Friday night Special Report with Bret Baier featured A. B. Stoddard and Charles Krauthammer both stating categorically that Trump’s allegation of being spied on is false. Stoddard is the Liberal on the panel, altering with Mara Liasson of NPR as the balance of the “Fair and Balanced” claim on FOX.
Stoddard, a child of privilege and a member of the 1%, rolled her eyes and called Trump an “international embarrassment,” accused him of levelling false allegations and threatening America’s alliances and international order. She then instructed Trump on how he should act:
“The job [of President] requires something else. Every word matters, every action, the conduct of your staff, it’s not to be blown off.”
She longs for the day when the media set the national conversation and created the limits of permissible discourse. Which, of course, is exactly the reason that Trump is President. The media and it's bastard offspring no longer rule the public discourse except in those dark Blue spots in a deep Red country.
The media is getting hysterical about Trump’s failure to retract or hunker down when they attack. That's what they are accustomed to from Republicans and they are deeply angry that Trump is not following the script.
Charles Krauthammer, who usually provides center-Right analysis, stated categorically that:
“It’s a farce, you know, the idea that everyone in this town – the media – the agencies – the congress – are running around chasing their tails on a story that everyone knows it’s not true, but having to pretend that it might be because he’s the President when we know how it’s going to end.”
This is absurd.
There is absolutely no way that either of these media personalities know that Trump was not under surveillance and that his team’s conversations were not recorded. They can’t possibly know and are making an assumption based on nothing except the desire to believe that the Obama administration would never do that. The same administration that weaponized the IRS to go after the Tea Party. The same administration that created Fast and Furious so that Mexican drug cartels would have access to American guns, "proving" that American's ability to buy guns was a danger to the world. The same administration that brazenly lied to get Obamacare passed. An administration that appointed a guy who supported the Communist Party as head of the CIA and who who lied to congress about the extent to which the American people are spied on.
Stoddard and Krauthammer had three choices: (1) believe Trump, (2) use reason and logic, or (3) believe the Deep State. They have chosen the latter and have shown themselves willfully blind.
There is absolutely no way that either of these media personalities know that Trump was not under surveillance and that his team’s conversations were not recorded. They can’t possibly know and are making an assumption based on nothing except the desire to believe that the Obama administration would never do that. The same administration that weaponized the IRS to go after the Tea Party. The same administration that created Fast and Furious so that Mexican drug cartels would have access to American guns, "proving" that American's ability to buy guns was a danger to the world. The same administration that brazenly lied to get Obamacare passed. An administration that appointed a guy who supported the Communist Party as head of the CIA and who who lied to congress about the extent to which the American people are spied on.
Stoddard and Krauthammer had three choices: (1) believe Trump, (2) use reason and logic, or (3) believe the Deep State. They have chosen the latter and have shown themselves willfully blind.
What’s impossible to believe that here was no surveillance – of Team Trump or people his team was speaking to. If there was no surveillance we have to conclude that the press lied instead of passing along "leaks" from the Deep State. We have to believe that they made up stories out of whole cloth and lied about those "Trump and his people are tied to the Russians" stories. It's possible, the mainstream press has done it before. But it's usually done by one author making up stories like Jason Blair who fabricated a series of stories for the NY Times. We are unaware of multiple media organs promoting the same story using the same unnamed intelligence sources where all the reporters are lying about what they were told. The NY Times and the Washington Post are not running any stories backing off their earlier claims that electronic surveillance showed that Team Trump was in contact with the Russians. These papers are writing as if these revelations prove that Russia was behind the Trump victory. Of course the stories prove no such thing, but they do prove that the intelligence community is feeding information to the press. So both Stoddard and Krauthammer are accusing the largest American media organs of lying.
It’s absurd.
Second, the explanation given by Judge Andrew Napolitano is logically consistent. His claim is that British Intelligence has access to NSA intercepts. He accused Team Obama of going to GCHQ to get information from NSA about NSA records of Team trump conversations ... intercepted by NSA. There is no accusation that GCHQ spied on Team Trump. There has been no denial that GCHQ and NSA share information. The British denial is pro-forma and as dismissible as our head of intelligence stating that the NSA does not have records on Americans; a lie.
Why would Team Obama take that route? Simple, it does not leave legal trails, no FISA requests, no court orders. Spooks talking to spooks don’t leave a paper trail; but perhaps they should.
The reason that people like Stoddard and Krauthammer claim that Trump lied is the same reason that neither one of them believed during the campaign that Trump would be elected. He’s just not the kind of person they see in the role of American President. Even now, months after the inauguration, they are denying his legitimacy. Stoddard refuses to believe a President who acts like Trump is real or legitimate. She wants the President to act like her Central Casting's image of a president. They deny he’s the President and deny his very rational assertions that his conversations and that of his aides were recorded and disseminated to the news media in an attempt to attack him and impugn his legitimacy.
Meanwhile, anchor Bret Baier fell all over himself to make it crystal clear that Fox News is trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and Andrew Napolitano. The word may have come down from on-high - Rupert Murdoch - or it may have been a desire by Baier or the news department to avoid anything that could conceivably be reported by Breitbart, Limbaugh or any other Conservative organ.
If Fox and Baier wants to get the approval of the MFM they are going about it the wrong way. The Left is busy purging its ranks and any attempt by Fox News personalities to appear impartial is doomed. Just as in the Soviet Union in the 1930s the old Bolsheviks were tried and executed by a purer, newer strain. The Left's defenestration of it's own leaves no room for cooperation with anyone to the right of Obama.
Meanwhile, anchor Bret Baier fell all over himself to make it crystal clear that Fox News is trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and Andrew Napolitano. The word may have come down from on-high - Rupert Murdoch - or it may have been a desire by Baier or the news department to avoid anything that could conceivably be reported by Breitbart, Limbaugh or any other Conservative organ.
If Fox and Baier wants to get the approval of the MFM they are going about it the wrong way. The Left is busy purging its ranks and any attempt by Fox News personalities to appear impartial is doomed. Just as in the Soviet Union in the 1930s the old Bolsheviks were tried and executed by a purer, newer strain. The Left's defenestration of it's own leaves no room for cooperation with anyone to the right of Obama.
Too bad. I like Baier and his panel, but news and politics is now divided into enemy camps in this country. Especially in the news industry, that there is no longer any hope that a middle ground can be found. At this point, every source is suspect and everyone is under suspicion for "deviation-ism."
Nothing is certain except what you know personally and the press' talking heads like Stoddard and - occasionally - Krauthhammer are talking through their asses. But the nice thing about being in the press is you believed that, like a doctor, you simply bury your mistakes and go on as if nothing happened.
Unfortunately, the Internet never forgets.
Nothing is certain except what you know personally and the press' talking heads like Stoddard and - occasionally - Krauthhammer are talking through their asses. But the nice thing about being in the press is you believed that, like a doctor, you simply bury your mistakes and go on as if nothing happened.
Unfortunately, the Internet never forgets.
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