Joe Cooper
2017-04-04 14:57:15 UTC
The medias biased coverage of Obamagate continues to shift. First,
reporters feigned outrage that Trump would dare to say that the saintly
Barack Obama had spied on him. Never mind that Trumps assertion sparked
off their own reporting reports clearly based on criminal leaks from
Obama aides spying on Trump. But now reporters are pursuing a new line of
attack against Trump, which can be translated as: Yes, Obama spied on you
and good for him. Take a look at this headline from a column at Slate
magazine hastily run after the revelation that top Obama aide Susan Rice
had snooped on Trump and his associates: I Hope Susan Rice Was Keeping
Tabs on Trumps Russia Ties.
Look how far the progressive champions of civil liberties have fallen.
These are the same liberals who call Nixon a monster for having justified
political espionage on specious national security grounds. Could anyone
imagine Slate running a column lauding Richard Nixon for spying on Daniel
Ellsberg?
How did we find out about Susan Rices role in Obamagate? Not from the
mainstream media at first, but from a pro-Trump blogger named Mike
Cernovich, who says he found out about the Rice story from a disgruntled
staffer at a publication unwilling to publish it. In other words, he
pulled a Matt Drudge. On Sunday night, Cernovich wrote that he had been
informed that Maggie Haberman has had this story about Susan Rice for at
least 48 hours, and has chosen to sit on it in an effort to protect the
reputation of former President Barack Obama.
Haberman works at the New York Times. Now that the story is out, what is
Haberman tweeting and re-tweeting? One links to a Max Boot tweet, which
says, Are Trump aides breaking the law by rooting around in intel
database for political purposes? Another links to a meaty explainer
saying that Rices spying on Trump was justified.
The partisan gall of the media is impossible to overstate here. After
Trumps tweets, reporters hectored him for having no proof of spying
and demanded that he furnish them with it. Now that he and Devin Nunes
give them proof, they suddenly dont want it and accuse them of
political espionage.
Susan Rice, by the way, knew this story was coming. Two days ago, she re-
tweeted a comment by former Hillary Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri that
said: Heres whats happening. Trump NSC staff cherry picks intel which
appears to back up Trump and leaks it to Fox so Trump can retweet it.
Asked about Nuness claim of unmasked information in March, Rice said
that she knew nothing about it, but added that unmasking is legal. So
she was already preparing her defense. But the scandal doesnt stop with
her. She was serving, as she did after Benghazi, as an errand girl, doing
the bidding of Obama and John Brennan, among others. The key detail in
Adam Housleys Fox News segment was that the intelligence Rice requested
went to top Obama aides: The unmasked names, of people associated with
Donald Trump, were then sent to all those at the National Security
Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan
essentially, the officials at the top, including former Rice deputy Ben
Rhodes.
It is slowly dawning on some in the media, including David Ignatius, the
Washington Post reporter who served as a stenographer for leaking Obama
embeds, that this story is moving in Trumps direction. Ignatius had to
make this point gingerly, lest he incur the wrath of his liberal
confreres, but he made it nonetheless on Face the Nation:
So under existing surveillance orders, the United States is listening to
all kinds of diplomats, intelligence officials around the world under
various authorities. And when that collection picks up incidentally the
names of Americans, Joe Russia happens to be calling Joe America, Joe
Americas name is typically minimized. Its its masked so that that
persons privacy is is protected. In in certain circumstances when
its necessary to understand who the conversation is was between, the
name is unmasked and then if if theres a a legal investigation
beyond that, there there there are even more reasons.
Whats happened this month is that what initially seemed a preposterous
argument by Donald Trump, that he had been wiretapped by President Obama
illegally, has morphed into an argument about privacy, about proper
masking techniques, a very technical, legal issue, and is now accepted, I
think, as part of the mainstream set of issues that are going to be
debated by the two intelligence committees. And from from Trumps
standpoint, thats, I think youd have to say, thats a success. It may
be a pyrrhic victory for Nunes, whose whose credibility, the ability to
lead the committee, is radically compromised, but thats now in the
center stage.
[/Face the Nation]
Eli Lake, the columnist for Bloomberg who reported on the Rice revelation
(Cernovich says that Bloomberg also sat on the story until he broke it),
said to the displeasure of the comically biased Katy Tur, This is
troubling what happened here. That is not what Tur wanted to hear. She
quickly tried to change the subject and later made the preposterous
argument that the focus on Susan Rice helps Russia.
In other words, no one is supposed to notice that one government did
interfere in the U.S. election ours. For months and months, the Obama
administration was spying on Trump and leaking hints of its investigation
to the press in the hopes of helping Hillary, who, by the way, colluded
in the effort. Yet even the ruthless partisan Adam Schiff cant
definitively cite a single proof of collusion on Trumps part, as he
reluctantly acknowledged on Sunday. Given all the spying and leaking on
Trump, wouldnt we know by now if they had any evidence of collusion?
