange edits. Spy allegations. Jewishness.

A recent edit adds an article by the subject of the article while removing a claim that his father was Jewish that is backed up by said article. Meanwhile, I presume that given his recent security clearance revocation and claims he was an Iranian spy (Tablet Magazine source) his own writings (such as said article) are not reliable sources about anything. RudolfoMD (talk) 04:15, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Spying for Iran is very interesting.... 192.114.3.241 (talk) 13:26, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Being outed as a a spy puts his entire life history, including his claimed Jewish identity, in question. I don't see any reliable sources for it. RudolfoMD (talk) 06:49, 11 January 2024 (UTC)