Talk:Cofer Black

BS sentance
Biased and misleading sentence: "He worked in South Africa during the racist apartheid regime's dirty war against guerrilla movements representing the black majority."

The CIA DID NOT support RSA against a domestic terrorist/guerrilla threat. The CIA did however incite the SANW to invade Angola (against the Cuban backed Marxist MPLA), they however did not provide material support. They MAY have provided arms for UNITA. None of these actions happened in SA!

This is again a biased sentence that is aimed at smearing Confer Black, using ill-informed stereotypes.

A few more problems: The RSA before 1994 should be named a "White Minority Government", not a regime. In a regime, power can not change hands. In South Africa, power could have changed hands between different parties (even though only white persons were allowed to vote).

Secondly, using a sentence written in that form can smear anybody. For instance, lets assume there is a UN aid worker helping poor people in an informal settlements. Good guy, works for the United Nations. He gives poor people food and medicine. Lets say his name is John Goody. Lets put his name in the exact same sentence:

"John Goody worked in South Africa during the racist apartheid regime's dirty war against guerrilla movements representing the black majority."

All of it is "factually" true, but biased. Questions ? Was John Goody working for the SA "regime"? Was he racist? Did he participate against the "dirty war"? The answer is NO. But the biased sentence suggests it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.207.47.60 (talk) 19:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Update necessary for Bio
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in a press release (can be found on his website) announced the appointment of Cofer Black to head his campaign. This addition may be rather important as the race progresses. (I'm awfully green at this, I'll leave any changes to any, or all of you to make. Thanks.)

Rawkcuf. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rawkcuf (talk • contribs) 15:34, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Clarity and verifiability problems
I'm wondering if the entire paragraph relating to Black's tenure at State should be removed. There's no substantiation about claims of a "botched" report (whatever that means), nor is it clear what this section is trying to say. Also, it veers toward bias. At the very least it should be verified and rewritten accordingly. Alcarillo 21:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I cleaned the aforementioned paragraph up, but the information really needs to be verified and cited. I will look into this, as well as recent the news involving Black, Tenet and Condoleeza Rice regarding a Jul 01 memo. It would be helpful -- and more expedient -- if the article author's reviewed the sources they have. Alcarillo 16:55, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Medals
The only other references on the net for the "George H. Bush Medal for Excellence" are other biographies of Black. Can anyone substantiate, or point to a reference explaining what this medal is?
 * There is no such medal. I checked too. There's only a George H.W. Bush Medal for Excellence. I don't see any indication that he was awarded that medal.--FeralOink (talk) 13:53, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Bob Woodward - State of Denial - Chapter 6 page 49
Regarding where Cofer Black was in 2001, this may? help.

"On July 10, 2001, CIA Director george Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terror organization." -- Martin | talk • contribs 05:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous "Richard" in the article
The anonymous "Richard" and "Rich" referred to in the article has got to be Robert Richer, right? Wikipediarul e s 2221 23:55, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Father
Black's father was a NOC officer, using a commercial pilot occupation as a cover - a usual cover during those days because it allowed operatives to travel virtually anywhere without being suspicious. The father later on flew missions in Indo-China under Air American during the early years of American involvement in Vietnam. F3try46hyu (talk) 07:53, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
 * A source would be helpful. I wondered about his father too. Thanks for info.--FeralOink (talk) 13:52, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

Article should be reduced to a stub, and the subject and his minions kept away from it.
This is the most blatantly biased biographical article I have ever read on Wikipedia. I mean really, it's just infuriating. It should be reduced to a stub and redone with at least a cursory awareness of the basic standards for neutral point of view. The fact that articles like this are even permitted to exist makes a joke out of Wikipedia. There needs to be a vetting process. I have done my best to to make the opening section neutral, which meant removing most of it, but the page should be brought to the attention of administrators and whoever inserted all that garbage to begin with should not be permitted to create or edit articles on Wikipedia. Please don't bother replying on my page to this with some robo-text "welcome to Wikipedia" crap -- I'm already a registered editor, I'm just not logged in. And one reason I don't log-in all the time is, frankly, articles like this one disgust me with the whole project. Someone with more of a taste for dealing with this kind of thing needs to look at the rest of the article and see that other self-serving junk from the subject of the article or someone close to him hasn't infested the whole thing. 24.90.172.109 (talk) 06:02, 15 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I noticed too. It is one big accumulation of fan cruft. Most of it needs to be excised. I am deleting some of the ridiculously excessive number of blockquoted passages. Overall, it is a combination of both fanboy garbage and bias against Cofer Black. It's still a mess, in 2024!--FeralOink (talk) 13:25, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Cofer Black. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20071013010114/http://ap.google.com:80/article/ALeqM5j5bT6zBuFB23rj9mMRTJbqC0xHYg to http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j5bT6zBuFB23rj9mMRTJbqC0xHYg
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20060523015246/http://home.hamptonroads.com:80/stories/story.cfm?story=102251&ran=202519&tref=po to http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=102251&ran=202519&tref=po

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Cofer Black. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20070926231848/http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=107950&ran=140774 to http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=107950&ran=140774

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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121011191606/http://www.mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2011/10/mitt-romney-announces-foreign-policy-and-national-security-advisory-team to http://www.mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2011/10/mitt-romney-announces-foreign-policy-and-national-security-advisory-team

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Burisma/Romney
The article states that Black worked for Burisma and also that he was an advisor for Romney. Shouldn't we delete one of those so people don't get the wrong idea. Sorry, I'm not so familiar with the Wikipedia editing policy, but is there any policy we can use to have one of these deleted from the article? Thanks! JoelDick (talk) 21:48, 5 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't understand your concern. Are these not factual statements backed up by reliable sources? And if so, what "wrong idea" is being conveyed? SQGibbon (talk) 01:36, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Conspiracy theories latch on to the fact that Romney has connections to Burisma to explain my he voted to convict Donald Trump in the impeachment trial. JoelDick (talk) 01:54, 7 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Conspiracy, sir? Cofer Black, a one time advisor to Romney, is documented to be a "Director" on the board of Burisma. Via: (archive) Go where the sources lead you, and leave your biases on the doorstep. Oversoul (talk) 10:52, 8 February 2020 (UTC)


 * So you are not challenging the facts but only that they might be misused by conspiracy theorists? I get your concern, but as long as we don't make unsourced statements ourselves in the article then we've done our job. That people create conspiracy theories is not something we can control nor should we try to prevent if it means compromising the quality of our articles. An argument can sometimes be made that certain information isn't really notable but I don't think that's the case here. But this does mean that we have to be vigilant in making sure people do not insert their own conspiracy theories into the article. SQGibbon (talk) 19:46, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Just to add to SQGibbon's last message, the term 'conspiracy theory' was a term coined by the CIA to have a negative connotation attached to it and to the person proffering the theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.68.208.252 (talk) 00:33, 1 October 2022 (UTC)