Yesterday I went to the various opinion sections of the major news outlets. At the New York Times every editorial, column, or op-ed was an anti-Trump rant. The Washington Post was a bit better. In addition to the anti-Trump diatribes they had an editorial on the plight of the Uighurs, something on which they’ve opined in the past, and a few pieces about local DC politics.
In his column at the Wall Street Journal Holman Jenkins pointed out:
As recently as this week, the New York Times allowed only that there is “no evidence so far to support Mr. Trump’s claim that Mr. Biden improperly intervened to help his son’s business in Ukraine†(emphasis added).
And simply fraudulent are news reports insisting that Mr. Biden wasn’t influenced by his son’s presence on the Burisma board, because it’s impossible to know. Mr. Biden, instead of insisting that Ukraine’s chief prosecutor be fired, might have insisted he prove his bona fides by reopening his dormant Burisma investigation. We just can’t know. This is why the mere “appearance†of a conflict of interest is rightly considered compromising to U.S. policy (as the vice president’s own aides reportedly tried to warn him).
But all such questions now are illegitimate in a rush to paint Mr. Trump as impeachable. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough quotes the White House transcript until its words no longer suit him and then invents his own to portray Mr. Trump as asking for information to “smear an opponent.â€
The transcript says no such thing. Mr. Trump certainly has political motives, as all politicians do, but asking a foreign government what it knows about a story that fills the U.S. media (the New Yorker’s extraordinarily detailed report had appeared that very month) simply may not be the unprecedented act that some assume. (They haven’t seen transcripts of other presidents’ calls.)
OK, you aren’t shocked that much journalism is conducted not in a spirit of inquiry, but to realize the desired talking points. Everything in the Ukraine call is ignored that doesn’t fit the reductionist trope of “inviting foreign interference†in a U.S. election. I get it. Journalism is a business. The “talent†is rewarded for bringing in the desired demographic. But if we really want to restore measured discourse, let’s go back to being reliable arbiters of fact and reason, rather than producing home pages designed as clickbait for target audiences (the Washington Post is an especially ignominious showpiece in this regard).
More than anything, today’s coverage dumbifies everything it touches in our interesting country, in our interesting time.
A final point: A consensus has formed that Joe Biden will be collateral damage in the Democrats’ desired Ukraine-related impeachment spectacle, with some progressives seeing this as a feature and not a bug. Mr. Biden never struck me as presidential material but he might well be the best we can do in 2020. He doesn’t think America wants a socialist revolution. He’s old. He might decide he doesn’t care about a second term. He’d be free to enter office with a mandate from himself to govern from the middle, to work with the GOP regardless of his party’s Twitter shriekers.
That possibility, which might look pretty good a year from now, is likely disappearing fast in the media’s latest half-cocked frenzy.
I listened to the “talking heads” programs this morning. The allegedly impartial journalists generally took on a prosecutorial air. No one had made additional to say but I do know that they hate Trump.
Dave, you deplorable, despicable, shill for Trump! You will be deplatformed, cancelled, and made to beg abject forgiveness from the Gods of Political Correctness! Not that they will absolve your heinous crimes, that isn’t possible when going against the narrative.
There’s a lot of things I don’t like about the POTUS, there’s a number of his policies I disagree with, but the constant drumbeat that he’s worse than Mr. H and use of the words ‘is’, ‘the’, and ‘of’ constitutes impeachable offenses is just nuts. Getting Trump has become a True Believer religion, and any and all apostates must be destroyed reputationally and financially. And the pushers of these insane narratives tell us that we should trust them to run our lives for us?
“The transcript says no such thing.”
He asked, as a favor, that they investigate Biden’s son. A distinction with our much difference. (Though as I said above, if we find out trump has history of asking other specific individuals to be investigated, and at least some of those were not political rivals, then this wouldn’t look so bad.)
Steve
Steve, the “favor†specifically referenced looking into the 2016 CrowdStrike affair – how involved this company (hired by HRC’s campaign) were in getting dirt on Manaford, which then contributed tentacles into starting up the whole baseless Russian collusion investigation.
If you reread the transcript you’ll note that Biden and Giuliani were brought up later, first by Zelensky, with Trump responding in affirmative language that he would like help looking into what was considered a “pay for play†act by the former VP. This discussion, though, seemed to be framed, between the 2 leaders, by their mutual support and vocal endeavors to weed out corruption in their own countries —- or in Trump-talk, “drain the swamp.â€
“Getting Trump has become a True Believer religion, and any and all apostates must be destroyed reputationally and financially.”
