What did the left actually say about Trump and collusion?

I read it all the time from conservatives: The left was sure Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election. 

Did the left actually believe that? Ok, I'll use google to find out. Looking at June 2016 until mid-September, I don't see declarations that Trump was colluding. I see discussions of Trump's financial ties, his statements about Russia, his choices of advisers, and how Russians apparently hacked the DNC and gave the documents to Wikileaks. I don't see claims that Trump colluded with Russians. 

CNN 7/26/16. Discussion on Russian meddling, no accusation of collusion or conspiracy involving Trump. 

Lawfare 7/27/16. Q&A, no charges of conspiracy or collusion.

Washington Post 7/29/16. Q&A, no charges of conspiracy or collusion.

The Guardian 7/30/16. Long article. Direct collusion "probably not happening."

Vox 8/15/16. Conspiracy theorizing is wild but grounded in Trump's Russia ties. 

Reuters 8/25/16. Focus on Carter Page, who was one of many advisers who had close Russian ties. 

Politico 9/5/16. Russia is interfering, but no accusation against Trump except for spreading hate. 

After leaks of the Steele dossier

So now I'll look for how it was discussed after parts of the Steele dossier was leaked to Yahoo, and was published in its entirety in January 2017. 

NPR 1/10/17. Reports on the dossier, which was published that day by Buzzfeed. "NPR is not detailing the contents of the brief because it remains unverified....." but characterized it as discussing efforts to cultivate Trump, blackmail possibilities, and secret mettings with aides. 

NYT 2/14/17. Unnamed sources say Trump campaign had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence. Alarming, but sources say no evidence of collusion this far. 

USA Today 2/15/17. Timeline of contacts. Not veering into speculation. 

Politico Magazine March/April 2017. Trump/Russia connections in 7 charts. Looks solid and not veering into speculation. 

The Guardian 3/22/17. Comey testifies that Trump is being investigated. Speculation on effect of that news, but not about possible actions by Trump and his campaign. 

Politico 3/22/17. Schiff claims the evidence for collusion is more than circumstantial. He can't say what it is. 

PRI 3/30/17. Very accusatory tone, but still couched as investigations and suspicions. 

CNBC 4/6/17. Clinton says potential collusion should be looked into. 

The Guardian 4/13/17. British spy services warned US intelligence dating back to 2015. An unnamed source states there is "concrete.... evidence of collusion" and that's the strongest statement in the article. 

Reuters 5/18/17. More contacts between Trump officials and Russians disclosed. Sources say no evidence of wrongdoing or collusion. 

I also checked some further left media. Many have told me that Rachel Maddow pushed the collusion story night after night. This video would be one example. I didn't watch her so I don't know how representative it is, but it does push the story hard, with statements like the evidence is growing and the Repubs were meeting with Russians just as Russians were hacking the elections. 

Keith Olbermann was always a human flamethrower and he continues it, though from a very shoddy video studio with terrible lighting. He latches onto the accusations from Louise Mensch, a name I had forgotten. Well, she was a bit correct but also going deep into nutcase territory. 

Personal memories

What I recall about the Russian collusion story: I was tentative on it, preferring to wait for hard evidence. Evidence was being uncovered frequently, so it was very reasonable to wait and see. I was dubious about the Steele dossier and the way it was released encouraged wariness. It was labeled as unverified from the very beginning. 

In contrast, most of the information covered in the Mueller report had been leaked beforehand, and the solid news organization were right on most of it. I read the indictments as they came out, and they were loaded with info. So I never had to correct mistaken claims I made because I was cautious and conservative. The Mueller report wasn't a relevation. The good MSM sources continued being fairly good, including when they reported that the Steele dossier was financed by the Clinton campaign. Now that was quite an Aha! moment. 

So I was cautious in what I believed, and I recall most on the left being that way too. Maybe because I don't watch MSNBC or Keith Olbermann. My conclusion is that conservatives downplay the actual events of Russian interference and overhype the collusion/conspiracy speculation on the left. 

