In a Post Policy World Only Winning Matters

Steve Benen has written a book with the title "The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics. The book is excerpted on a talkingpointsmemo at How The GOP Gave Up On Governing In Order To Keep Winning Elections.

The excerpt explains, "The GOP's push to win elections at all costs opened the door to a new leader who would cement its status as a post-policy party."

The following passage is the heart of Benen's argument:
"Many voters have grown accustomed to the idea of a national competition pitting two governing parties against each other. One has a more progressive vision, the other a more conservative one, but for most Americans, Democrats and Republicans are basically mirror images of one other, each with an internal range of opinions. The electorate has long had reason to assume that both major parties were mature and responsible policymaking entities, their philosophical differences notwithstanding.

The actions of the Republican Party over the last decade have made it abundantly clear that it’s time to reevaluate that assumption.

The current iteration of the GOP is indifferent to the substance of governing. It is disdainful of expertise and analysis. It is hostile toward evidence and arithmetic. It is tethered to few, if any, meaningful policy preferences. It does not know, and does not care, about how competing proposals should be crafted, scrutinized, or implemented.

The modern Republican Party has become a post-policy party."

When this blog was started on February 14, 2016 with the post "Scalia Successor" , the blog name "When Tactics Become Policy" was chosen as the best description of the phenomenon that Benen describes.What he calls a "post-policy party" is one in which actions to advance a policy are completely replaced by actions with the sole purpose of winning, and such actions are tactical in nature, not designed to advance policy, but to ensure victories, either by election or by judicial nominations.

But this blog has also been dedicated to the proposition that the traditional view of political parties that are mirror images of each other, equal and opposite, is also a protected viewpoint, however flawed. That is because the traditional view of fairness and objectivity taken by the NYT and others commands that any objective view of the political parties must eschew assymetry -  assymetry could result in one party being "bad" when the other party is being "good", assumed be a biased conclusion.

This tension between entities like the NY Times clinging to an outmoded definition of good political journalism and the clear logical argument against that NY Times position has persisted in recent years despite its flaws. And so, Benen emerges as only the latest example of someone yet again making an argument to the public as if it is new, trying different angles to convince people who refuse to be convinced by compelling arguments because they made their minds up long ago. Or maybe because they only care about winning and using any tactics that will get them there.

It's Not Bizarre - Here's What's Bizarre

Glenn Kessler is the keeper of the lie count over at WaPo. As if counting lies into the thousands serves some purpose. Oh what a tangled web we weave when at 20,000 lies we continue to deceive. Is that the point?

But imagine the royal keeper of the lie count deliberately shading the truth in order to maintain an antiquated inoperative journalistic standard from days of yore.

The headline, though likely written by a person not named Kessler, starts this off on the wrong foot:

"Fact Checker: Trump's bizarre effort to tag Obama's swine flu response as 'a disaster'".

Using the term "bizarre" in this headline is a lie. The writer presumably means - if we were to ignore Trump's longstanding pattern of behavior of false accusations against Obama and political opponents, repeated for effect, and consider Trump a normal person, not a pathological liar, then this behavior would be bizarre. But Trump is Trump, not a different person. And don't journalists have a responsibility to treat him according to objective standards that consider his pattern of behavior, rather than as if he just now spontaneously sprang to life from the head of Zeus? What sense does it make to call behavior that exactly meets expectations "bizarre"? It makes no sense at all.

Of course the smell test tells us that if the swine flu epidemic was a disaster, we would have strong recollection of many bad things happening, which would be preserved as a collective memory informing our cultural references. But we don't. So without going to the tape, we all know it was not a disaster.

