How does it feel to now know that left-leaning legacy news media duped you for years on Trump-Russia? Drew Holden offers chapter and verse below, and there are oh so many offenders, including Rachel Maddow, her “reporter” pals at CNN and many many others. This is merely one story of many where the two media teams (the Democrat team and the Republican team) tell you only what they want you to know (and withhold what they don’t want you to know). There was plenty of reason to be suspicious about the Steele Dossier before this recent indictment. This widespread journalistic malpractice re Trump-Russia went on for years.
As Glenn Greenwald notes in a related tweet: “NYT & WashPost showered themselves with Pulitzers for their monomaniacal obsession with Russiagate. Even after Mueller admitted he could find no evidence to establish the conspiracy and indicted nobody for it, they persisted.” But there is a bigger lesson here that pertains to all of us and our failing democracy: consumers of “news” are not getting what they think they are getting. Many of them, including many who will bristle as they read this post, have been as credulous as the CNN reporters.
[[Added Nov 7, 2021]
Greenwald is correct to hammer this story over and over. The media is the only industry specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. Without accurate information our Democracy is a sham, an opportunity for tyrants and their sycophants to run the U.S. without regard to the needs and desires of the People. If we are happy with that dysfunction, then we should cancel the Fourth of July because the 1776 revolt from England would be then reduced to a mere exercise in power, not the beginning of an amazing real-life experiment in democracy. One last thing for now: I entirely agree with Greenwald that if the left-leaning legacy media had a conscience, if it were serving the higher purpose that it is pretending to serve, it would prominently acknowledge the false information it published and it would publicly explain the steps it is taking to make sure that this sort of thing does not ever occur again. The worst offending media outlets are refusing to do that in the case of the Steele Dossier, which is strong evidence that it will be business as usual as we approach the next round of elections. What follows is Greenwald’s most recent thread on this topic. I wish I could argue with Greenwald on the facts he notes and his conclusions, because they constitute an strong indictment that our system of government/media has largely become manipulative theater, not the ingenious and innovative system for serving the People that many of us learned in civics classes decades ago.
One more excerpt worth repeating:
One key point I omitted: no discussion of the Russiagate fraud and the media’s role is complete without highlighting their key partners in all of this: the security state services (CIA/FBI/NSA/DOJ).
The most under-discussed media story of this decade is how they all but merged.
I cannot stand to listen to Donald Trump for many reasons, including his dishonesty and incompetence. I did not vote for him. He severely damaged the American political system. It’s amazing that I need to say this when criticizing the Democrats and their affiliated news media. I often get accused of being pro-trump in an attempt to derail my earnest concerns about the news media.
That said, here is an excerpt from Aaron Mate’s most recent article, “Russiagate has no rock bottom: The indictment of the Steele dossier’s key source newly humiliates the Clinton campaign, FBI, and US media”:
Glenn Greenwald anticipating a counter-attack based on scape-boating Rachel Maddow:
Maddow is indeed loathesome, but she is consistent. The letter “D” is good, the letter “R” is bad. That’s the entire narrative. I’m not saying this because she is a woman, nor because she is transgendered. Rather, I’m saying it because it is true.
For nearly five years I posted frequently in defense of Donald Trump’s due process rights. I never voted for him, believing him to be temperamentally unfit to be president. He was crude and rude, but his policies were largely on point. China is the threat, not Russia. Other countries need to bear more of their own self-defense costs. We need a border wall so that we can increase legal immigration. We need to be energy independent. China manipulates its currency. Both enemies and allies steal our intellectual property.
I hope Trump shuts up quickly. He is looking backward at the election of 2000; we need someone else to fill the vacuum to run against Kamala in 2024. Chaffee or Hogan, maybe Manchin or Sinema.