All That Matters

In honesty, there's not much left to say about the Russia hysteria, this week exemplified by the Donald Trump Jr. non-story. A private citizen and son of a presidential candidate hears that a Russian lawyer has dirt of Hillary Clinton and accepts a meeting with her. It was a rookie mistake, compounded by the fact that Trump. Jr. expressed enthusiasm about getting the information, but that's all it was. No information was passed, no actions were taken, no follow-up occurred. But ... Russia!!!

In fairness, Donald Trump and his people have done little to help themselves where Russia is concerned. By declaring that there were absolutely no contacts with the Russians, they have allowed the trained hamsters of the media to find even the most trivial meetings (with anyone who has as much Russian heritage as Liz Warren has American Indian heritage) and trumpet those as scandalous. Trump himself is brash, loud, imprecise and pugnacious and has relatively little control over his foolish impulse to punch back against criticism from meaningless people (think: Joe and Mika). But none of that changes one basic truth—all of the hysteria, all of the accusations, all of the innuendo, all of the leaks, all of the breathless stories by so-called journalists have lead to zero evidence of criminal wrong doing, and frankly, very little that is even ethically questionable.

With hindsight, the meeting between Trump, Jr. and the Russian lawyer (who, it appears was allowed to enter the USA under a special visa offered by the Obama administration and seemed to be a friend of administration officials ... hmmm) and its outcome should have been disclosed, given the current McCarthyeque atmosphere in which every association by anyone even tangentially connected to President Donald Trump, every contact he or any of his people ever made, every word every written by anyone in the administration or connected to it, is parsed by an army of "journalists" for COLLUSION. The Trump, Jr. meeting wasn't even close to "collusion," but the Dems and their media hamsters are having a field day with yet another 'smoking gun' ... that isn't.

Meanwhile the Democrats, who never saw a Russian story they didn't like (except the ones that indicate that Hillary Clinton was closer to the Ruskies that one might imagine or that the Ruskies "colluded" with groups favored by the Dems), are talking "treason." That. Is. Unhinged. But what else is new?

Michael Goodwin comments:

Near the end of its Tuesday story on Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer, the New York Times casually noted that the news “blunted whatever good feeling the president’s team had after his trip to Europe.”

Excuse me, but wasn’t blunting the president’s success the whole point of the latest installment of the Russia, Russia, Russia story?

Isn’t that why the leakers leaked when they did, and why the Times splashed the story on its front page day after day?

Excuse the cynicism, but there is a relentless pattern, and we don’t need a crystal ball to see the future. It looks like the past and the present. No better, no worse, just more of the same.

A year from now, Donald Trump still will be president and the media and the permanent bureaucracy still will be hounding him in a ruthless bid to drive him from office.

In responding to the attacks, Trump and his team will make numerous mistakes, none fatal, but the accumulation will take a toll on his presidency.

Drip, drip, drip goes the optimism.

That’s what we’re witnessing now, with another round of toxic mud masquerading as bombshell news overshadowing all other issues, from North Korea to tax reform.

But let's take a step back. It looks like all of this will continue throughout the Trump presidency. The intent is obvious—the four constituencies would like nothing better than to cripple the current administration, to foil any attempt at legislation that might actually improve a failing health care system, resurrect a moribund economy, correct a tax system that does far more economic and fiscal harm than good, and yes, drain the Big Intrusive Government swamp. In the meantime, foreign actors who in the short term are at least as menacing than Russia (NoKo, Iran, and Islamic extremists come to mind) grow in strength.

But none of those things matter. All that matters is that Trump is destroyed. The country? Well, it'll just have to wait until more enlightened left-wing politicians, rising from the wreckage they worked quite hard to create, lead it on a road the ends in Venezuela or maybe with another "Iran deal."

UPDATE-1:
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Michael Tracy does a good job of describing the meta-characteristics of every Trump bombshell released by the likes of NYT or WaPo and then beat to death by the trained hamsters in the main steam media:

The basic formula for every breaking Trump/Russia story is essentially as follows:

• The New York Times or Washington Post releases an article that at first blush appears extremely damning.
• Anti-Trump pundits and Democrats react reflexively to the news, express shrieking outrage, and proclaim that this finally proves untoward collusion between Trump and Russia — a smoking gun, at last.
• Aggrieved former Clinton apparatchiks *connect the dots* in a manner eerily reminiscent of right-wing Glenn Beck-esque prognostication circa 2009.
• Self-proclaimed legal experts rashly opine as to whether the new revelation entails some kind of criminally actionable offense. (Recall the now-laughable certitude that felled National Security Advisor Mike Flynn violated the 200+ year old Logan Act.). . .
• The notion of Russian “collusion” being key to toppling Trump becomes further implanted in the minds of the most energized Democratic activists. . . .
• Pointing out these glaring flaws in the latest anti-Russia frenzy is immediately construed by cynics as “defending Trump” or “defending Sessions” when it most assuredly is not. At least in my own case, it’s a defense of not getting enraptured by irrational hysterics to further short-term political aims.
• People who’d spent the past 12 hours frothing at the mouth gradually come to realize that their initial furor was probably overblown, and that a more sober look at the actual facts at hand reveal that the anti-Trump chorus probably got ahead of itself…again.

I agree with Tracy. Criticism of the unhinged behavior of the Dems and other members of the four constituencies is not "defending Trump." Rather, it is a defense of critical thinking and rationality, while at the same time condemning the blatant hypocrisy ("irrational hysterics to further short-term political aims") and downright insanity that is driven by Trump Derangement Syndrome.

UPDATE-2
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CNN has become a journalist joke. Its bias is so extreme, it reporting is so shoddy, and its commentary is so unhinged that watching it make you stupid. Having said that, the reality is that CNN represents the attitude of almost all of the main stream media, only taken to the extreme.

Alex Xenos writes:

As CNN continues their crusade to bring down the Trump presidency, New Day spent 93 percent of their three-hour program Wednesday covering Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump campaign's supposed collusion with Russia. The other seven percent was spent on baseball (~1.5%) and negative coverage of the GOP's healthcare bill (~5.5%).

No one is arguing that this revelation should not be covered, but when you spend 93 percent of your time talking about it, it shows an obsession, not an objective news judgment.

In a way, it's kind of sad to watch a once reliable news organization devolve into unwatchable garbage. TDS is a powerful force.