The fact checker walks through the necessary steps of examining the data and debunking the Trump claim. He does a good job of it. But is that the best use of resources. Trump succeeds by distracting attention from his failures and, by making false and misleading accusations, drawing attention to others. The so-called fact-checker's painstaking analysis tells us that a certain amount of luck was involved in the swine flu epidemic. OK, but should our focus be on the Obama administration performance in 2010?  And should journalists and fact checkers allow themselves over and over to be led by the nose in whatever direction Trump leads them? I would argue, yes - maybe once, or twice at the most. But thousands of times? No. After the first couple, as the tangled web is being weaved, they need to stop fact checking and report, as I have argued many times, not what Trump claims, but what he appears to be doing by making false and inflammatory claims and accusations. Distracting from his malfeasance and escaping scrutiny of his performance.

Kessler's bottom line:
"The Pinocchio Test
Reviewing this history, we can only assume that Trump has not studied the swine-flu pandemic very closely. He simply heard a death-toll figure — remembering it incorrectly — and presumably concluded that anything associated with Obama was a debacle. But in reality, the government under Obama worked relatively smoothly, even if it was not tested as in the current pandemic."

So "Trump has not studied the swine-flu epidemic". OK, not false, but not exactly true in a helpful sense. Can't we assume that Trump has not studied anything? He does not read any agency reports - remember?  And why speculate that he "simply heard a death-toll figure" and " concluded" anything. Trump does not marshall the evidence and draw conclusions about anything whatsoever. He makes accusations and that's what he does. Why speculate about a train of events in a way that is tantamount to lying by ignoring the evidence of a pattern of irresponsible behavior. Just report that behavior factually, recognize the pattern as the most important element - not the detail surrounding the allegation. Because when you, the press, shine a spotlight on the person Trump wildly accuses, you are doing his work for him - and neglecting your own work. And don't even leave the frame there of "anything associated with Obama was a debacle."

So there is nothing unexpected about Trump's behavior. News organizations that aspire to some sort of standard that still can not bring themselves to recognize and directly report a specific pattern of bad behavior as just that need to stop "fact checking" and spend more time "pattern checking".

When a Journalist Is Like a Bad Scientist

In his blog post on 'The Generalizability Crisis in the Human Sciences' Andrew Gelman writes:
"The point is that there are costs, serious costs, to being overly polite to scientific claims. Every time you “bend over backward” to give the benefit of the doubt to scientific claim A, you’re rigging things against the claim not-A. And, in doing so, you could be doing your part to lead science astray (if the claims A and not-A are of scientific importance) or to hurt people (if the claims A and not-A have applied impact)."

There exists a parallel to the treatment by journalists of their subjects. As president, Trump has openly subjected journalists to extremes of special treatment - berating them, revoking credentials, etc, especially journalists who most conform to long accepted standards of objectivity. Those journalists who have been subjected to this treatment - or the implied threat of similar treatment for non-obeisance - have sometimes come to heel in subtle, but damaging ways. And if we treat the journalistic product in these instances similar to the way we determine conclusions based on scientific study, we join them in doing damage to the truth. The most important damage may well be in ignoring the possible truth of "not-A".

For example, in ‘What do you have to lose?’: Inside Trump’s embrace of a risky drug against coronavirus', reporters Philip Rucker, Robert Costa, Laurie McGinley and Josh Dawsey begin with:
 "As he stares down a pandemic, economic collapse and a political crisis of his own, President Trump thinks he may have found a silver bullet: hydroxychloroquine."

We can see the A vs. not-A problem coming in this article in the very first line that contains an important working assumption posing as a statement of observable fact. Any statement by a reporter of the form "Person X thinks R" can not be a simple statement of observable fact. We never know for sure what someone thinks or believes. In Trump's case, we often find reporters telling us "what Trump believes" - sometimes attributed (lamely) to "three people close to the president", sometimes without attribution. Strikingly, I can not recall reporters making such statements on a regular basis about any other president - all of whom, unlike Trump, felt some affinity, some obligation, to stick to the facts as much as possible. In Trump's case, in the absence of a reliable source in the president, reporters choose to short circuit their customary process of developing facts by appealing to the magical assumption that they can discern Trump's beliefs from the combination of his statements, his behaviors and sometimes, anonymous sources - and this reporting is permissible because they only employ this approach in conjunction with the assumption that the president is innocent of deliberate wrongdoing,

So, in this example, A = president touting hydroxychloroquine is based on a belief he sincerely holds that this drug is effective against the COVID-19 virus. They also ignore for this purpose the unusual negative qualities of this president who has materially lied thousands of times and committed many other acts destructive of a functioning democratic republic.

But in this example, not A, which the reporters ignore, can be many things.

Not-A could be that DJT has stalled having the federal government provide personal protection equipment, ventilators, virus testing kits, and other supplies to NY and other parts of the US in order for family and friends to benefit financially acting as a middleman for desperately needed supplies. In this scenario hydroxychloroquine might be touted as a wonder drug in order for these cronies to corner the market selling this unproven treatment. Giuliani is one of those promoting hydroxychloroquine. Suppose every time Trump puts Jared Kushner in charge of an important government initiative, the primary purpose is to advance personal financial gain for the family with corrupt intent. Suppose Kushner was originally put in charge of Middle East peace as a cover for a trade of foreign policy favors for Bin Salman and Netanyahu for personal financial payoffs or political favors. And now Kushner's assignment to the fight against the virus would be to rake in profits as a coordinator of distribution of medical equipment through private middlemen. And suppose Trump is perfectly fine with Americans dying if they are disproportionately not members of his "base"?
Reporters interested in important factual reporting should not be relying on the illogical standard - "if it means the president is doing something incredibly horrible and we can not prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, it can not be true."

Context matters. See:
Trump Removes Watchdog Overseeing Pandemic Fund

Behind the Scenes Kushner Takes Charge of Coronavirus Response

Republican Fundraiser Looks to Cash In on Coronavirus


Again, remember, the point here is not that not A is necessarily factually correct and complete in all respects. The point is that the working assumption underlying the WaPo standard reporting is that not-A is assumed to be false, at least for the sake of discussion. And by assuming that not-A is false in story after story, the reporting substantiates a narrative that Trump is innocent of many, many things of which he is accused and others of which he is only suspected based on his history. The truth is that we do not know exactly why Trump is stuck on hydroxychloroquine. The reporters on this story track down numerous alleged influences on Trump, which may or may not be material to the story, but if they ignore all of the evidence of corruption in this particular case, then they are failing by treating not-A as not important.

More Distractions and Confusion and It's Working

As POTUS, Donald Trump likes to distract and confuse. It's working. At least it works on the New York Times.To be fair, much of the objectivity-based press fell for the ruse, too.

In the Times editorial "Trump, Greenland, Denmark. Is This Real Life?
Or a Peter Sellers movie?" the editorial board treats the Trump trial balloon to buy Greenland mostly as farce. And the trip cancellation solely as a reaction to Denmark's response because that reaction is in character for Trump.

Granted, the editors noted a few serious issues involved:
1. Greenland's deposits of rare earth metals, crucial to the defense industry, which are now mostly sourced from China.
2.  The U.S. military's "northernmost missile-warning, space surveillance and deepwater seaport" in Greenland.
3. China's recent efforts to establish a "foothold", or at least a toe-hold in Greenland.

But the NYT editorial board concludes that Trump's cancellation of his upcoming trip to Denmark after being rebuffed on the Greenland sale proposal can be taken entirely thus:

"That the president of the United States would demonstrate such willful ignorance of how the world works, that he would treat a territory and its independent people like goods and chattel, that he would so readily damage relations with an old and important ally out of petty pique, is frightening."

But maybe the NYT editorial board does not know 'how the world works' - if this president abruptly cancels a trip to meet with an "ally" (ally in quotes because an ally of the U.S. is so often not an ally of Trump and vice versa) for what appears to be a ridiculous excuse, let's ask ourselves about the agenda for that trip. Maybe he needs to cancel to save face, to avoid awkward confrontations,  and not make a fool of himself.

A hot topic in Denmark this year and especially this summer is the proposed Nord Stream 2 pipeline being built by Russia to transport natural gas to Western Europe. The proposed route passes through Denmark's territorial waters. Russia has been avidly pursuing Denmark's approval in order to complete the project this calendar year and enter into new long term contracts for delivery. Otherwise the pipeline will be delayed if constructed along an alternate route. The pipeline poses a threat to Ukraine's current route for much of Russia's gas transport to Western Europe.

source:dutchnews.nl

The U.S. has so far opposed the pipeline:
Senate panel backs Nord Stream 2 pipeline sanctions bill

And Trump has spoken out against the pipeline.

But Trump opposing Putin on a major issue has been rare and awkward when it happens. The issue is complicated by the tensions between Western Europe's goal of obtaining adequate energy at low price, Eastern and Central Europe suspicion of Russia, and U.S. substantial reserves of natural gas which could compete with the Russian supply, but at higher prices due to transportation costs for the LNG.

One can hardly imagine Trump having a constructive meeting with an ally, especially if he needs to negotiate with a woman who he knows will be better versed on the issues. When confronted with his incompetence and ignorance, Trump needs to find a way out. When Putin's wishes are a factor, things become too tricky for him to handle. So he needed to bluff his way out of the meeting.

The problem with NYT (like too many other news orgs) is that even after so many lies by Trump, they are willing to take his statements at face value as a first pass if those statements can not immediately be "fact-checked" and found false instead of asking "what is really going on here?" and pursuing more likely explanations.

What Jussie Smollett Is All About

"It's the false epitome stupid!"
Huh?
Yes, bear with me.
If you are Donald Trump, the decision in Chicago yesterday to drop charges against Smollett creates an irresistible opportunity to exploit the occasion for personal gain. And nothing feeds the need of Team Trump to distract from everything they do like the chance to accuse a black person, immigrant, or minority of something. And the Smollett case could not be better - he is black and gay. Terrific. And this appears to be a case of false victimization. Even better. And he got off - a black person who is not deserving who benefits from favoritism from authorities. Great. Anything else? We are going to investigate - see, we can investigate, too, just like you Democrats do. Perfect.

But there's more. One of the great tools used over and over by Team Trump is the false epitome. Highlighting the Smollett case, which does, in fact, appear to be a miscarriage of justice creates a focus that is intended to represent a far broader case. For those conservatives who like to obsess about these things, this single case provides an opportunity to take this one example as representative of a much more extensive problem.

Smollett was treated initially as a victim, but he was a perpetrator...becomes
They are all claiming to be victims, but they are all perpetrators.

False epitome was at work in Trump's claims that immigrants come here to kill people, often using as examples drivers involved in fatal traffic accidents - as if that is identical to deliberately murdering people.

And, perhaps more importantly, to help any such conservatives hold dearly to that fallacy, Trump acknowledges NO EXCEPTIONS to this rule. "They" must all be bad people. Therefore, Team Trump can never acknowledge, let alone, praise the noble sacrifice of Humayun Khan. Because that threatens the logic of false epitome - if any are good, even noble, maybe others are too...maybe they are just like us in many ways...No, we can't have people thinking like that. In fact, given the opportunity, take down his grieving mother and father.

False epitome is an especially sinister weapon because, like many of Trump's weapons and his endlessly awful behavior, the underlying reality hides in plain sight.

When Trump distracts and attacks with an argument or action that takes a specific case - of his choosing - and unreasonably extrapolates to make a general case that appeals to his followers- traditional journalists are at a loss to identify what is really happening. But, at this point, the rest of us should not be fooled.

The Enemy Within

Who is the enemy within? To figure that out, you need to decide who you are, who is acting against you, and whether or not they were here all along acting against you or recently entered from the outside - physically or virtually.

The Mueller investigation starts with actions taken against the U.S. and makes an effort to determine their source. The Special Counsel team is investigating crimes against the U.S.by foreign actors as well as U.S. citizens.

But team Mueller is constrained by their mandate and how legal investigations work. They do not look for analogies. What if Russian has been working all along to ally themselves with conservative movements in Europe and the U.S. in order to weaken the Western alliance - NATO and the EU to strengthen the Russian hand internally as well as throughout the formal members of the Soviet Union and the unaligned nations?

Russian actions against the progressive democracies of the West have manifested themselves in similar ways in different countries. Yet this similarity is too abstract, too speculative for mainstream political journalists in the U.S.to seize upon as evidence of anything.

The U.S. and the UK stand out as examples, but Italy looms large.

"Billionaires" who are not billionaires.

In the UK, Arron Banks was the largest contributor by far to the Leave campaign at 8.1 million pounds. If the source of his funds was foreign, such as Russia, those contributions would be illegal in the UK.  For much of the past three years, the press reflexively called him "Billionaire Arron Banks". As recently as last November, Time ran a piece: "The Billionaire Who Bankrolled Brexit Is Now Under Criminal Investigation. Officials Suspect Foreign Money" even as questions mounted about the source of his wealth and whether he is a billionaire. Bloomberg now has "The Mysterious Finances of the Brexit Campaign’s Biggest Backer" which sets his known assets at 34 million pounds.

Denying Meetings with the Russian Ambassador...and many other Russians...or their agents

In Britain, as in the U.S. meetings between those who promote so-called "populist" campaigns, inexplicable meetings with the Russian ambassador are first denied, then admitted, but minimized - it was "only once", then when there are more, but it was only social. As The Guardian reported: "Revealed: Leave.EU campaign met Russian officials as many as 11 times"

For analogy in the U.S., one need only think back to Jeff Sessions in his Senate testimony at confirmation hearings claiming that no one in the Trump campaign had any meetings with Russians. Then for him personally, it became only twice with Kislyak, allegedly and improbably in Sessions' role as a Senator.

Those Russian Wives and Girlfriends

Of course Arron Banks has a Russian wife whose first marriage at age 25 to a much older Englishman was an apparent sham to obtain UK citizenship and perhaps act as an agent of influence in the UK?: "The story of Mrs Arron Banks’ extraordinary first marriage"
Which brings to mind special agent of influence Maria Butina and her much loved boyfriend Paul Erickson of GOP/NRA fame.

Another Russian wife is Olga Roh, married to Stephan Roh. Zurich lawyer Stephan Roh has had close ties to the missing "professor" Joseph Mifsud, speaking alongside him at conferences and claiming to represent him though Mifsud has been missing for over a year. Roh has co-written a self-published book “The Faking of Russia-gate: The Papadopoulos Case, an Investigative Analysis,” Early Trump campaign advisor George Papadapoulos worked with Mifsud, as did his girlfriend, now wife Simona Maniante, who claims to be Italian, not Russian,  and admits her real age did not match her Italian passport age.

And Now Italy

Similarities to the U.S. are fascinating. The Daily Beast reported in March, 2017 :"Putin’s Party Signs Cooperation Deal with Italy’s Far-Right Lega Nord".

The Money: As the Daily Beast reports: "An Italian Expose Documents Moscow Money Allegedly Funding Italy's Far-Right Salvini" :
 "Italy’s interior minister and vice premier, Matteo Salvini, went off the grid for 12 hours during an official state visit to Moscow last October. Tales of Russian prostitutes seemed to explain the time lapse for the single statesman. But a new exposé by the Italian newsmagazine L'Espresso suggests that his time may have been spent doing something far more sinister: he may have been making backroom deals with Russian operatives ahead of European Parliamentary elections.The investigation, which the magazine says was conducted over several months, comes to the conclusion that Russian president Vladimir Putin is selling 3 million tons of diesel fuel via a Russian company to an Italian state company, Eni, that Salvini as interior minister can help manage."

The Russian Wife: 

As the Daily Beast reports:
Salvini's key tie to Russia is his former spokesman, Gianluca Savoini, who is not present in the current Italian government, but who remains a trusted ally of the leader. Savoini, who is married to a Russian woman named Irina, is listed as president of the Russia-Lombardy Association based in the north of Italy"

Austria, too. It's all happening in Austria, as the Daily Beast reported:

"Anger as Austria's foreign minister invites Putin to her wedding""
"Kneissl, an independent, owes her appointment as foreign minister to the populist, anti-immigrant Freedom party (FPÖ), the junior party in Austria’s ruling coalition.

The Eurosceptic and openly pro-Russia party has signed a “cooperation agreement” with Putin’s United Russia party, and Kneissl’s close ties to the Russian leader are raising questions in the EU over where Austria’s loyalties lie. The FPÖ has supported Russia’s claim to Crimea and called for the easing of sanctions on Moscow."

But not the U.S., right? Where's the signed cooperation agreement with the Republican Party?

Even if Mueller can prove everything, these are just process crimes, right? Nothing to see here. Or, as the Republican House Intelligence Committee insisted, speciously and falsely - Putin was anti-Hillary Clinton, not Pro-Trump, which Republican leaders repeated even after Helsinki: "House GOP stands by controversial finding in Russia report despite Putin's preference for Trump"

OK, so Putin was
(1) Pro-Brexit in the UK,
(2) Pro-Northern League in Italy (and Five-Star Movement for Italy to leave the EU),
(3) Pro-FPO in Austria, but
allegedly not (4) Pro-Trump in the U.S, despite Trump's strong pro-Putin stance.

If we only we could find the person or party Putin secretly supported in the U.S. in our national elections, that would surely be the enemy within.

The God that Failed

The American model for objective political journalism takes the he said/she said, both sides approach to every issue. Jay Rosen calls this the View from Nowhere. And nowhere is it more apparent than in the persistent adherence to this soft, hands-off approach followed by The New York Times.

This forced balance reporting falls easily into the horse race model for elections also decried by Rosen. After the horse race field is winnowed down by the primaries to two opposing main party candidates, one Democrat and one Republican, this archaic model can be strictly applied by political reporters.

And so NYT news analysis drifts easily into the headline: For a President Consumed With Winning, a Stinging Defeat. In it, Peter Baker writes:

"Democrats were not exactly gracious in victory, barely containing their delight. “Hopefully, it means a lesson has been learned: Shutting down government over a policy difference is self-defeating,” tut-tutted Mr. Schumer. “It accomplishes nothing but pain and suffering for the country and the American people.”

See what he did there? Government shutdown battles are a tug of war between the two sides. Trump "wanted" a wall and did not get it, so he lost. Nancy Pelosi held the Democrats in the House together, so she "won". She "defeated" Trump. But what did Pelosi win exactly? Getting the government running again, though weakened, falls short of the status quo before Trump/McConnell employed this tactic. That's no victory.

Suppose the goal of Trump is to disable the federal government so badly that the FBI and Justice Department are hamstrung in their investigations of him and his team. Suppose Mitch McConnell wants to disable the federal government so badly that most of the agencies fail in their mission and, when Democrats return to power, need to spend all of their energies just trying to revive the functioning of the government. And, in addition to wanting to weaken the Environmental Protection Agency, the Education Department, Housing and Urban Development, the Consumer Finance Protection Agency, isn't it obvious that a weakened IRS benefits Trump and the billionaires who financially support Republicans?

No, Pelosi has not won, if winning means gaining an advantage that you did not have previously. Pelosi and the Democrats have lost. Trump had no chance of holding the functioning of the U.S. government hostage and obtaining a legislative advantage. But he was able to hold the U.S. hostage with the aid of Mitch McConnell who held the Republican coalition in the Senate together for 34 days - long enough to inflict real damage on government and make skilled people think twice about going to work fot the feds and, for those who are good at their jobs, think twice about staying in those thankless roles when private industry beckons.

