Stupid, Sloppy, and Sensationally Wrong

In the hysteria that the Trump Derangement Syndrome crowd has cultivated in the 48 hours following the Trump-Putin summit, there have, of course, been hyperbolic statements by the usual suspects. Everyone from Democrat Chuck Schumer on the Left to #NeverTrumpers Max Boot or George Will on the Right have alleged that Trump is a "Russian puppet" (Michelle Goldberg of the NYT prefers the word "lackey"), that the Russkies are blackmailing the president, that his comments were "treasonous," that Helsinki “will live in infamy as much as the Pearl Harbor attack or Kristallnacht,” or John Brennan's truly unhinged comment that Trump's statement is grounds for impeachment. In their collective fevered imaginations, Putin and Trump, like master villains in a James Bond movie, are out to control the world. The master villains' weapon—"collusion!!!", hacking the DNC, and using trolls and bots on Twitter and facebook—certainly world-ending actions.

Trump's words matter, that's true. He said some dumb stuff at the conclusion of the Helsinki summit. And because most of the elites on both the Left and the Right only say stuff and rarely accomplish anything meaningful, they get really crazy when they hear words that they don't agree with.

But Trump's actions matter a lot more than his words. And if we look at actions, the Trump administration has been noticeably hard on the Russians—(1) expelling large numbers of "diplomats" from the US, (2) agreeing to serious sanctions against the Russian economy, (3) providing heavy arms sales to the Ukraine, (4) voicing direct and unequivocal condemnation of the U.K. nerve gas attacks, (5) speaking out against the Russian-German gas pipeline (a direct attack on Russia's economy), (6) taking military action in Syria that puts Russians in harm's way. But in TDS world, none of that matters. So ... Let's. Get. Hysterical ... because Trump said some dumb things.

In the meantime, the Democrats' trained hamsters in the mainstream media continue to beclown themselves by creating and then promoted demonstrably fake news. Reporter Emily Singer of a relatively obscure Mic (Military Industrial Complex) website via C-Span thought she found yet another smoking gun that put a recently arrested 29-year old Russian operative in the oval office at the White House. Becket Adams explains:

Singer found a Getty Images picture from May 2017 showing Trump meeting in the Oval Office with a delegation of Russian officials, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

If you look at the photo carefully, you can see White House National Security Council staffer Cari Lutkins huddled in the back.

In what can only be characterized as a combination of stupidity and sloppiness driven by TDS, Singer misidentified Lutkins as recently arrested Russian operative, Maria Butina.

She posted the picture and her interpretation on Twitter.

It gets better. Becket reports that leftist darling and supposed journalist, Matt Yglesias retweeted Singer's egregious mistake (without checking the validity of her claim). So did Clintonista Peter Daou and columnist Paul Brandus. Thousands of retweets followed. Of course, all of these serious "journalists" would claim it was an honest mistake. It's odd, though, that hundreds of recent "honest mistakes" by the media all seem to reflect badly on Donald Trump. You'd think that the error distribution would sometimes favor Trump, but you'd think wrong.

Because far too many in the media suffer from TDS, they have become stupid, sloppy, and sensationally wrong. They have ruined their own credibility. Donald Trump is not wrong when he accuses them of promoting fake news. He is not wrong when he states that this brand of "journalism" does a disservice to American citizens. In fact, far too much of the media has become analogous to Pravda—you know, the propaganda organ of the hated Russians when the Left didn't hate them quite so much.

Far too many in the media are too stupid (or is it deranged?) to recognize that they're helping Trump—not hurting him. Their bias is so palpable that it causes millions to disregard their opinions, their reporting and their positions, even when those things are accurate. Their animus is so obvious that it causes millions to rally behind what they perceive (correctly, I might add) as a besieged presidency. The media's desire to see Trump removed from office now is so self-evident that I suspect it will result in Trump being in office for the next six years. Heh.