Image: The Intercept

Lies, damned lies, and GOP lies

The Mueller report is finally out. As I wrote earlier, there weren't many surprises. Most of the information had been revealed either in the press or in indictments. As I noted, the MSM has been fairly accurate and good at self-correction, at least from what I've seen and how I've interpreted it. Maybe when I read hyperbolic speculation, I shake my head and move on, not remembering MSM declarations that Trump worked with Russia. My impression was that most reporters and most left-of-center folks were waiting for Mueller to sort it out. Of the regular commenters I knew on Bloomberg, only two were declaring that Trump had conspired. That leaves most of them not expressing that opinion.

The GOPers/conservatives were usually exaggerating what others said, and they were definitely still doing it as the report was released. They accused others of being WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, while failing to notice what others had actually said. Frankly, I don't know how often talking heads on CNN or MSNBC declared that Russia owned Trump. My guess would be that they hedged. I asked my sweetie, who is more left than me. My sweetie expected about 50% chance of a conspiracy where there was enough evidence to indict. So maybe I'm not in touch with those further left without being the looney left.

1. So the first GOP lie is that all of the left prejudged Trump as guilty and are now pretending that they didn't do this. <------- LIE

Another GOP lie is that the MSM hasn't been reporting the facts. In fact, the MSM has been out front on this. I recall the NYT reporting on the Trump Tower meeting. Reporting a bit, waiting for the Trump team to respond, which it did usually with a cover story replete with lies. Then the NYT would release a bit more, and finally it released the emails of Trump Jr. that showed what was going down.

Now I expect a certain amount of spin from the presidency, but a news org should be as honest as it can be (an idealistic hope). However, there is no comparison. The MSM was telling the truth here, and the administration was lying. This was repeated over and over. That's one reason why I wasn't surprised by the Mueller report - because I followed the news, mainly through online MSM sources, and they were very accurate.

2. The MSM spread FAKE NEWS about the investigation. <------- LIE

Should I move on to some of the crazier lies? Maybe so, and turn the rest of this post into a rant against the lies.

3. All the Russian contacts were entrapment attempts by the deep state FBI/CIA. Cue the search for rumors that each contact actually was aligned with the deep state, not the Russians.

4. The Steele dossier was believed by the left. (No, it was labeled from the very beginning as unverified in screaming letters.)

5. The left took over the CIA, NSA, FBI, State Department, and God knows what else.

6. They all conspired to create this Russian hoax and try to overthrow Trump.

7. The coup was orchestrated by Clinton, Obama and their minions all over government and the MSM.

7.1 Obama didn't do anything about the Russian hacking and interference while it was happening, and instead spied on Trump's campaign.

8. Clinton, Obama, et al are going to jail in a streak of rightful payback.

9. Mueller is part of the deep state and hired Cllinton lackeys to help with the frame job.

10. The Mueller report found there was NO COLLUSION AND NO OBSTRUCTION AND NO EVIDENCE OF WRONGDOING by the Trump campaign.

11. The Dems are going to continue with the hoax because the coup attempt can't stop.

12. The real enemies of America are the Dems. Russians are preferable to them.

Image: twitter@Rob_Rogers

Extras. The FBI warned Trump about contacts with Russians. GOP liars deny this.

Update 4/23/19. I just found an example of GOP lies. Here's an article full of speculation, but it's not labeled as speculation. It's not attributed to unnamed sources (presumably vetted), which news organizations with ethics use. Instead, it's presented as ... um, fact? The big assumption in the article is that the woman Russian lawyer at the Trump Tower meeting was working for FusionGPS to entrap Trump campaign leaders. They also state (wrongly, if I'm not mistaken) that the Trump Tower meeting was used as evidence to secure a FISA warrant. I've looked at the redacted copy of the FISA warrant and didn't see anything about the Trump Tower meeting. I suspect that the author was making it up or repeated unsubstantiated rumors floating around Wingnutlandia.

Update 6/14/19. Trump had an interview with ABC news and he flat out lied about telling McGahn to fire Mueller. Read his lying words.

Previously unknown information from the Mueller report

I wasn't expecting any surprises from the Mueller report, and I didn't really get any. No conspiracy between Russians and the Trump campaign - no surprise there. Russia did its thing without help from Trump, which really was the smart approach. Everything about the Trump contacts with Russia have already been leaked, thank God.

There were no surprises on the obstruction issue either. Trump was furious, wanted to fire Mueller, but was stymied by McGahn. I'm pretty sure this was reported already. Just to check, I fired up Google with the search term "McGahn refused fire Mueller," select some dates, and found plenty of articles, like this one from The Hill.

So what was new? I googled "surprises from Mueller report," but didn't get great results. Then I hit on "previously unknown Mueller report." That was the key.

So what's new? Trump dictating a hilarious statement for Jeff Sessions to read (full text here). Trump saying "I'm fucked" when he heard that a special counsel was appointed. Sarah Sanders admitted to Mueller that some of her statements (concerning countless FBI agents dissatisfied with Comey) were based on nothing. KT McFarland was asked to lie, but didn't. This was vaguely familiar, probably because she was squirrelly about some of her answers at confirmation hearings. I found a good list here.

I wasn't surprised that there weren't other conspiracy charges. The last indictment from Mueller would probably be the biggest. The last one was of Roger Stone, and he was charged with lying, witness tampering, and obstruction. The indictment told how he was in contact with Wikileaks, and that's the closest that anyone got to conspiracy.

So nothing really big from the Mueller report. The MSM had been reporting things all along, and they handled self-correction pretty well. Note that there wasn't any bombshell that Seth Rich had leaked the DNC material and was killed for it. Think of the many accurate reports in the media: Papadopoulus being approached; Manafort, Trump Jr., and Kushner in the Trump Tower meeting, McGahn refusing to fire Mueller, etc. The media seems to have been correct on those stories.

Of course, there are the redacted parts, and there may still be a few surprises. My guess is: nothing big.

Accurate again...

Image: redstatetalkradio.com

The first question to ask on a story about Trump

I figured something out about Trump. He loves to capture the newscycle. Because of this, he frequently says incredible things just to grab headlines. Most of it isn't serious and fades within a day or so. But he still does it and it's very effective in capturing the newscycle for him.

Here is an example. It's a fairly quiet end to a week that started with lots of speculation about the Mueller report and Trump firing his secretary of Homeland Security and other related positions. So what is the top news today?

Trump Wants to Bus Migrants to Sanctuary Cities

This is why I think it's a fake story: it's on a buzzy issue. It's a slap in the face of one of his favorite enemies. It's not an acutal policy announcement, but it looks like an action. (It won't be. Announce first, worry about planning later.) If you think about it hard, you realize it's probably not at all likely to happen. He didn't deliver it in a written speech in front of a teleprompter (that indicated more serious announcements).

Sometimes Trump will grab the newscycle just is an outrageous claim or insult. I'll try to remember to add some examples. But it's the same sort of tactic. Be outrageous, capture the newscycle, don't worry because few will remember.

If I was in the news biz, I'd have a weekly column about the crazy stuff Trump had done. I wouldn't give him a headline for something like this. Instead, I'd put it on the weekly list and save it for Saturday or Sunday:

Crazy Trump Stuff

This week, we have five items.
#5 ...
#4 ...

Sigh.

Image: observer.com

September links

Good news about elections. Elections were administered more fairly in 2016 compared to 2012. The metrics included wait times, which is a good check on whether there is enough equipment in a given area.

Superdelegates and Dems. The DNC has reformed how superdelegates will work. It's a technical change, but the last paragraph in the report may be the most telling. Worth a read, truly

Supreme Court nominee on immorality. Brett Kanavaugh, nominee for the Supreme Court, had a blistering view of Bill Clinton, his immoral behavior, and his lying. I have to wonder how Kanavuagh will rule on such issues when he's on the Supreme Court. I'll be watching.

Responsibility for preventing rape. A professor writes an analysis of some arguments about rape prevention. He tries to claim that he's following logic, but appears to stack the deck in his framing of the two sides of the issue. I give him a D on logic.

Who's responsible for Trump? Fascinating discussion on whether having Obama as president caused the election of Donald Trump. Obama says no, but the article comes down on the 'yes' side, but not in a way that is harsh on Obama. Instead, it is harsh on racial resentment present among white Americans.

How Americans process news. A nice slice of life--on a fairly busy newsday, ask Americans what's happening. Write down the answers. Find out some interesting facets about Americans.

Alex Jones update. Regular readers (if they exist) know I intensely dislike Alex Jones. Here he is being quite an annoying asshole. Love the title of the post.

Image: fortune.com

Interesting factoids

My blog is now mostly links. But that doesn't mean I'm not thinking. I feel like I'm thinking as much as before. So I can't really explain why my writing has changed to these collections of short, link-based reflections.

