Is there a single honest Bernie supporter on DU ....

[mooseprime]

110. sure.

you have to understand that the way high-level visits are put together involves lots of considerations that are never made public. high-level figures have both official (public) and actual schedules. i know this from personal experience working as an interpreter. here's an example. if someone from country A meeting the president would be considered out of line by country A's current leader, the person is ushered into a room that connects two rooms where the president has official meetings. moving from room 1 to 2, the president meets with the person from country A as long as they need and they conduct whatever business they have right there. then the president continues to room 2, which is the next scheduled thing on the official record. so in fact the person from country A both did and did not meet with the president. this kind of thing is absolutely routine. because so many factors are involved, including timing and who else is in town doing what at that precise moment, often meetings are arranged in advance but the arrangement is not made public. so the fact of and deniability can be espoused at the same time. of course this won't be substantiated in advance by the vatican. what if clinton changes her plans and happens to be in rome at the same moment? well then the meeting would be canceled or she would be included or some other arrangement would be cooked up. the press is always two bounces behind what's really going on, and the info they receive is fragmentary and often contradictory. it's an exercise in futility to try to make sense of something like this in advance because at best you have partial information; you may also have only been told what they want you to hear. you won't know what's intended here until after the meeting takes, place...if then. see what happens and then draw your conclusions about what the plans were. in my experience with high-visibility affairs, the media narrative and what actually happens NEVER coincide.