Posted on 03/08/2017 1:46:03 PM PST by drewh
David Ignatius should keep up with The Narrative. In his column today, he speaks ominously of Donald Trump's "growing difficulty in the Russia investigation."
This is of a piece with several other Red Scare pieces by Ignatius and other anti-Trump Democrats with bylines. A couple of weeks ago, responding to Trump's declaration that the whole Russian Dressing meme was a "ruse," Ignatius wheeled into print insisting that, no, "Russia's Global Hacking Efforts Are Far from a 'Ruse'." Quoting France's ambassador to Washington, Ignatius speculated that, "if unchecked," Russia' disinformation efforts, in which Donald Trump's presidential campaign was "perhaps" a "tool," "could pose an 'existential threat' to Western democracy."
Had any good hypotheticals lately?
The real Russian story is not Donald Trump's "growing difficulty" in the Russia investigation but, as I wrote in this space a couple of days ago, the evaporation of the alleged Trump connection and burgeoning story of the Obama administration's surveillance of people in Trump's circle.
Sponsored
One of the amusing aspects of the story is the extent to which it illustrates the principle articulated crisply by Kurt Schlichter on Monday:
"You Can Tell What Leftists Are Doing By What They Accuse Conservatives Of Doing"
In other words, "if you want to know what the liberals are up to, just listen to the lies they are telling about conservatives." Cavorting with Russians? It wasn't Trump, but how about selling 20% of US uranium interests to Putin? That would be something the Clintons arranged.
Talking to Russian banks about ending sanctions? That would be Tony Podesta, brother of John Podesta, Hillary's campaign manager, who took $170K last year from Russia's largest bank to help end one of the sanctions imposed by the Obama administration on Russian financial institutions.
The whole Trump/Russia meme is a tower of groundless insinuation built upon baseless fantasies of malfeasance. What we actually know is almost nothing. Maybe there was a FISA warrant requested by the Obama administration against persons and hardware located at Trump Tower in June that was denied. Maybe a narrower warrant was requested and granted in October. That's what has been reported and repeated endlessly to a chorus of "where there's smoke, there's fire."
But when Trump gets up last Saturday and begins tweeting his outrage at having been "tapped" by the Obama administration, the chihuahuas of the press, together with various Obama spokesmen, yap in unison: "What's your source?"
One source, as was quickly pointed out, was the New York Times. On January 19, under the headline "Intercepted Russian Communications Part of Inquiry Into Trump Associates," the paper told readers:
[I]ntelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House.
This is what Trump meant when he tweeted that his "wires" were "tapped."
Remember when, during the presidential debates, Trump said that, if elected, he might have Hillary investigated by the Department of Justice? Cries of horror from the locust gallery. But it turns out that Obama had actually done what Trump only threatened to do: conduct a secret investigation against a political opponent.
We do not, as of this writing, know exactly how these skeins of allegation and counter-allegation will play out. I suspect that the Trump-Has-Russian-Ties narrative has ground to a halt. If I am right, then David Ignatius' column is just a final twitch of the dead frog's legs before the pack of chihuahuas with bylines cooks up another imaginary tort against Donald Trump.
Will the competing story, the one starring Barack Obama and proxies employing the security apparatus of the United States to undermine a political opponent, get traction? Will it, as some commentators speculate, be "worse than Watergate"?
Stay tuned.
“Red Scare” is fake news
The irony here is just too much. The NY Times accused President Bush of spying on Americans in 2003 and were proven wrong. Yet, in 2016, we may have President Obama doing exactly that and the evidence for it provided by the very same NY Times. In Jan 2017, their front page said:
The left ever talk about the USA global hacking?
What next. This Russian 'thing' didn't keep Trump distracted long enough.
In the end, it makes Democrats look silly and dishonest, again.
They have nothing real against Trump.
The sheer brilliance of Trump’s move of counter-accusing 0bama et al of bugging his phones in his Saturday tweet has got to be one of the most dramatic political chess moves ever. No exaggeration. Especially when you observe the actual, real-world effect. 24 hours after the predictable feigned-outrage reaction it utterly obliterated the synthetic urgency of the “Russians” accusation and in all effect got underneath the planned hearings on same. Chatter about the “Russian” influence on the election is down perhaps 80% or more. Talk about sucking the oxygen out of the room. Absolutely remarkable.
Gee, I think someone posted that very premise right here several days ago.
LOL. You’re just 180 degrees out of phase. In a good way, of course.
This may finally be coming to a close!!
Another WIN for Team Trump!
President Trump does not need them to speak to his 60+ million voters/us. He Tweets us, sends his contributors emails and controls the White House digital system. He bypasses the left wing mediots, when he communicates directly with us.
So, neither President Trump, nor his 60+ million voters/us need nor do we want ABCNNBCBS, Faux, the Ny/LA Slime, WSJ, Compost, and LaRaza Times trying to tell us what our president is telling us. We know without their twisting and word games.
We don’t need the “old gotcha” press conferences. With the whining and lying liberal mediots attacking our president. We are tired of the mediots lying and telling us what to believe and how to vote! Ban them from the White House. Trump’s comments and statements are for his voters. We don’t need lying liberal mediots to tell us what he says to us. There is zero filtering, adjusting and lying to us when Trump talks to us directly!
Official Washington is being traumatized by the tweets of Donald Trump.
Politico has chronicled the pearl clutching concern by the inside the beltway types over Trump's tweets. Trump speaking directly to the people via Twitter is causing a crisis among mediots, politicians and lobbyists. They just don't know how to handle it as the article title, “Trump’s Twitter feed traumatizes Washington.”
Fox reporter seemed to think that the Russians are behind WikiLeaks, and are benefitting from them. I say that the people of the US are benefitting from them. i DO NOT TRUST THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!
The other part of this move... if you noticed all the leaking against Trump is stopped in its track?
The Anti-Trump leakers now have gone quiet simply because if they leak they prove Trump’s accusations
This outing of our illegal so called intel organizations is long over due.
The monitoring of Trump Tower, Trump and his people is a 1000 times worse abuse of politcal power than Watergate.
We have to keep pounding and telling about Trump Tower Gate until the independent voters decide they can’t vote for rats any more.
Bookmark
They have nothing real against Trump.
In the end, it doesn't matter. Truth and rationale are useless with Democrats and their followers. It's all about the hate and rage.
The Deep State??
He must shut his lying Democrat gob.
The Deep State is there.
This past year+, many of us have become very aware of the power of this group.
Someone in these here parts, opined the other day that Trump’s using of twitter was getting old, or juvenile and that he should stop.
My response was that, considering the forces arrayed against him; he can use any damn arrow in his quiver he wants to use.
LOL... his arrows seem to hit the mark, more often than not.
I listened to a book or two that Ignatius wrote and vaguely remember enjoying it/them. At the time I didn’t realize what he did for his day job.
Too bad. I won’t line his pockets now that I know who he is politically.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.