Mollie Hemingway: Diehard Conspiracy Theorists In Media and NeverTrump Can't Figure Out if Tillerson Was a Lapdog of Putin or a Dogged Opponent

Ace of Spades does a fairly good job of cutting Jonah Goldberg's nuts off.

Last night on Special Report, Jonah Goldberg insisted that the House Intelligence Committee report that there was no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump actually vindicated the "Washington Consensus," which he claimed only believed that Russia had interfered with the election, but did not believe anything about collusion.

Are you kidding me? Look through Mollie Hemingway's tweets from the Conspiracy Theorists -- all in the media, or formerly in the media, like Twitter activist Bill Kristol -- and try selling me on this jackass notion that the "Washington Consensus" has not been pushing the "Trump's a traitor and Manchurian Candidate in cahoots with Putin" line for sixteen long hysterical months.

But Jonah Goldberg did rise up vociferously to claim the "Washington Consensus," which must no doubt include his buddies at CNN who push this literally all day long, never really believed there was any "collusion," just interference on Russia's part but without any collusion with Trump.

It's insane. It's literally insane.

Does he literally never watch CNN? That would shock me -- I have a feeling he watches CNN a lot, in between watching MSNBC.

Mollie Hemingway comments:

Just last night I was told on national television that the general consensus in D.C. is that Russia is bad but that Trump and Russia didn't collude. That a treasonous collusion narrative isn’t even "remotely" the general consensus. Someone might want to tell... everyone in the media who has been pushing it non-stop for more than a year no matter the facts on the ground.

As the media reaction to Tillerson's nomination and firing show, we're witnessing the Unified Theory Of Russia Collusion at work. If it's true that the "general consensus" in D.C. is nothing remotely near the idea that Trump and Russia colluded to steal the 2016 election, people should stop pushing the theory. Better yet, if they buy into the theory -- as so many of our supposed media elites obviously do -- they should start to be more specific about the theory. And if they don’t, they should not nibble around the margins of the theory.

Hear, hear. Less "Just Asking Questions" about whether fire can really melt steel, and more straightforward declarative assertions about what Trump either did do or did not do.

There is a game in politics. The Truthers played this game; some politicians hoping to curry favors with the Truthers played it. Like John Kerry.

The game goes like this: While not explicitly endorsing a conspiracy theory for which there is no evidence, you sort of talk it up to maintain its viability as a political attack point. You don't say definitively you believe it -- you just say, as Patterico says today, it raises "interesting" questions.

You keep your "Clean Skin" as far as being a Conspiracy Theorist, and yet you do all you can to suggest to the conspiracy-minded that the conspiracy is All Too Real.

It's a way to speak as Yasser Arafat did, to two different audiences telling two different stories. You encourage conspiracy theorizing, while (mostly) not committing yourself to any particular version of the conspiracy theory.

Just Askin' Questions, you know.

It's one thing for politicians to do this -- they lie.

But pundits and analysts and "thinkers" and "experts" are supposed to tell you exactly what they think.

If Jonah Goldberg, for lo these many months (sixteen or thereabouts) has known that the "Washington Consensus" was actually that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia, why did he keep that on the Q.T. and the D.L.?

Why didn't he tell people?

Why did he enable a conspiracy theory he's now telling us that those In-the-Know always knew was pretty much bullshit?

It's the equivalent of a guy who never quite declares that "Bush knew" that the 9/11 attack was coming but let it happen anyway to enable the PNAC warplan but who is careful never to pour cold water on such conspiracy theories to keep #TheResistance agitated and animated.

You are paid, supposedly, for the truth, and what you know, and what you don't quite know but think to a reasonable certainty.

If Jonah Goldberg is claiming that there is no, and was no, "Washington Consensus" about the Manchurian Apprentice conspiracy theory, why has he been so shy about saying so?

And why is he not throwing cold water on the various members of the Washington Consensus -- such as Patterico, Erick Erickson, Bill Kristol, and of course various and sundry members of the legacy media -- currently spinning out new conspiracy theories about Tillerson's long-expected firing?

If you don't believe in the Conspiracy Theory, then say so firmly.

And if you do believe in it -- then say that too. Do not hide your beliefs with equivocation, evasion, and insinuation.

Where's Jonah on this? Will he ever say? Will he just talk around it without doing his basic job -- You Had One Job, you know -- of telling his readers what he really thinks?

Those pushing this theory should stop being cowards and dishonest hacks and tell us what they believe the quid was in this collusion, what was the quo, and how it was all agreed to.

And, as bonus: They should clue us in as to whether US troops killing Russian troops in Syria was done on Putin's orders.

And as another bonus: Given that the House Intelligence Committee is set to announce no evidence of any collusion -- are they now part of the conspiracy?

Or are they, the people with first-hand knowledge of witness statements and reams of classified reports the average blogger or Twitter blowhard does not possess, somehow less informed by the Washington Consensus Elites?