To say that Trump in this matter is more sinned against than sinning is
an understatement. He was the blatant victim of political espionage and
criminal leaking by the Obama administration, then when he complained
about it, he was smeared anew. Two questions have swirled around this
story: Did the Obama administration spy on Trump? Did Trump collude with
the Russians? The answers are yes and no. The media wanted the answers to
be no and yes. So now their game is to pretend like they didnt ask the
questions or that the real story is Trumps imprecise tweeting. Notice
that almost every story on the Rice revelation begins with throat-
clearing about how it doesnt vindicate Trumps tweet, as if grading
him on a tweet, in which he was clearly using wire-tapping as a synonym
for spying and investigating, is the most pressing concern here.
Notice also that liberal reporters, who used to quote Michael Kinsleys
dictum that the scandal is whats legal in Washington, rush to defend
the legality of Rices unmasking, as if that should end all discussion.
At the Atlantic, David Graham asks, Did Susan Rice Do Anything Wrong By
Asking to Unmask Trump Officials? Graham informs us that many
experts say that Rices behavior does not imply anything improper or
unusual. Right. What could possibly be unusual or improper about spying
on a political opponent? To paraphrase Richard Nixon, if a liberal
president conducts espionage, it cant be wrong.
It isnt until the end of the piece that the apologetics of Graham begin
to waver, and even there his concession is grudging: A spokesman for
Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House
Intelligence Committee, said Schiff had no immediate comment. The
political winds may be shifting on this story, or at least blowing in a
slightly more favorable direction for the White House.
Obama once ludicrously said that his administration had no scandals a
phony claim that the media pooh-poohing the Rice revelation is jealously
trying to preserve. But no matter how hard they try to avoid it,
reporters will have to reckon with Obamagate and the perversely rich
irony of ACLU-style liberals like Rice and Brennan becoming exactly what
they once opposed.
Source: http://bit.ly/2o5N6Eb
reporters feigned outrage that Trump would dare to say that the saintly
Barack Obama had spied on him. Never mind that Trumps assertion sparked
off their own reporting reports clearly based on criminal leaks from
Obama aides spying on Trump. But now reporters are pursuing a new line of
attack against Trump, which can be translated as: Yes, Obama spied on you
and good for him. Take a look at this headline from a column at Slate
magazine hastily run after the revelation that top Obama aide Susan Rice
had snooped on Trump and his associates: I Hope Susan Rice Was Keeping
Tabs on Trumps Russia Ties.
Look how far the progressive champions of civil liberties have fallen.
These are the same liberals who call Nixon a monster for having justified
political espionage on specious national security grounds. Could anyone
imagine Slate running a column lauding Richard Nixon for spying on Daniel
Ellsberg?
How did we find out about Susan Rices role in Obamagate? Not from the
mainstream media at first, but from a pro-Trump blogger named Mike
Cernovich, who says he found out about the Rice story from a disgruntled
staffer at a publication unwilling to publish it. In other words, he
pulled a Matt Drudge. On Sunday night, Cernovich wrote that he had been
informed that Maggie Haberman has had this story about Susan Rice for at
least 48 hours, and has chosen to sit on it in an effort to protect the
reputation of former President Barack Obama.
Haberman works at the New York Times. Now that the story is out, what is
Haberman tweeting and re-tweeting? One links to a Max Boot tweet, which
says, Are Trump aides breaking the law by rooting around in intel
database for political purposes? Another links to a meaty explainer
saying that Rices spying on Trump was justified.
The partisan gall of the media is impossible to overstate here. After
Trumps tweets, reporters hectored him for having no proof of spying
and demanded that he furnish them with it. Now that he and Devin Nunes
give them proof, they suddenly dont want it and accuse them of
political espionage.
Susan Rice, by the way, knew this story was coming. Two days ago, she re-
tweeted a comment by former Hillary Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri that
said: Heres whats happening. Trump NSC staff cherry picks intel which
appears to back up Trump and leaks it to Fox so Trump can retweet it.
Asked about Nuness claim of unmasked information in March, Rice said
that she knew nothing about it, but added that unmasking is legal. So
she was already preparing her defense. But the scandal doesnt stop with
her. She was serving, as she did after Benghazi, as an errand girl, doing
the bidding of Obama and John Brennan, among others. The key detail in
Adam Housleys Fox News segment was that the intelligence Rice requested
went to top Obama aides: The unmasked names, of people associated with
Donald Trump, were then sent to all those at the National Security
Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan
essentially, the officials at the top, including former Rice deputy Ben
Rhodes.
