Remember the Schiff memo vs. the Nunes memo?
Remember back in the early days of 2018 when there was the clash of the dueling memos on Russiagate and the role of the FBI and the FISA court applications? The Nunes memo was criticized by Democrats even before it was released, and afterwards Adam Schiff released his own memo that contested what Nunes had asserted.
And of course the MSM trashed Nunes (for example: the memo is “a joke and a sham”) and lauded Schiff. Now we have the Horowitz Report that represents an examination of some of the same facts that Nunes and Schiff were duking it out over, and Nunes is completely vindicated and Schiff should slink away in shame along with most of the MSM.
Of course they won’t.
But Mollie Hemingway has done the work of going back and comparing the two memos in the light of the Horowitz Report. Nunes was right and Schiff was wrong, period.
But the bulk of Hemingway’s article is detail after detail of the MSM coverage of Nunes’ memo. It makes for stunning reading – more proof (as though we needed any more) of what the MSM has become, a spin machine and organ of the left.
I worry less about the MSM than I do the NeverTrumpers who jumped on trashing Nunes and who are now pointedly refusing to acknowledge their “mistake.” I worry because it’s starting to become clear we’re basically going to have to tear down most of the conservative/right wing intellectual infrastructure in America in order to purge these foolish knaves from the public square.
Mike
Think of all the media-ites who originally aspired to be reporters. This huge story was always ripe for the taking and they (almost) all passed. Not the Real Clear Investigations group, for one noble exception. But all the media-ites Mollie cites who could have gone after a great story but instead went the wrong way, with the boring herd, making no effort to dig at all. What pathetic fools. The opportunity of a lifetime, and they missed it. And dissed it!
The Federalist site has been all over this Russia collusion Steele dossier from the beginning. In a more fair world they would be winning Pulitzer Prizes left and right.
More power to them, then, Griffin. I remember some good Margot Cleveland pieces.
What’s the bottom line here? Another big defeat for the left. You can be wrong three or four times in a row, and no one will notice. You can be wrong five, six, seven times, and still very very few will notice. But when these lefty media lounge lizards are wrong 50, no, 100, no, 250 times in a row, surely someone will notice. Won’t they?
I worry because it’s starting to become clear we’re basically going to have to tear down most of the conservative/right wing intellectual infrastructure in America in order to purge these foolish knaves from the public square.
Jennifer Rubin and George Will work for The Washington Post. S.E. Cupp works for CNN (and isn’t the fanatic Will and Rubin are). Ross Douthat and David Brooks work for The New York Times. David Brooks and Ramesh Ponnuru are on contract for PBS. Max Boot has a sinecure at the Council on Foreign Relations. The liberal media want to hand out patronage of this sort, not much you can do about it. They’ll be less and less influential as everyone recognizes they are shills. (Matt K. Lewis is a 2d string shill).
The Weekly Standard has folded. The Bulwark is blatant astroturf financed by Pierre Omidyar (for the time being). It’s a reasonable wager Commentary will fold as soon as John Podhoretz is eligible for Medicare, in about five years time. Its contributor list has grown increasingly geriatric and the amount of editorial matter in its print edition has noticeably declined (smaller on the dimensions of length, width, and thickness, larger margins for the text); the magazine employs about 10 people.
Other venues have never been particular friendly to the Republican Party (The American Conservative) and have their own peculiar guises and poses as they slowly circle the toilet bowl.
Others are avocational lone wolves who are running out of readers (Patrick Frey) or who have elected to dispense with commentary on the daily news cycle in favor of more abiding concerns (Mona Charen).
Other’s have more-or-less revised their viewpoint (Andrew McCarthy).
We’re really talking about a half-dozen people associated with National Review and Salem (Jason Lee Steorts, David French, Jonah Goldberg, Jay Nordlinger, Kevin Williamson, Allahpundit, Taylor Millard, Ed Morrissey). They are purveyors of topical commentary, not scholars. French has some specialized knowledge in certain areas of law, but you can see he’s been performing dreadfully as a blawger of late. IIRC, Nordlinger and Williamson are theatre mavens, not specialists in public affairs. These guys aren’t heavyweights. Eventually, Lowry and Salem unload them or see their precarious numbers sink ever further. (Steorts at NR mostly does back-office work and has hardly uttered a public word in a year).
“…and they missed it…”
No, that’s not quite it.
Rather, they willingly threw in their lot with the Stalinists, liars, criminals, intimidators and manipulators (aka the Democratic Party of the USA—-starting at the very top, and promoted by eight years of deceit and deception), running as part of—and in support of—that all too grotesque herd.
They didn’t “miss” anything. They chose.
And they chose further to double down. And then triple down. And quadruple down.
And many if not most of them will continue on unrepentantly, claiming—if not believing—that they acted according to their consciences, as moral and ethical beings and as American patriots.
The reenactment—the sickening reenactment—by so-called Liberals, by persons of virtue and intelligence, of the very worst pathologies engendered and promoted, developed and disseminated, encouraged and transmitted by the two major toxic ideologies spawned in the 20th Century.
Nor are we yet out of the woods.
Apparently Mollie Hemingway was outstanding on Special Report on Fox News last night, and Steve Hayes, sitting next to her, looked very uncomfortable, as well he should.
It is impossible to slink away in shame when one has no sense of shame. They are so satisfied inside the warm, fuzzy bubble of leftism they can justify anything, including the murder of tens of thousands ripped from the womb each year and sold as mere body parts.