Peter Baker's "Democrats were not exactly gracious..." nonsense demonstrates his full commitment to the horse race, both sides, black and white winner/loser view of politics." At the NYT, the "barely containing their delight" take on the Dems is not the observation of an objective reporter. The NYT loves to refer to "gleeful" politicians. And for some reason, probably their commitment to "both sides" symmetry, Baker and many fellow reporters do not acknowledge the assymetry between Democrats and Republican on government shutdowns. Republicans are happy to engineer shutdowns, as noted above, to weaken the federal government to make a later cleanup by Democrats that much harder, but also to support and expand the cynicism of voters about the federal government. Baker's comment about Schumer's quote shows he has no understanding of the game theory dynamic of government shutdowns.  The NYT and Peter Baker do not and can not face the facts because it would force them to confront their perpetual devotion to the God of both sides symmetry - the God that failed.

The Selling of U.S. Foreign Policy

In "A Telling Reveal", Josh Marshall's take on Trump's response to a question on how the U.S. withdrawal from Syria will impact Israel winds up thus:

"The Saudis and the Israelis have been the pillars of a regional alliance that Trump has backed fulsomely. But reading the tea leaves here strongly suggests it’s the Saudis driving Trump’s policies in the region, with the Turks and the Russians playing a more contingent second role. Trump’s aggressive/defensive response to this question, and implicitly to Netanyahu, is quite telling."

But that is not quite accurate. Understanding Trump foreign policy in the traditional sense - separate from his personal financial interest - is a flawed approach. So discussing his policy " in the region" is always going to be off. He doesn't have a policy for "the region". He has a policy for "the family".

Trump's foreign policy caters first to those willing to pay - the oligarchs who have the power to confiscate wealth in their own countries - Putin and bin Salman (allied with UAE crown prince) - and who are not subject to the whims of an electorate. Erdogan, still consolidating power and not in the same category of excess wealth, is necessarily driven to a back seat. A second circle.

So the inner circle of corrupt exercise of power remains - Trump, bin Salman, Putin. That is the Triangular Alliance to watch. The strong alliance of bin Salman with UAE, reflected in their ability to act as surrogates for each other at meetings of the secret Trump alliances, counts those two as a single entity for this analysis.

Outside the inner circle, those jockeying for influence, often with success are Israel and Turkey.
Qatar, of course, qualifies as a player in Trump world because they have money to spend. But Qatar, as a rival of Saudi/UAE seems to have lost the battle for influence with Trump. Another big loser in this is Iran because the ascendance of the Saudis and the apparent decision by Putin to cut Iran loose to bolster Russian power and influence elsewhere in the Middle East as permitted by Trump.

Triangular Trade

The Daily Beast reports: Get Ready for Mueller's Phase Two: The Middle East Connection:

In court filings that are set to drop in early 2019, prosecutors will begin to unveil Middle Eastern countries’ attempts to influence American politics, three sources familiar with this side of the probe told The Daily Beast.

In other words, the “Russia investigation” is set to go global.

But the items Mueller is investigating have long been in the public domain, waiting for investigative journalists to connect the dots and ask questions.

"While one part of the Mueller team has indicted Russian spies and troll-masters, another cadre has been spending its time focusing on how Middle Eastern countries pushed cash to Washington politicos in an attempt to sway policy under President Trump’s administration."

OK, but from the moment Jared Kushner was appointed to seek "peace in the Middle East", questions should have been raised about team Trump's motivation. Jared Kushner was heavily in debt at the time and needed money. News accounts at the time generally ridiculed the selection of Kushner as Middle East envoy, but what if that was just a cover for doing family business in the region? The family Trump only cares about money, not the United States.

"Various witnesses affiliated with the Trump campaign have been questioned about their conversations with deeply connected individuals from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, according to people familiar with the probe. Topics in those meetings ranged from the use of social-media manipulation to help install Trump in the White House to the overthrow of the regime in Iran."