Here are a bunch of lighter link that are still interesting.

Energy promise fulfilled? In Australia, a huge battery system is providing backup for when renewables faulty and storage for when the energy output is abundant. This is such an important step in making renewables primary in large-scale energy production.

Kick him when he's down. We can laugh and/or sneer at formerly famous alt-right jerk Milo Y__(whatever). Here's an article on his unpublished books and the editor's comments.

Hackable votes. This one is heavier: an article about how Georgia has very poor security for its electronic voting machines. It contains first-hand reports of problems and officials trying to cover them up.

Good news/bad news. A funny conundrum. Media has done very well under the Trump campaign and presidency. Viewership is up, profits are up. It could be very nasty (in financial terms) if Trump doesn't win in 2020.

Trump's mental condition. Hahahaha. Nearly everyone has an opinion, but this is the opinion of a trained neurologist.  I've had some training in neurology, so I notice many of the behaviors the neurologist mentions. I would add this: look for changes, particularly diminishing ability. As far as I can tell, Trump hasn't deteriorated, but we should be alert for the signs. This is a reasonable place for a bookmark to a lawyerly explanation for why impeachment hearings are warranted. I don't agree, but the case is well argued.

A journalist on our side. Maybe Trump, Bannon, or whoever thought Michael Wolff could be trusted to write positive fluff pieces, and they found out otherwise when he wrote Fire and Fury. This is the kind of piece that might have given them false hope. It's a sympathetic view of Roger Ailes. It also sounds like he flattered people's egos, basically conning the con men that staff the White House. I don't trust him to be fair and scrupulously accurate. However, he claims to have tapes of some interviews. Added fun!

Image: newsday.com

Antifa and the MSM

I don't remember what month I first heard of Antifa, which is a loosely organized anti-fascist organization. I do remember how I heard of it. It was mentioned by some right-wing commenters. They implied Antifa were leftists, so I looked up what Antifa was. I thought it was probably some imaginary conspiracy group, like the elitist pedophile ring Hillary runs.

It turns out that Antifa isn't a figment of a nutjob's imagination. It's real, and my usual news sources (Google News with occasionally visits to American Conservative, National Review, Fox News, and Breitbart) had failed me.

I'm not sure why the MSM had barely reported on Antifa until August. It's not that Antifa didn't make appearances. They were involved in the Berkeley riots, and I was certainly aware of those. They were also involved in property destruction on Inauguration Day, and various other demonstrations.

However, the MSM wasn't mentioning that Antifa was a group, and wasn't emphasizing how protesters were violent and coordinated in dress and action. Was the MSM giving cover to Antifa? We probably won't find out unless reporters and/or editors talk about either their lack of knowledge or their suppression of information.

I've been able to confirm the lack of coverage by the MSM through a Google search. From December 2016 to March 2017, the top mentions of Antifa USA are by (in order): Al-Jazeera,  The Guardian, the BBC, The Nation, and Hot Press. In contrast, the top mentions of Antifa USA today are by: USA Today, Facebook, Wikipedia, CNN, The Daily Wire, and The Atlantic. It's definitely a failure by the MSM that the media sources of right-wingers are faster on the information than the MSM is.

It's not that Antifa was totally unknown in the MSM. Here's an article from the New York Times dated 2/2/17 that reports on Antifa. Yet Antifa wasn't referenced in this WaPo article. I recall arguments about whether the violent protesters were students or not, whether they were outsiders who took an opportunity to vandalize. News organizations didn't seem to know... or perhaps a few reporters did, but the information didn't percolate up to the top editor and anchors.

Right wing media perhaps wanted to pretend the violence was by typical leftists, not a violent fringe. Left wing media perhaps wanted to pretend that it wasn't an organized group of violent anti-fascist protesters. Nor were there organized, violent groups who tried to close down Trump rallies. Those anti-Trumpers were individuals who were concerned about Trump's rhetoric, not an organized violent fringe.

Now Antifa is too well known. The MSM still isn't investigating its ties with BLM organizations. They don't delve too far into their communist views, or how they fight violently even when confronting non-violent opponents, or how they're happy to destroy corporate property. Conservative media is pretending Soros, Antifa, and BLM are all one and all violent. Who can you trust? No one.

