This week was maybe the peak of “journalistic” shame this cycle. (‘So far’ he muttered, fingers crossed.)
Like jumping a shark-jumper jumping a jumping shark.
So: it’s conclusively established that Hillary & Co. purposely exaggerated the number of agencies ‘confirming’ her #RedPanic sideshow, and did so cynically and dishonestly, specifically to create a self-serving false impression of intel hegemony that demonstrably did not exist.
OK: clearly busted as dishonest.
So, what form does the “reporting” take from both politi”fact” (I have to type it in quotes so I don’t physically gag) and NYT/WaPo/et al bully-pack)?
You might expect just a minor, buried, under-their-breath, whispered-behind-a-hand correction. Par for the course: Bugle the smears, whisper the retractions.
But nope, they’re even bolder now. They’ve decided, “Let’s fully concentrate on readers whose intelligence is impossible to insult. Let’s drop the charade except in its crudest form.” So rather than bury the correction, they doubled down. They spent long pages instead justifying why there was no “real” difference between a 3– (not four, get real: ‘HQ’ is not an additional office) and SEVENTEEN–agency ‘consenus.’ [But not one sentence given to why, in that case, Hillary found it necessary to say seventeen then, hm? I mean, being the actual point and all.]
They literally devoted the supposedly sacred space carved out for the fourth estate not to reporting the truth; but to patronizingly telling us why the actual truth should not matter at all unless we are Hitler in a KKK hood with a wallet full of roubles.
If it “doesn’t matter” that it’s 3 instead of seventeen… they why did Hillary (and her agitprop corps) choose to keep hammering that number as tho significant? (When of course people who didn’t flunk civics knew all along that we had nowhere near that deep a bench of *relevant* agencies.)
If it didn’t matter, her propaganda machine wouldn’t have hammered the purposeful, impressive-sounding, totally baseless exaggeration so ceaselessly. It was like their “ridicule the opposition” finishing move. And the tame press knows that. They were more-than-eager accomplices to the caricature.
So of course instead of highlighting the hyperbole and just admitting it was false, a dishonest exaggeration for effect, our alleged “guardians of fact” spent hundreds (thousands?) of words rationalizing the legitimacy of that absolutely purposeful, knowing lie. They spent pages in tortuous sophist justification, trying to polish it until, look, hey, it’s not really a lie at all. It’s actually more true than the truth. (“Orwell who? Is he with CTR?”)
They deliberately elide the entire central point: when the statement was made, it was known to necessarily be an exaggeration [too few relevant agencies], and was known to be made strictly for dishonest partisan effect. (With, to the Clinton clique’s total indifference, potential holocaustic fallout, but let’s set aside the Strangelove aspect.)
When a lie is told for partisan effect, it’s the press’s job to report it. Not excuse it.
It’s the individual factions’ jobs to tell us why we should or shouldn’t consider the lie, once exposed, a deal-breaker. (It’s also our, the public’s, job to be informed and skeptical while they’re trying to persuade us, but majority America has left that workforce; the work is tough, thankless & uncomfortable, & only a tiny, but now growing, skeleton crew remains on duty. In fact, we’ve offshored some of it to Aus. ;)
This was the week politi”fact” gave up even the laziest pretense of being anything but partisan prop comedy, and NYT et al decided that if you’re not hypnotized yet into their bubble, you’re too small-potatoes to worry about.
Our paper of record is doing Brock’s spin work, unprompted & all-volunteer, right out on Main Street… like they’re auditioning for Neera Tanden’s gig.
This was a low, low point.
And I’m gettin’ real tired of the mounting deja vu from having said that so often already. ;)