It is slowly dawning on some in the media, including David Ignatius, the
Washington Post reporter who served as a stenographer for leaking Obama
embeds, that this story is moving in Trumps direction. Ignatius had to
make this point gingerly, lest he incur the wrath of his liberal
confreres, but he made it nonetheless on Face the Nation:
So under existing surveillance orders, the United States is listening to
all kinds of diplomats, intelligence officials around the world under
various authorities. And when that collection picks up incidentally the
names of Americans, Joe Russia happens to be calling Joe America, Joe
Americas name is typically minimized. Its its masked so that that
persons privacy is is protected. In in certain circumstances when
its necessary to understand who the conversation is was between, the
name is unmasked and then if if theres a a legal investigation
beyond that, there there there are even more reasons.
Whats happened this month is that what initially seemed a preposterous
argument by Donald Trump, that he had been wiretapped by President Obama
illegally, has morphed into an argument about privacy, about proper
masking techniques, a very technical, legal issue, and is now accepted, I
think, as part of the mainstream set of issues that are going to be
debated by the two intelligence committees. And from from Trumps
standpoint, thats, I think youd have to say, thats a success. It may
be a pyrrhic victory for Nunes, whose whose credibility, the ability to
lead the committee, is radically compromised, but thats now in the
center stage.
[/Face the Nation]
Eli Lake, the columnist for Bloomberg who reported on the Rice revelation
(Cernovich says that Bloomberg also sat on the story until he broke it),
said to the displeasure of the comically biased Katy Tur, This is
troubling what happened here. That is not what Tur wanted to hear. She
quickly tried to change the subject and later made the preposterous
argument that the focus on Susan Rice helps Russia.
In other words, no one is supposed to notice that one government did
interfere in the U.S. election ours. For months and months, the Obama
administration was spying on Trump and leaking hints of its investigation
to the press in the hopes of helping Hillary, who, by the way, colluded
in the effort. Yet even the ruthless partisan Adam Schiff cant
definitively cite a single proof of collusion on Trumps part, as he
reluctantly acknowledged on Sunday. Given all the spying and leaking on
Trump, wouldnt we know by now if they had any evidence of collusion?
To say that Trump in this matter is more sinned against than sinning is
an understatement. He was the blatant victim of political espionage and
criminal leaking by the Obama administration, then when he complained
about it, he was smeared anew. Two questions have swirled around this
story: Did the Obama administration spy on Trump? Did Trump collude with
the Russians? The answers are yes and no. The media wanted the answers to
be no and yes. So now their game is to pretend like they didnt ask the
questions or that the real story is Trumps imprecise tweeting. Notice
that almost every story on the Rice revelation begins with throat-
clearing about how it doesnt vindicate Trumps tweet, as if grading
him on a tweet, in which he was clearly using wire-tapping as a synonym
for spying and investigating, is the most pressing concern here.
Notice also that liberal reporters, who used to quote Michael Kinsleys
dictum that the scandal is whats legal in Washington, rush to defend
the legality of Rices unmasking, as if that should end all discussion.
At the Atlantic, David Graham asks, Did Susan Rice Do Anything Wrong By
Asking to Unmask Trump Officials? Graham informs us that many
experts say that Rices behavior does not imply anything improper or
unusual. Right. What could possibly be unusual or improper about spying
on a political opponent? To paraphrase Richard Nixon, if a liberal
president conducts espionage, it cant be wrong.
It isnt until the end of the piece that the apologetics of Graham begin
to waver, and even there his concession is grudging: A spokesman for
Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House
Intelligence Committee, said Schiff had no immediate comment. The
political winds may be shifting on this story, or at least blowing in a
slightly more favorable direction for the White House.
Obama once ludicrously said that his administration had no scandals a
phony claim that the media pooh-poohing the Rice revelation is jealously
trying to preserve. But no matter how hard they try to avoid it,
reporters will have to reckon with Obamagate and the perversely rich
irony of ACLU-style liberals like Rice and Brennan becoming exactly what
they once opposed.
Source: http://bit.ly/2o5N6Eb
--
"You will never understand today's rage on the left, or its real effort
to overthrow American constitutional government, if you do not understand
lynch mobs -- KKK, Leninist, Soros-sponsored, and Obama-controlled."--
James Lewis, "Lynch Mobs of the Left," http://bit.ly/2lwmH2y
"You will never understand today's rage on the left, or its real effort
to overthrow American constitutional government, if you do not understand
lynch mobs -- KKK, Leninist, Soros-sponsored, and Obama-controlled."--
James Lewis, "Lynch Mobs of the Left," http://bit.ly/2lwmH2y