By the way, this may be the closest thing to the Antifa motto:

You fight them by writing letters and making phone calls so you don’t have to fight them with fists. You fight them with fists so you don’t have to fight them with knives. You fight them with knives so you don’t have to fight them with guns. You fight them with guns so you don’t have to fight them with tanks.

They do seem to emphasize the fighting. Let's enjoy some violence for a noble cause... or close enough.

Image: redspark.nu

Extras. According to this video, a lot of Antifa are sociology majors who want to be heroes but don't know much about fighting. That fits with what I've seen. Antifa disrupt a peaceful rally in Berkeley.

Various Trump links

Trump is dominating the news even more now than when he was campaigning. There was a spot of good news today. His pick for top national security adviser is praised in this article, with the caveat that honesty may mean he stays on the job only two months. Well, let's be optimistic and hope for much longer than that.

Corey Lewandowski, Trump's former campaign manager (with similar lack of tact with women), doesn't seem to agree with Trump's statement that his administration is a well-oiled machine. He says that Trump is trying to get a lot done, but his subordinates are a disappointment. Um, who hired them? Did he not choose well? I guess the blame has to land on Trump one way or another.

One hope I have for the new national security adviser is that he'll have a healthy distrust of the Russians. The Russian connection to many things Trump has me very worried. Pence might be visiting Europe and trying to reassure our NATO allies, but he's the VP, not Trump. Who really knows what deals Trump might be inclined to make? I take this article with a pinch of skepticism, but it does discuss the patterns that are so very worrisome.

And, as always, Trump attacks the mainstream media. The press isn't reporting on terrorist attacks. They are enemies of the American people. So far, his attacks are words only. If they turn to deeds, such as banning news outlets, launching trumped-up investigations, or inciting violence, then he will have gone into dictator-mode.

Oh, the irony! A huge purveyor of fake news...

Image: youtube.com

Extras. Bob Corker, who sounds like a reasonable person, on his hopes that Trump will 'evolve.' Will Trump provoke a constitutional crisis by refusing to abide by judicial decisions? So far, he has obeyed while complaining very loudly. A more detailed article about the new pick for top national security adviser. How and why the CIA should cozy up to Trump, and the dangers if it doesn't work. The Anne Frank Center blasts Trump for not standing up to anti-semitism. The twitter responses are quite the window to accusations and counter-accusations.

Left-leaning fake news: Found one. Sort of.

I see lots of fake news from the right, less from the left. The MSM media employs a different approach to its bias. It will not report on issues (bias by omission), downplay the importance, not follow up, or latch onto a convenient explanation when they should be digging deeper. They rarely do the outright lie. When they do and they're caught, they have standard procedures: correction, apology, and if the lie was bad enough, someone gets fired. So outright lies are much more the province of the conservative media.

This is one rare article where a lazy reader could be left believing a clear lie. Start with the headline:

Did Yiannopoulos secretly send more than 100 thugs to Berkeley to break up his own speech?

(By the way, if you don't know who Milo Yiannopoulos is, it's my displeasure to tell you he enjoys being a provocateur at Breitbart who somewhat admires the alt-right and 4chan types. So, well paid scum. Also gay.)

The headline is nice use of a question to imply the incorrect info, but still allow the author to deny lying. "I am only asking a question" -- I think that was a standard line of Glenn Beck as he drew his infamous charts showing the evil machinations of whomever.

Then I had to scroll down through the equivalent of about five screens before the author casts doubt on this speculation. Up till that point, it's a description of what's known about the event that supports this conspiratorial speculation.

However, this article is generally better than the conservative media because the impression is corrected if you read far enough down. So, it's not like the rest of the fake news I complain about, like Clinton going to Pedophile Island and lies like that.

So even when I see something that looks like fake news in the MSM, it isn't. Conservative media still has a near monopoly of this particularly form of despicable behavior.

Image: forward.com

Extra. More reporting on the campus police's weak response to the rioting. Compare these two responses to the riots.

Update 8/29/19. A MSNBC host rushed a poorly-source scoop (about backing of loans to Trump) onto the air. A day later, he's apologizing, correcting, and explaining what he did wrong. Funny, but Fox News doesn't behave this way when they muck up their reporting... cough ... Seth Rich... cough ... MI6 bugging Trump Tower.

