“What has become of our norms!” cries the court dwarf of the Mar-l-ago https://t.co/xUpQM12DNl
— Promo Code: Rudy (@canderaid) August 9, 2022
That sound you hear is all the political hacks nervously deleting their anti-Biden tweets and posting ALL HAIL DARK BRANDON yard signs in front of their homes.
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) August 8, 2022
it’s wild to see a large number of journalists have already forgotten the cardinal rule of trump scandals, which is that they always turn out to be much worse than they look at the beginning
— GONELIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) August 9, 2022
Blog favorite chewtoy, per expectations!
— Roy Edroso (@edroso) August 9, 2022
The libertarian position is that yes, some people clearly *are* above the law pic.twitter.com/zkj9ED1Gzl
— Roy Edroso (@edroso) August 9, 2022
if 2020 didn’t break the instinct to immediately wonder if everything that seems pretty bad for Trump could actually be pretty good for Trump, then nothing will
— Alex Burns (@alexburnsNYT) August 9, 2022
when someone writes a responsible history of this era, the political media’s deliberate and willing participation in covering for a traitorous leader of a fearful and cowardly party should be a major part of the story
— GONELIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) August 9, 2022
The fact that the press is openly speculating about which strand of illegality the warrant was following down should tell critics what they need to know: Going after Trump probably isn’t a close call
— ProofOfBurden (@ProofofBurden) August 8, 2022
This wasn’t a presidency, it was a burglary. And they got caught. https://t.co/SfzexaGcAH
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) August 9, 2022
… The FBI calls the Secret Service and says, ‘Hey, dudes, we showed what we know to a judge and he said we could come to Mar-a-Lago and look for evidence of criming, so would you guys leave the door unlocked, OK?’ And the Secret Service says, ‘Sure, drop on by and stay as long as you like. We’ll leave some bottled water in the fridge.’ And so the FBI came to Mar-a-Lago…
… I did come away with a feeling that we’d all be better off if the media stopped hyping the “historic” and “unprecedented” nature of the events. The more these events are spun that way, the more the excitable people get ginned up to feel like prominent actors in a world-historical conflict. The Republican elite is more than willing to encourage them in their delusions of bloody grandeur. From the Washington Post:
“Merrick Garland, Chris Wray, come to the House Judiciary Committee this Friday and answer our questions about this action … which has never happened in American history,” [Rep. Jim] Jordan said on Fox News. “What was on the warrant? What were you really doing? What were you looking for?”
Bunk. This is an investigation into a possible federal crime. No legitimate aura of authority surrounds ex-presidents. The republic can survive the investigation, indictment and even the conviction of a former president, no matter what that old fool Gerry Ford thought back in 1974. But nothing permanent can be done about the reaction until someone or something knocks from a lot of heads the notion that every political defeat is Concord Bridge and that every pronouncement from their favorite TV news star is a message from Thomas Paine from beyond the grave. In 2016 (albeit with some help from abroad), the country elected a grubby little crook riding America’s longest lucky streak to be its president. Now the bill has come due.
This wasn’t a presidency, it was a burglary. And they got caught.
Future dissertation topics:
—first slide: compare, contrast, discuss.
—second slide: will analysts of our era argue that “press hysteria about emails” determined 3 Supreme Court seats, and therefore Roe, etc… pic.twitter.com/BkewDuWyIh
— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) August 9, 2022
Open Thread: Our Failed Major Media Confronts the Mar-A-Largo RaidPost + Comments (68)