Captive journalism.
Jan
Steve is just Polly-parroting the standard distortion. Facts don’t matter in the face of self serving mind reading and counter factual.
jan- Nope, here is a link to the transcript. Zelensky notes that one of their people met Giuliani but doesn’t mention Biden. When it is Trump’s turn again we get the “one more thing”, clearly related to his asking for a favor.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/transcript-of-trump-call-with-ukraines-zelensky-full-text-as-released-by-white-house-2019-09-25
Steve
Drew- Nice to see you backing up someone who was flat out wrong. Anything to support your guy.
Steve
“Yesterday I went to the various opinion sections of the major news outlets. ”
and
“I listened to the “talking heads†programs this morning.”
There’s your problem!
Seriously though, corruption is endemic to human politics, the best that can be done is to keep some kind of lid on it. For a long time, we’ve had a sort of “normal” corruption in Washington where pretty much everyone played by the same rules and usually stayed within the same red lines.
Trump upended all of that. His corruption didn’t and doesn’t play by the established rules (which is why the establishment hates him) and he’s pushed the envelope like no one else I can think of. But a lot of Trump’s corruption was a difference in scope, not a difference in kind. And most of it seemed focused on the ends that motivate most corruption in our human species – enriching ourselves and our friends and allies.
This is one of the reasons I could never really get too up in arms about Trump’s emoluments issues. Yes, what he’s done if far outside the norm, yes, I would like his taxes released, yes I would much prefer that he divorced himself from his business interests while in office. But all that is a difference of scope in my opinion – at its base, it’s still just using political power to make money which almost everyone else is also doing just not as openly and brashly as Trump. And for Trump, he can’t let go and psychologically could never let anyone else run his organization. His ego won’t let him.
This affair with Ukraine is something much different in my view. This isn’t a normal kind of corruption that enriches oneself or one’s friends. This is a more fundamental corruption about political power that I think is very toxic to our political system and governance.
Utilizing the power of the office of the President to enlist the aid of a foreign power to damage a domestic political opponent is a bridge way too far for me. That is why I was “meh” on impeaching Trump before, but now I think it is an entirely legitimate action though I still am deeply concerned about the consequences.
And, despite the defenses I’ve heard, I think it’s pretty clear that’s exactly what Trump was trying to do. It’s the kind of abuse of the office than cannot be allowed to become the “new normal” for corruption in Washington. I don’t think I’m alone and I believe this time Trump has bit off more than he can chew.
And Trump supporters who believe he’s done nothing wrong should consider how they’d feel if Obama had done what Trump did or tried to do (or is accused of doing). Would a notional Trump supporter really be OK with President Obama using his office to throw the weight of the US government and foreign policy around to obtain dirt from foreign powers on Trump prior to the 2016 election for domestic political advantage? No, I think you’d be apoplectic and rightfully so. Such an action would make the provenance of the Steele dossier seem trivial.
I don’t know if what Trump is accused of doing here is illegal or what the real chances would be for prosecution in a court of law. But I don’t really care. In my view, this was a clear abuse of power that should not be allowed to stand and should not be defended or normalized.
Steve, I re-read the transcript link provided by you. Here are the cliff notes:
Page one started with nothing but warm wishes, salutations eventually leading into mutual pledges to work together. Trump grumbled about Europe not helping Ukraine enough in page 2, specifically noting Merkle’s weak contributions to Ukraine. Zelensky agreed. On page 3 the “favor” comment emerged, with Trump asking if Zelensky could look into the happenings surrounding CrowdStrike, the servers adding comments describing Mueller’s incompetence. Page 3’s text continued with Zelensky rambling on about an assistant speaking to Giuliani and hoping Giuliani would be able to travel to Ukraine, making assurances that all future investigations “will be done openly and candidly.” (This was something that, according to signed affidavits, was not done with the earlier Biden investigation. I felt that Zelensky was attempting to make a point of his genuine interest to right previous wrongs). The end of page 3 going into page 4had more discussions about the earlier firing of the prosecutor, Trump vouching for Giuliani being a “capable guy,” and saying he would ask the AG to call him.
Only, after 3+ pages of dialogue, were 6 lines of text devoted to Biden and son references, seemingly flowing from both presidents indicating an agreement that the firing of the former prosecutor was problematic. Here again, Zelensky wanted to make it clear that he “wanted to tell him (Trump) about the prosecutor,” stressing how he wanted to “restore the honesty.” Both Zelensky and Trump were also in agreement that “Ivanovich,” the Ukraine ambassador to the US, was “bad,” and, as the Ukrainian president put it, she was more on the side of the previous president than on his side (similar to what Trump has had to put up with in the intelligence agencies left over from the Obama administration).Â
The remainder of page 4 and all of page 5 were sprinkled with more pleasantries and congratulations directed towards Zelensky’s parliamentary and presidential victories.
