Lies, Damn Lies and Mainstream Media Reporting

In the wake of the not so surprising loss by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to now President Donald J. Trump, Democrats and the mainstream media (some say they are the same organ) have been peddling a narrative that Russia at the behest of Mr. Trump or in coordination with Mr. Trump engineered the defeat of Ms. Clinton – all without a shred of proof and relying exclusively on anonymous sources and “wink/wink” innuendo.  It is their excuse for losing the “un-loseable,” and for botching the inevitable coronation of Ms. Clinton.

These same people steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that Ms. Clinton was a flawed candidate and that she and her supporters treated the electorate with personal disdain and dismissed their political views as racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, xenophobic and/or intellectual inferiority.  They grossly underestimated the resentment that such condescension and deceit engendered in the electorate.  The “Russian connection” was a convenient excuse for losing and so it was peddled unceasingly by Democrats and the mainstream media.

Let’s be reasonable.  Did the Russians hack the electoral system?  No, they hacked the email account of Joseph Podesta – Ms. Clinton’s campaign director.  It was a private account, not a government account.  It had virtually no security and allegations are that a seventh-grader overcome by acne and raging hormones could have cracked the account in less than a millisecond.  Were the Russians involved in the hacking?  Based on the conclusion of intelligence community, it would appear that the Russians were the genesis of the hacking.  Were Mr. Podesta’s emails altered or were fake emails inserted in those disclosed by Wikileaks.  No.  There is no evidence that either act occurred and most assuredly if that was the case Mr. Podesta who still had all of the emails in question would have disclosed any additions or alterations – he did not.  Were the emails damaging to Ms. Clinton and her campaign organization?  Absolutely.  They confirmed that Ms. Clinton was a liar, that her public statements regarding Benghazi were at odds with the facts she had in hand, that her campaign engaged in inappropriate conduct, including rigging the Democrat nominating process, and that the “pay for play” scheme initiated by Ms. Clinton and her husband was real and extensive.

It was not the hacking by the Russians, nor the disclosure by WikiLeaks that was Ms. Clinton’s undoing – it was her, it was her campaign organization, it was the people close to her.  The Russians could have hacked all day long, and Wikileaks could have published ten times the volume of materials that it did, but without the misconduct by Ms. Clinton and her supporters there would have been no story, no adverse publicity, and no effect on the election.  Had Ms. Clinton not been a demonstrable liar, had she not been dishonest in growing her significant wealth, and had her staff not engaged in inappropriate conduct, this whole episode would have been like a tree falling in a vacant forest – with nobody to hear, there would have been no noise.  With no wrong doing there would have been nothing to influence the electorate or the election.

But that would not have fulfilled the narrative of the Democrats and the mainstream media – the inevitable candidate could not have lost without an intervening and dangerous villain.  But it was a convenient excuse and like lemmings to the sea, Democrats and the mainstream media drove that narrative with great enthusiasm.  As a result they begin to like it so much that it now continues as the means for de-legitimizing Mr. Trump’s presidency.  For nearly four months now we have been listening to this narrative without a single corroborating fact.  Every Democrat politician speaks as if Mr. Trump and the Russians are in a continuing conspiracy – all without a single provable fact, all based on unnamed sources, innuendo, and supposition.  These are accompanied by sly comments like Fox News’ Bob Beckel constantly referring to Mr. Trump as “Comrade” Trump.

The few “facts” that have been listed as supporting this narrative have been demonstrably false.  Alleged contacts by Trump officials have been proven to have never occurred.  Travel by Trump officials in furtherance of this conspiracy never occurred, promised corroborating evidence has never been produced. Last week, the New York Times reported that campaign officials for Donald Trump had repeated contacts with Russian operatives.  All of it was based on unnamed sources without a single corroborating fact.  Nothing is known about the identity, bias, trustworthiness, or history of these unnamed sources.  No facts are alleged by the New York Times that can be checked or verified.  In fact, there is no way to verify that the “unnamed sources” actually exist or this is just another creation of some reporter showing his/her bias.  The once proud “Grey Lady” has fallen into the “yellow journalism” used by other notable journalist and publishers like William Randolf Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, Brian Williams, and Dan Rather.

And yet when it was disclosed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation told the Trump administration that it had investigated these allegations and there was no factual basis for any of it, the story by the mainstream media was not about “fake news” rather it was about whether there was something inappropriate in Sean Spice asking the FBI to tell that to the media so as to dispel these myths.

So, in the end, here it is.  Do I know why the Russians engaged in the hacking and release of Mr. Podesta’s email?  No, and neither do you or the mainstream media.  Do I know whether the Russians feared Ms. Clinton more than Mr. Trump?  No, and neither do you or the mainstream media.  (Although given that former President Barack Obama and Ms. Clinton knuckled under to every rogue nation, hostile despot, and tin pot wannabe she encountered it is doubtful that anyone including Russian President Vladimir Putin “feared” Ms. Clinton.)  Do I know whether there is some ongoing “conspiracy” involving Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin?  No, and neither do you or the mainstream media.

The point being, until there are verifiable facts, all the rest of the noise is just that – noise.  And like the Dixie Chicks who were told to “shut up and sing” the media should be told to “shut up” unless you can prove it.