Normally I wouldn't use Matt Taibbi (Hate, Inc.) as a source, but since Real Clear Politics featured his essay on the Mueller investigation today, I read it and it is pretty much spot on. Except for the 'death blow for the reputation of U.S. media' comment which I think probably won't be the case. It should be of course, but a sizable minority of Americans no longer care about truth, honor, fairness, or accuracy when it comes to politics. Those people will continue to greedily feed on ANYTHING the media reports that in any way presumes to makes President Trump, Republicans, conservatives and such look bad. They don't CARE whether it is true or not.
But otherwise Taibbi makes some salient points.
So what do you think? Who got hurt the most in this Mueller investigation?
President Trump?
President Trump's family?
The Republicans?
The Democrats?
All the people sucked into the investigation?
The Media?
The American people?
None of the above?
Or none of the options fit so I'll explain it in my post:
But otherwise Taibbi makes some salient points.
Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media. . .
(In a current NY Times):
This is a damning page one admission by the Times. Despite the connect-the-dots graphic in its other story, and despite the astonishing, emotion-laden editorial the paper also ran suggesting “We don’t need to read the Mueller report” because we know Trump is guilty, Baker at least began the work of preparing Times readers for a hard question: “Have journalists connected too many dots that do not really add up?”
The paper was signaling it understood there would now be questions about whether or not news outlets like itself made galactic errors by betting heavily on a new, politicized approach, trying to be true to “history’s judgment” on top of the hard-enough job of just being true. Worse, in a brutal irony everyone should have seen coming, the press has now handed Trump the mother of campaign issues heading into 2020. . .
It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD(In a current NY Times):
It will be a reckoning for President Trump, to be sure, but also for Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, for Congress, for Democrats, for Republicans, for the news media and, yes, for the system as a whole…
This is a damning page one admission by the Times. Despite the connect-the-dots graphic in its other story, and despite the astonishing, emotion-laden editorial the paper also ran suggesting “We don’t need to read the Mueller report” because we know Trump is guilty, Baker at least began the work of preparing Times readers for a hard question: “Have journalists connected too many dots that do not really add up?”
The paper was signaling it understood there would now be questions about whether or not news outlets like itself made galactic errors by betting heavily on a new, politicized approach, trying to be true to “history’s judgment” on top of the hard-enough job of just being true. Worse, in a brutal irony everyone should have seen coming, the press has now handed Trump the mother of campaign issues heading into 2020. . .
So what do you think? Who got hurt the most in this Mueller investigation?
President Trump?
President Trump's family?
The Republicans?
The Democrats?
All the people sucked into the investigation?
The Media?
The American people?
None of the above?
Or none of the options fit so I'll explain it in my post: