The Daily Wire explains why the American mainstream news media is now hoist on its own petard.
The very same media that shrugged when Hillary Clinton set up a secret server, deleted 33,000 government emails, BleachBit'd whatever remained and then literally took a hammer to the devices — the media that set that precedent now wants us to get all worked up over Trump's tweets?
The very same media that buried Bill Clinton's perjury and his numerous victims of sexual abuse — the media that set those precedents now wants us to consider an Access Hollywood video a disqualifier for the presidency? Now wants us to freak out over an awkward handshake?
. . .
The very same media that covered up the fact that Democrats and Team Hillary worked with the foreign government of Ukraine in the hopes of digging up dirt on Trump, the media that itself has used opposition research from the Russian government (the Golden Showers dossier) in the hopes of destroying Trump — the media that set those precedents now want us to turn on Trump because his son hoped for the same?
There's much more at the link - and all worth reading.
The mainstream media gave President Obama a pass through the eight years of his two administrations, never questioning the most questionable actions, tactics and decisions, always a sycophant, never a watchdog. They failed miserably to safeguard the democracy they proclaim so loudly. However, as soon as President Trump came along, he could do no right. They've spent almost every moment of his administration complaining, carping, denouncing, objecting and obfuscating.
The so-called "credibility" of the mainstream news media isn't even a joke any more. It's an obscenity - and it's clearly visible to anyone with half a working brain cell. One would think, to judge by their behavior, that the mainstream media really believes it can get away with its partisanship and bias. However, I think a large slice of the American people have seen through it. If they haven't, there's so much evidence of it, emerging on a daily basis, that it'll get through, sooner or later.
When the Washington Post proudly airs its new slogan that "Democracy dies in darkness", it fails to mention that the Washington Post itself has been the source and the cause of a great deal of that darkness over the past decade or so. By selectively reporting what it considers to be "news", and downgrading, bad-mouthing or just plain ignoring anything that doesn't fit its partisan political agenda, it has made itself part of the problem, rather than helping to solve it. The WaPo is hardly alone in that - offenders are legion. It's merely one of the most visible, and the most in contempt of its own much-ballyhooed slogan.
As I said right through the election campaign last year, I was not and am not a Trump disciple or acolyte. I didn't vote for him. Nevertheless, things have reached such a pitch that, when the mainstream media launches yet another attack on him, or "finds" yet another scandal to throw at him in the hope that some dirt will stick, my reaction is to yawn. For that matter, if he can make so many lying newshounds froth at the mouth so often, maybe he's doing something right! It sure seems that way to me, and, I think, to many others. Why else would there be so much news media "sound and fury, signifying nothing"?
For all their scandal-mongering, the news media have utterly failed to uncover one single shred of real evidence that the Trump administration, and/or any members of the Trump family, have broken even one of the laws of the United States. Sure, some of what they've done appears to have been distasteful and/or unethical and/or morally questionable. Sadly, one has come to expect that of almost all politicians, of every party, in this day and age. However, one does not (or, rather, in the past, did not) expect that the self-appointed guardians of democracy, the mainstream media, should be equally (or more) distasteful, unethical and morally questionable in their actions.
Watergate was a wonderful example of the mainstream media reporting the facts, exposing a genuine scandal, and safeguarding our democracy. Trumpgate (whichever one is the flavor du jour) is merely a temper tantrum by news media who can't accept that, by their own actions and choices, they've lost all credibility. They've gone so far down the rabbit-hole of innuendo, suggestion and smears that I sincerely doubt they can find their way out again.
Peter
5 comments:
Except that Watergate wasn't the "mainstream media reporting the facts". It was Michael Felt getting revenge on Richard Nixon, in combination with the MSM getting revenge on a President that they hated*, almost as much as Trump. And Watergate taught them that "they can bring down a President", so they have been trying to repeat their success with every Republican President since then. Arguably, Michael Felt was guilty of more crimes than were ever released under the Watergate reporting, as he was the executive in charge of COINTELPRO under Hoover, but he only passed on the info he had on Watergate to the Washington Post, and covered up everything else. It wasn't until the release of The COINTELPRO Papers and later, the Church Commission, that the other illegalities came out.
Note the difference between how the MSM has treated Republican Presidents, vs the way they have covered up for the Democrat Presidents. Or as the Instapundit says, just consider them Democrats with bylines, and it explains their writing. Given the way they were all in on seeing Hillary elected, when Trump won, it offended their egos and they have been trying to "set things right" since the election. The example of Watergate using scandal to take down a President, is how they have been trying to "set things right", because "this is the scandal that will take Trump out."
As you noted, they are puzzled that "this scandal hasn't affected Trump", and what is wrong with those ignorant rubes? Don't they realize what we have reported (made up)?
The thing is, between Watergate and now, conservatives have gotten a real education in Fake News, and no longer believe the breathless scandal reporting. Having lost their credibility, they are now reaping the results of their bias.
* - I've wondered how much the media hatred for Nixon was a result of influential members of the media being communist, and Nixon persecuting communists as a lawyer earlier in his career.
-- Steve
I'm at the point that if someone has live breaking news video of, oh, say, Mitch McConnell committing an indecent act with a gorgeous Chinese spy on a pile of cash in the middle of the DC Mall in broad daylight while surrounded by bales of marijuana and coca leaves, I'm probably not going to believe it.
LittleRed1
Steve, you said everything I was going to point out to Peter, with the exception of outlining the actual red-diaper background of Bernstein. His family were deeply involved with the Communist party, and his background plus mediocre history post-Watergate just go to show what an utter POS he was. Both he and Woodward were led around by Felt like a pair of hogs following a carrot, and neither one of them ever had the smarts to wonder what the hell Felt was doing, and why he was so nervous--At the time, he was under investigation for the COINTELPRO stuff, and was probably hopeful that by throwing Nixon under the bus, he'd deflect the investigation on himself.
Watergate was not the "Presidential corruption scandal" that it's been made out to be--It should be more accurately remembered as a Deep State coup, conducted by the forces of the left in the bureaucracy. Remember that Mark Felt was motivated mostly by the fact that Nixon had gone outside the FBI to appoint a new director after Hoover died in the harness, and what the direct result of Watergate was, internationally--The fall of Vietnam. Anyone here who thinks the ARVN would have collapsed in 1975 without the US Congress deliberately refusing to honor treaty obligations ought to go back and re-look at how they handled the '73 Easter Offensive, when they and US advisers effectively destroyed an invasion from the North that had as much or more armor than the Germans took into Barbarossa.
Watergate was a coup, performed in plain sight of our media, and covered as a "scandal". Nixon did nothing that the previous LBJ and Kennedy administrations hadn't done, and were actively covered for by the media. Hell, look at how long it took for the Daley corruption to be uncovered, that led to Kennedy winning against Nixon in the first damn place. You could perhaps excuse Nixon for thinking that he was simply playing the game as it was played against him, only he forgot the one cardinal rule of the Calvinball game our media runs against Republican politicians--There are no rules or precedents honored when it comes to anything the Republicans do that the Democrats already did ten times more of. Hell, look at the way every story of scandal is broached, even today: Where a Republican has his party affiliation made out as one of the key issues in the headline and lead paragraph, about the only way you can tell it was a Democrat that is involved in a scandal is if there is no mention of party affiliation anywhere in the article.
LittleRed1, if the media reported that, the truth would probably be somebody saw Senator McConnell give his wife a peck on a cheek at an Italian restaurant, and there was a shaker of oregano and a mug of hot cocoa on the table at the time.
I don't believe the "accepted" story on Watergate, either. G.Gordon Liddy, the "head burglar", has been sued and has counter-sued John Dean over the idea that DEAN ORDERED THE BREAK-IN. The theory that sounds most genuine to me is in the book "Silent Coup", by messers Getlin and Colodny. In this, Nixon had no knowledge of the operations that doomed him until afterwards, when out of loyalty he got sucked into the cover-up.
The level of investigive journalism - the real kind - is much higher than Woodward and Bernie's, IMO.
The logic behind the burglary points to Dean trying to cover Maureen Biner's -soon to be Mrs. Dean - ass. Literally.
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