Perhaps the most prolific mental gymnastics came courtesy of leftists and many media outlets who claimed the issue they raised most often (and was highlighted in Mueller's report) was President Trump's attempted obstruction of the investigation. CNN contributor Mary Katharine Ham provided a not-so-gentle reminder that her media colleagues were focused quite a bit on another angle.
On CNN, @mkhammer calls out the media for ignoring Mueller finding #NoCollusion after hyping it for 2 years: "I hope nobody missed leg day because carrying these goalposts, they're going to be very heavy if you want to do it for the next 18 months." Says media is "gaslighting." pic.twitter.com/pEx3GRHYkj— Matt Wolking (@MattWolking) April 18, 2019
While said media didn't exactly cover themselves in glory over this, we shouldn't brush off the aspects of this saga where the Trump campaign (and subsequent administration) did indeed engage in downright fabrications. National Review's David French, who read the whole report, indicated that under normal circumstances such damning revelations would sink a presidency.
I must confess that even as a longtime, quite open critic of Donald Trump, even I was surprised at the sheer scope, scale, and brazenness of the lies, falsehoods, and misdirections detailed by the Special Counsel’s Office. We’ve become accustomed to Trump making up his own facts on matters great and small, but to see the extent to which his virus infected his entire political operation is sobering. And the idea that anyone is treating this report as “win” for Trump, given the sheer extent of deceptions exposed (among other things), demonstrates that the bar for his conduct has sunk so low that anything other than outright criminality is too often brushed aside as relatively meaningless.
So there was no evidence of collusion and Trump was not a "Russian agent" engaging in treasonous behavior. But this investigation also was not a "witch hunt" in that it turned up some very serious improprieties, all of which will be gleefully referenced by Trump's Democrat opponent in 2020.
At the end of the day we know that discovery of Russia hacking our election was made at the end of 2016 during the Barack Obama presidency. Then last summer President Trump took Russian leader Vladimir Putin at his word when he denied having knowledge of his country's activities.
Hmm. If only someone had given the U.S. adequate warning of Russia emerging as our country's largest geopolitical foe.
-------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment