Blemishes on journalists for leaping to conclusions, rather than doing actual reporting and investigation, are now erupting like terrestrial super-zits of stratovolcano proportions.
I could be talking about the Kyle Rittenhouse case, or any number of other issues where corporate media has spectacularly failed us, but the Trump years left us with one humungoid blot on the landscape, Russia-Russia-Russia.
“Russiagate is already a sizable boil on the face of American journalism,” wrote Matt Taibbi last week, “but the indictment of Danchenko has the potential to grow the profession’s embarrassment to fantastic dimensions.”
That’s Igor Danchenko, key player in the Democratic conspiracy to take Trump down. But the “professional” about to be disgraced to “fantastic dimensions” is none other than MSNBC’s star pusher of the Steele Dossier, Rachel Maddow.
Taibbi calls her response to Danchenko’s prosecution “a thing beyond.”
The case for the Steele Dossier, upon which Trump and his cronies were accused of massive corruption and even treason, is now in complete tatters. Danchenko has been caught in lies, and Hillary Clinton campaign insiders have been caught pushing, paying for, and plotting to promote those lies.
But Rachel Maddow? She’s in sneaky defense mode.
Dr. Steve Turley, in video con brio, quotes Erik Wemple’s Washington Post characterization of Maddow’s one-sided coverage: “there for the bunkings, absent for the debunkings — a pattern of misleading and dishonest asymmetry.”
Now Maddow’s engaged in pointing out that Danchenko’s prosecutors, instead of making the case for Danchenko’s fabrications, concentrate on linking a trail of political connections with the Clinton campaign. Not true: the prosecution makes much of Danchenko’s lies.
Yet, making “collusion” connections is precisely what Maddow did (relentlessly) against the Trump campaign and various Russian figures.
That’s a symmetry!
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
—
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
3 replies on “Mount Maddow Blows”
Maddow and her colleagues have no shame. They don’t have the capacity to distinguish truth from smear. They will suffer no consequences for their actions. Even those who face criminal charges will get maybe a slap on the wrist with a very light feather. Why should they care what happens now? For them, the goal was to first neutralize Trump and then get him out of office. Mission accomplished.
No matter how thoroughly the entire Russian Collusion narrative is debunked, their reaction will be: hey, it worked!!!
Pat, you’re largely correct. But Maddow also wants the power, influence, and income that come with a larger audience of credulous viewers. Her viewership has plummeted, and a greater relative share of those viewers now understand that what she says is unreasonable; they watch her out of morbid curiosity.
Turley’s video will convert no one, because he wouldn’t get out of the way and cut to the chase.