Benghazi: What is being covered up?

I never got to finish my post on Benghazi because I waited for the GOP House to hold its Benghazi hearings. They were supposed to happen during the summer when they would be filler during the news-drought months of the summer. Then it turned out that summer 0f 2014 was well-populated with political bombs, such as the immigration crisis and Mideast crisis. Benghazi wasn't necessary after all. That also turned out to be true in Fall '14, so the GOP didn't hold the hearings then either.

Nonetheless, I waded through a lot of Benghazi info last summer, and I don't want it to go to waste. So, finally seven months later, I'm publishing what I found out. It's late, but still more timely than our GOP political circus. This is actually two posts in one.

1. The Conservatives' Attempt to Make a Smoking Gun

What is the big new story about Benghazi [as of last summer, that is]? It seems that there was a stand-down order. Well, maybe it was more like a wait-and-let-me-think-about-this order. The CIA leader at the annex  (that secret other location that was attacked later that night but not at first) made his gung-ho underlings wait about 22 minutes before going to the consulate.

This word comes from three security operatives who were among the forces at the annex. These are three of the two dozen or so 'Benghazi survivors' who were strangely absent from previous hearings. Now some information is leaking from a few of these sources. So far it doesn't seem like enough for the GOP to cry "scandal," but the GOP will try anyway.

Here's the headline from Breitbart (same link as above):

BENGHAZI SECURITY CONTRACTORS: ABOUT 25 AMERICANS ARE STILL ALIVE BECAUSE WE BROKE 'STAND DOWN' ORDER

But if you read it closely, they saved 5 people from the consulate, not 25. They didn't exactly defy a stand-down order so much as put pressure on the chief/team leader to end the delay and get going. If there was a stand-down order, the chief/team leader didn't obey either, because he went with the security team to the consulate. Ah, but you must have drama, especially if you're trying to sell a narrative or sell books. 

From another article:

Their team leader was a CIA official who got direct orders from Washington to wait multiple times... [One security operative] said "I strongly believe if we would have left immediately, they would still be alive today."

Neither of these points is supported by other evidence. Was someone in Washington incorrectly telling them to wait? Maybe it wasn't that bad a call. Would leaving immediately have saved lives? That's questionable. Shoot first and plan later isn't a great policy in general.

2. The Worst of It: Bad, but not even close to horrific

Despite conservative media hype, the Benghazi scandal is bigger than the MSM made it out to be. The best evidence of this comes from Hicks, an assistant to the ambassador. The mistakes/poor judgment/incompetence has two parts:

1) Libya was a lot more dangerous than the administration let on, and the staff was expected to live with that danger and not report. If the dangers were known, it would bring unwelcome focus on Obama's decisions on how to handle Libya, and Obama seems to be unable to handle criticism.

2) The administration wanted to cover up that they were informed about the dangers, so they decided to go with the story that it was a protest similar to the one in Egypt. I don't know who made the decision, but people at the top knew it was a lie. However, the lie unraveled pretty quickly because GOP congress members knew of the dangers in Libya from intelligence briefings, and they gave that info to conservative news sources who ran with the story.

Get By with a Little Help from Our Friends

Obama and Clinton have counted on the friendly MSM to not pursue the story hard and not put them in a terrible light. No surprise there. Our media is very skewed, with the conservative media being even worse, and therefore having even less credibility.

How will Obama, Hillary, and the Dems deal with the scandal? I'm not sure, but perhaps they will treat it as a regrettable mistake, but not a huge, disqualifying mistake. Perhaps that's the conclusion of most of the electorate too, and they don't want to hear anymore about it. It boils down to this: most people are tired of it, so it won't matter in the 2016 campaigns.

Image: pinterest.com

Extras. I did lots of research, and here are the most interesting bits:

Three days after the attack and some newspapers are getting the story straight.

Comments at National Review are almost all partisan--not looking for truth, but looking to smear Dems. George will is castigated for not getting on the bandwagon. This is the echo chamber again.

Why Stevens didn't take the offer of more security--a good reason: immunity for the security personnel.

Who and what on the stand down command, maybe. This is the decision not to send fighter aircraft to Benghazi. Might or might not have helped. No refueling support available.

Strong comment with perspective on the incident. "It does not matter to ordinary voters whether it was a local militia stirred up by the video or it was a pre-planned Al Qaeda attack. We sent our people to a dangerous place, some of them died. Who [in the administration] said what ... is not really an important issue." What's not important is all the stuff the GOP is focusing on.

Politifact account of chain email about rape and mutilation. Another rumor with a different name as the source. This is very ugly partisanship, luckily confined to the shadows.

Update 3/13/16.  Did Clinton make false claims about the video to the families of the casualties? Accounts differ in profound ways. Why is this a big issue? Um, oh, because Clinton had a spin-laden story in public, and a different story in private. And because she must be blamed for the spin since she's running for president. Can't forget that reason.

The significance of the Obama-era scandals

Republicans may be overjoyed--they have a triad of scandals to hold against the Obama administration. There's new information on Benghazi including the edit trail of the administration talking points and testimony of personnel who dissent with administration handling of the Benghazi attacks. The IRS targeted Tea Party groups for onerous oversight, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenaed and seized phone records of many journalists of the AP.

Benghazi

Benghazi is the oldest of the scandals, dating from September 2012. The death of four Americans at a satellite diplomatic facility in Libya hasn't been the story that the GOP had hoped for. It's difficult to turn a single incident like Benghazi into a wide-ranging indictment of the administration's capability of running competent foreign relations. The Obama administration has generally been competent, with fewer Americans soldiers dying, fewer wars started in various hot spots, and not considerably more nuclear tests by North Korea. It's hard to make the case that Obama is so incompetent that we need the more war-like Republicans in office. The narrative that some conservatives wanted to push, that Obama is a welcome mat for Islamist groups, was undercut by other groups in Libya attacking the group responsible for the attack. Also there's Obama's generally aggressive posture in Pakistan and Yemen that belie the GOP position.

So how bad is Benghazi? Hillary is looking less like the firm hand at the State Department handling a myriad of international situation without any of them spinning out of control. She ignored the warnings of dangerous conditions in Benghazi, and she has no good way to apologize for it. This is a black mark against her that she can't clean up. So far her efforts have been defensive and screechy--she may need to learn how to be humble and contrite. She has to hope that her strong points are enough to compensate. That said, she has a couple years to figure out how to explain and mitigate.

The damage to Obama is his lack of engagement. His underlings are mealy-mouthed, his own role in decision-making is muddy. He doesn't know how to end the drip, drip, drip of discrediting information and doubts about the handling of the situation. The CIA is trying to make sure State gets the blame for lack of preparation, but the responsibility for the non-timely military response to the emergency is still a liability that hasn't been fully explored. But this incident, as a small tragedy, isn't large enough to sink Obama's presidency.

IRS

The IRS scandal is also less than initial reporting would have it. The IRS probably wasn't directed by the White House, so this is more a rogue operation, rather like Fast + Furious. Also, I doubt that it will seem as egregious as trying to deny tax-exempt status to a church. These groups were political, and the three salient issues were:

• How much they would have to report, such as listing their donors.
• How much paperwork and red tape the IRS piled on them.
• Whether the IRS leaked confidential information to the press or other groups.

No political group, left, right or center, is going to arouse that much sympathy or indignation, so hearings will be either boring or falsely histrionic. That won't do much damage to Obama.

The Obama administration can and should be tough on the personnel responsible for the decisions to pursue these procedures. Perhaps this will mark a new higher standard for the IRS that future administrations will have to follow.

Subpoenas of Journalists' Records

Finally, there is the seizing of the telephone records from the AP. This concerns a leak about a foiled bombing. The leak included some surprisingly detailed information, such as the existence of a double agent who came from the UK and infiltrated a terrorist group in Yemen. If CIA methods for infiltrating this al Qaeda group were compromised, that is a serious leak that deserves scrutiny and perhaps prosecution.

On the other hand, Obama administration may just be trying to intimidate news organizations. Considering that the target was the evil mainstream media, the GOP are not going to be able to spin it as much as they would want to. (Let me crank up my crocodile tears over the missed opportunity.) Obama's handling of leaks and whistleblowers may be tougher than some previous administrations, but it hasn't been severe or common enough to worry the garden-variety, non-libertarian voter. There are good arguments on both sides, which makes it hard to paint Obama as the villain. So, no legs on this scandal either.

Thin Sauce

Sometime last year, perhaps when I was researching Fast + Furious, I realized that the Obama administration has been surprisingly clean, though certainly not squeaky clean. There were some known back door deals in ACA, and it would be hard to believe that there weren't any goodies in the stimulus bill. However, the worst malfeasance was ill-considered large loans to Solyndra and other pet causes. (Or maybe it was some of the big policies, like Obamacare, that don't lend themselves to sound-bit scandal hearings.)

That leaves the GOP-controlled House without enough to investigate, so they are inflating whatever they can find. But that isn't much. There isn't a revolving door between lobbying firms/oil companies and the White House staff. The administration either isn't throwing favors at its Wall Street friends, or the favors pale compared to other times.

The lean pickings, and the insistence of the out-party on investigating something brought us the endless delving into Fast + Furious last year, and will bring us endless Benghazi this year with some droning IRS hearings mixed in. Perhaps some Republicans will weary of the attempt to weave these tiny scraps into a funeral shroud for the Obama administration, and this will end, but I doubt it. The House will have to fill its time somehow, and they certainly won't be spending the time hammering out courageous compromises on pressing issues like entitlement reform or tax reform. No, we can expect some very dull partisan soap operas. Sigh.

The Short Version

Some lessons from these scandals:

• Bringing the in-party down a few notches doesn't translate into more support for the out-party. The Dems look slightly worse, but ...
• The GOP still look like a bunch of opportunistic scoundrels who are interested primarily in power rather than sound policy.

Image: democraticunderground.com

Checking up on media watchdogs

As a little project a couple weeks ago, I compared conservative media watchdogs with liberal media watchdogs. This wasn't an exhaustive review because I don't have the time or the constitution, so I looked at the most well-known sites.

Media Research Center/NewsBusters critique the liberal bent of mainstream outlets like CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and the biggest target, MSNBC.The general complaints that MRC makes is that the MSM is biased in its coverage, highlighting negatives of the GOP/conservatives and burying the negatives on the Obama/Democrats/liberals. Benghazi is a specific example, with little time spent holding the administration up to a penetrating examination.

It's easy to attack the amount of coverage of an issue because there isn't going to be clear-cut answer. It's always a judgment call whether to give the news story 30 seconds or 5 minutes, and the choice can always be attacked. However, when does coverage become overkill or beating a dead horse? My personal opinion is that the conservative media inflated the errors in Benghazi, especially the error identifying the type of attack on the consulate. Conservative media and GOP congressional leaders ignored an important piece of context (the riots going on in Egypt), and beat the drum over supposed lies, which wereunderstandable misperceptions and were corrected.

However, like police wearing down a suspect, the GOP won't stop when they have the administration in their sights. Without doubt, a Dem-controlled house has done the same to a GOP president. It would be great if this particular brand of bad behavior ended. It won't, but luckily the majority of the public doesn't buy it no matter which party is using the tactic.

A better critique was this post about a Fox News host complaining about the fawning White House press corps. The press corps fails not because it doesn't badger endlessly as conservatives would have them do, but because it doesn't probe deeply at all, and doesn't ask inconvenient questions nearly often enough.

Many of the other posts on Media Research Center/NewsBusters are shallow boosterism (George Will/Hannity/O'Reilly schools so-and-so) or about picayune errors perpetrated against conservative heroes by mainstream reporters who are assumed to be biased.

On the liberal side, Media Matters is somewhat better than these conservative counterparts, with less boosterism and less targeting of small fry. Often Media Matters typically points out what conservative commentators have said without elaboration. Occasionally they exhaustively run down a false conservative talking point to its origin, as with this Benghazi lie about real-time video of the attack.

 

 
Repeating a non-fact is an equal opportunity mistake, but I see it more among the conservative media. A recent example is the use of a hypothetical example in an IRS publication--it was inflated into an announcement that the Obama administration knows that health insurance will cost $20K a year. Then the false info spread around to many conservative sites.

I like watchdogs that show you 'who said what,' and then let the overt misstatements speak for themselves. I also like watchdogs who point out the patterns of bias. Most of all, I want links so I can check these stories myself. Both Media Matters and NewsBusters do well on that score.

I wish I could find a site that watched the conservative, mainstream, and (further) left media equally. But I'm not surprised such a site doesn't exist. Who could stand to do all that?