Don's Tuesday Column

           THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson    Red Bluff Daily News   7/30/2019

Did Dems, Media learn a lesson?

It was beyond obvious to anyone that consumed the much-hyped, oversold, box-office dud called the “Mueller hearings” that first, the star witness, the investigative superhero “boy scout” supposedly in charge of the “get rid of Trump” project was, in the final act, a doddering, washed-up shadow of the gladiator prosecutor previously worshipped as Robert Mueller.

Secondly, much of America, hopefully some of the news media cum gladiators-in-their-own-minds, realized that the conventional wisdom, the accepted narrative of an irrefutable legal case proving impeachable misdeeds of “collusion” and “obstruction” by President Donald J. Trump—that it’s all bunk.

A CNN reporter/analyst was heard saying that Republicans appeared to be well prepared with arguments that had not been given much airing—meaning CNN never deemed the counter-narrative of Trump’s non-collusion and “Deep State” perfidy to have merit so they never bothered to dignify it with serious coverage.

MSNBC analyst and former Obama diplomat, Richard Stengel, observed that “We in the media didn't do a good-enough job of summarizing in kind of a bite-sized way. It took us too long. The Democrats could have done the same thing, like why not get everything on a three-by-five card that we just say over and over and over?"

Translation: “We in the Media” failed to reduce our phony arguments into simple versions of “Trump’s a Russian puppet because he worked with Russia to get Hillary Clinton defeated thanks to Russia,” while insufficiently debunking contradictory ideas. Wait, that was pretty much the totality of what every voice on MSNBC/CNN/ABC/CBS/NBC/Wapo/NYTimes said over and over in every permutation they could conjure. They must think we rubes don’t watch, hear and see them for the hacks they are.

One of the least self-aware quotes that I heard was from the dean of the network political world, NBC’s Chuck Todd, who astoundingly put the failure of Democrats and Mueller down to the “right wing propaganda machine of Trump” including, I suppose, talk radio, Fox News, conservative Internet and congressional advocates. I say “least self-aware” because Chuck Todd sits—together with other network opinion-molders and newspaper/news-manufacturer behemoths— atop the most influential, monolithically partisan news media empire in modern history outside of official state media in totalitarian nations.

Almost to a man or woman, they vote left, contribute left, hold views on the left and haven’t given credence or fair coverage to the conservative Republican, now-Trump dominated, alternate political universe. It’s a universe of thought and policy positions that neither they nor anyone they know or associate with occupies. They don’t know anyone that voted—and will vote again in 2020—for Trump.

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Ca.) retailed a conspiracy theory so bizarre that it would only be taken seriously (cue thoughtful faces) on CNN or MSNBC. His evidence-free story (“without evidence” is reserved for any assertion by Trump) was that “someone got to him (Robert Mueller)” to make him come back after a hearing recess and refute Lieu’s misleading statement: Trump committed “obstruction of justice” but, because of an Office of Legal Counsel policy, a sitting president could not be indicted.

Mueller: “That is not the correct way to say it. As we say in the report and as I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination as to whether the President committed a crime.” It’s astounding that a party that enshrines criminal defense and the presumption of innocence for murderers, rapists, child abusers and terrorists—these Democrats take a plain statement that no crime was found to have been committed and twist it into “not exonerated.” They then make up a cockamamie “somebody got to Mueller” theory for his insistence on sticking to the text of his report.

Mueller clearly had no grasp of his report’s assertions or the important distinctions therein. Put it this way: A district attorney or the head of a law firm might not be versed in the details of a prosecution or lawsuit being carried out by their staff; but the lead prosecutor or lawyer in the case sure better be able to knowledgably answer questions. Mueller should have had his report down cold. Mueller had no involvement in writing it or in the investigation itself—he was the clean figurehead.

Democrats prepared and played a content-free staged event wherein Mueller was to deliver his spoon-feed bombshells—introducing impeachment material. They have so much invested in Trump hatred and rejection of his claim to the office, that any dastardly deeds or beliefs are justified.

Republicans saw that the entire investigation and report ignored glaring, undermining elements of his actual report—what Mueller and his team chose to ignore in spite of hard evidence. In summary, Mueller simply didn’t know who or what Fusion GPS was: the entity that served to funnel Clinton and Obama money into a slush fund used to pay Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele and actual Russians for the phony dossier that justified (to the FBI/FISA) the surveillance and investigation of Trump et al. It was “news” to Mueller; however, it was and is fact.

Mueller’s interest in the law was nonexistent (the phony “not exonerated” ruling). He agreed to a “unique” but totally erroneous legal standard. Mueller denied that he interviewed to be FBI Director, although he met with President Trump and V.P. Pence for that purpose. He told them it was the only job that would pull him back to public service a day before Rosenstein appointed him to “publicly serve” as special counsel.

RealClearInvestigation.com’s Paul Sperry and others have found that, in the footnotes, it is clear that much of the report relies on media stories as “evidence.” The cycle: leak to media, who then write about the leaked information, which then becomes the footnoted basis for Mueller’s reported findings. It’s a hoax.

Finally, the integral, causal role of Joseph Mifsud, and his lies under oath? Ignored and unindicted.