After the second reading I felt releasing this transcript will ultimately do more harm than good for global relationships. The banter about Merkle should not have been disclosed. And, for that matter how can even benign conversations be carried on in comfort or confidence, in lieu of this precedent-setting whim demanded by Congress, allowing for said conversations to be predisposed to public display.
To me this continues to be an exercise intent on making something out of nothing in order to bring Trump’s presidency to an end. People like you, Steve, will always find something “nuanced” or “suggestive,” even if it were something like suspicious pauses or spacing of words. Essentially, the various interpretations of this 5-page transcript seems to be just another example of bias confirmation, except with far more serious repercussions in the making.
Andy, (A) I don’t think the verbiage used in exchange between Zelensky and Trump suggested an abuse of power scheme. (B) IMO, Obama had far more toxic examples of his abuse of power while in office.
Starting with the Fast and Furious cover-up. Allowing the IRS to be used as a filtering agency to accept or deny applications for non-profit status. His ACA lie of the year statement dealing with keeping your doctors. Lying about having no knowledge of HRC’s private server, covering it up when using an alias to directly email her . Most egregious has been Obama using various agencies at his disposal to make Trump’s presidency next to impossible, before he left office. He even lightened the ability to leak info by lowering the standards to spread classified documents less than a month before the next president took office. There is also a plethora of evidence indicating colluding with foreign entities, unprecedented unmasking of citizens in order to get dirt on Trump. It’s endless…..
Just a thought that came to my mind today.
Unlike the Mueller investigation, the Starr investigation, Iran-Contra, or Watergate, with this investigation/possible impeachment, the House isn’t using the leg work of a criminal investigation.
The pro is that this is more faithful to how the constitution laid out the impeachment process. The con is the Houses lack of experience conducting objective investigations causes an escalating violation of norms between the investigators and the investigated.
2020 could be a bumpy ride.
Andy:
Is leveraging U. S. policy for political gain worse than leveraging it for financial gain, either for you, your family, or your friends? My answer: it isn’t and we should pursue both, now, and with equal vigor. Anything else is just special pleading.
Would a notional Trump supporter really be OK with President Obama using his office to throw the weight of the US government and foreign policy around to obtain dirt from foreign powers on Trump prior to the 2016 election for domestic political advantage? No, I think you’d be apoplectic and rightfully so. Such an action would make the provenance of the Steele dossier seem trivial.
From what I’ve read, the Steele dossier scheme did exactly what you complain of Trump doing. One difference I suppose is that Steele was paid in cash and the alleged quid in the Zelensky case is munitions. And Obama wasn’t the one directly making the deal, but it seems impossible that he wasn’t aware.
From my point of view probable CIA involvement in the attempt to take down Trump is much more serious, but even if you give them equal weight it is hard for me to understand seeing Trump’s activities as some new kind of corruption. It seems to me much more like different cabals of corrupt people playing the game with different playbooks based on their side’s assets and allies.
“One difference I suppose is” that Trump is POTUS and Hillary didnt hold any office. However, if it makes you feel any better, I would agree that we should impeach both if we decide to impeach.
jan- Here is what you really said. “If you reread the transcript you’ll note that Biden and Giuliani were brought up later, first by Zelensky, with Trump responding ”
Now you wrote lots of words to cover it up, but you confirm in your own notes that Trump was actually the one to bring up Biden, not Zelensky. As much as you are probably listening to people trying to talk you into Trump being innocent of anything, and you have fellow cult Drew backing you up, I guess I can see how you end up believing stuff that isn’t true, but in this case it is in the transcript.
“Is leveraging U. S. policy for political gain worse than leveraging it for financial gain, either for you, your family, or your friends?”
First, Trump is probably doing both, but is it worse to steal $5 or $5 million? One is a misdemeanor and one a felony. As I recall, in many states you have degrees of felonies, and you probably have a 5th degree (or whatever is highest) with $5 million. Both are stealing, but we penalize one much differently than the other.
All that said, I think one of the reasons we are in trouble is that for too long we have overlooked what we consider minor corruption, or just decided that it wasn’t corruption because it was convenient, or because those making the rules (mostly politicians but mostly at the request of the wealthy) wanted to benefit.
Steve