Mollie Hemingway is on a footstomping tablepounding tear: she wants scalps, alternatively heads. Doesn’t have to say it, it’s plain. Isn’t wrong, either.
If you want the story in all the excruciating detail, read Lee Smith’s The Plot Against the President.
It names all the names so, of course, is getting ignored by the MSM. Still an Amazon best seller.
Art Deco – I can only refer you to some of the latest from Ace on the wingnut welfare train these people have been riding on for most of their adult lives.
http://ace.mu.nu/
The American Enterprise Institute lists Jonah Goldberg as “Fellow and Asness Chair in Applied Liberty.” Goldberg actually left National Review to start up “The Dispatch” and…guess what? He’s STILL being published by National Review.
Mike
The American Enterprise Institute lists Jonah Goldberg as “Fellow and Asness Chair in Applied Liberty.” Goldberg actually left National Review to start up “The Dispatch” and…guess what? He’s STILL being published by National Review.
If I’m not mistaken, he’s not been on staff at NR in over a decade. He was the founding editor of National Review Online, but was replaced in that position by someone who herself has since been replaced. He’s on the contributor list.
To me, it’s a scandal that a policy shop wastes precious donor income on people like Goldberg who are publicists rather than policy mavens. Had he favored Trump, his position at AEi would still be inappropriate. (AEI has also been known to overpay its executives). Arthur Brooks, who was President of the Institute from 2009 to 2019, had a long history as an academic (prefaced by obtaining a research degree). AEI’s board has turned the position of President over to a man who has no graduate training and whose history has been as an aide to George Pataki and other politicians. Goldberg’s presence there is a problem. Alas, not the worst problem.
Neo, Schiff is not “wrong”.
Schiff is rotten to his core, totally amoral.
He is an example of the blandness of evil.
Cicero:
Schiff’s wrong but he’s not mistaken. I used the word “wrong” not about Schiff himself but about the assertions in his memo. They are wrong and Nunes’ assertions are right.
What Schiff himself is can be described with far worse words than “wrong.” As I said, his wrongness is not the result of error. It is purposeful. He is a liar, among other things, and he lies in ways that are quite easy to detect. But then he goes on to the next lie. He is useful to the left so his lies are covered up by them as best they can.
“If I’m not mistaken, he’s not been on staff at NR in over a decade.”
The point with Goldberg, The Dispatch, and National Review is that if a guy makes a public deal about he’s launching his own publication/website, you would think the logical result of that would be posting his stuff THERE so as to attract the most attention/clicks and that places which previously published him would…you know…look to maybe give their space to someone who is not now directly competing with them for clicks.
But neither The Dispatch nor National Review really exist to serve the needs/interests of readers. They’re almost like money laundering operations funneling cash to doofuses like Goldberg.
Mike
There are plenty of things wrong: PC, propaganda in the schools, retarded left wing celebs, totalitarian billionaires and on and on.
But if I could change one thing it would be Fake News and media bias. If that was improved a lot of stuff would spontaneously begin to heal.
But neither The Dispatch nor National Review really exist to serve the needs/interests of readers. They’re almost like money laundering operations funneling cash to doofuses like Goldberg.
National Review I think had a serious educational mission at one time. Not sure when the rot set in.
One other thing, the format of The Dispatch is an e-mail newsletter, quite different from the commentary he’s contributed to NR.
Barry Meislin,
“they willingly threw in their lot with the Stalinists, liars, criminals, intimidators and manipulators”
in a word… collaborators.
Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone –
‘Corroboration Zero’: An Inspector General’s Report Reveals the Steele Dossier Was Always a Joke
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/horowitz-report-steele-dossier-collusion-news-media-924944/‘
…Democrats are not going to want to hear this, since conventional wisdom says former House Intelligence chief Devin Nunes is a conspiratorial evildoer, but the Horowitz report ratifies the major claims of the infamous “Nunes memo.”…
Wheezy Older:
the Steele Dossier Was Always a Joke….but we’re not laughing, and never have.
Taibbi has consistently been the naysayer on the Left.
I’m rather surprised he hasn’t been cancelled or deplatformed.
Devin Nunes and Mollie Hemingway are genuine American heroes.
I’m rather surprised he hasn’t been cancelled or deplatformed.
Taibbi is a known sexual libertine. It’s a reasonable wager he’ll be #metoo’d eventually.
On Taibbi, the reputation may exceed the reality, if this refers to the Russian years. There is quite a defense of him written by someone who interviewed Matt’s long-term girlfriend of those days, who ridicules the notion and says Matt’s co-author wrote a bunch of gonzo boasting in one book.
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/12/the-destruction-of-matt-taibbi.html
Besides, it’s time for a few good words for libertinage. If he were an indulger, more power to him! God forbid our whole gender has become SNAGs.
Besides, it’s time for a few good words for libertinage. If he were an indulger, more power to him! God forbid our whole gender has become SNAGs.
You fancy those are our choices, see who can wear out the largest number of Moscow hookers or behave like coffee-house poets?
Those would be the extremes. I like the wide range in between. And so do a lot of women, some of whom will even say so.
I like the wide range in between. And so do a lot of women, some of whom will even say so.
Yeah, I’m sure spending your youth riding the cock carousel is boffo preparation for the rest of adult life.
What kind of nonsense is that comment? You like this emasculated world we’ve allowed to happen in American society? Feminized into non-genderland? Anderson Cooper and Ronan Farrow for our male role models? I am sure you don’t, you’re just arguing. I hope!