The article mentions Flynn's role working for Trump, meeting representatives of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

But then the article steps back slightly, before proceeding,

"Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, said it is unclear if Mueller’s team will unveil nefarious foreign activity beyond what normally occurs in Washington."

See what they did there? That's how balance works. Take two steps forward, then one step back. But treating Trump and his family as anything close to normal is actually irresponsible, given the extraordinary evidence of likely extreme wrongdoing. If Trump is so unlike any other president, why is it necessary to compare him with other presidents or "Washington" when sifting through the evidence?

The Daily Beast article mentions certain operatives - Zamel of Israel, and George Nader with ties to the Middle East,

"Mueller has also probed Nader’s role in the January 2017 Seychelles meeting between Prince and Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. In his House testimony, Prince said the meeting was a chance encounter and the two met to talk about trade and mineral wealth. But prosecutors this year received evidence that showed the meeting was premeditated. Communications reviewed by The Daily Beast reflect that narrative.

A memo shows the two spoke about a range of topics, including peace between Ukraine and Russia, military operations in Syria, investment in the Midwest, and nuclear weapons. Although RDIF is under U.S. sanctions, it was and is still legal for U.S. individuals to meet with Dmitriev, and, in some circumstances, do business with the fund."

The most telling evidence is the denials about the meetings. The famous Trump tower meeting of June 9, 2016 was supposedly about "Russian adoptions" according to Don Jr., Adoptions probably were mentioned because it was the least important topic discussed as part of removing U.S. sanctions in exchange for release of the emails and other favors.

And the January 2017 Seychelles meeting was initially described, in part, as a chance encounter. Look at the  attendees, per Vox:
Eric Prince
MBZ, or Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the crown prince of the UAE
George Nader
Kirill Dmitriev, manager of a $10 billion sovereign wealth fund

So, common sense tells you the meeting, held in the Seychelles just as Trump is assuming the presidency, takes place in the most remote possible place on earth because secrecy is paramount. The Russian representative is there to offer cash. The UAE representative (and Saudi ally) is there to offer cash. And Prince is there to accept cash for services.

This is just one of several "mysterious" meetings involving a representative of team Trump and representatives of at least two other countries with cash to give.

What better way to hide Trump's foreign policy for cash trades than to use multiple conduits - multiple countries - to conceal the transactions.

Trump has been so anxious to limit the Mueller probe to Russia. Not only has Trump traded foreign policy favors for cash from Russia. Not only has he traded with Saudi Arabia/UAE, playing them off against Qatar, but team Trump has conspired with Russia and Saudi Arabia (and possibly others) in concert.  His team has forged secret multi-state alliances of the U.S. with other countries that no other U.S. persons other than his family members know about.

Another interesting link between Russia and Saudi Arabia is Dimitry Rybolovlev.
Rybolovlev bought a Trump Florida estate for $95 million as the real estate market teetered that Trump had bought in 2004 for $41 million.
Ryboloblev bought the Davini for $125 million and sold it to a proxy for bin Salman for $450 million.  It had been appraised at about $100 million though doubts about its authenticity persist.

What better way to launder money than right there in the open. Would that Mueller or other authorities would investigate the "second" bidder who helped drive up the price of the Salvator Mundi at auction.

Then there is the other Trump tower meeting that is often overlooked. As reported by Seth Abramson  in Newsweek,
"A second area of inquiry involves spring 2018 reporting from the New York Times that on August 3, 2016, Donald Trump Jr. met in Trump Tower with George Nader, an emissary from the Crown Princes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates; Erik Prince, a Trump national security adviser and later an envoy from Trump to a top Russian oligarch; and Joel Zamel, an Israeli business intelligence expert with ties to both Russian oligarchs and Israeli intelligence officers. At the meeting, both Nader and Zamel offered collusive assistance to Trump’s campaign; according to the Times, Trump Jr. reacted favorably to both offers. Zamel, who had in the past attempted to recruit Trump national security adviser Mike Flynn into his intelligence-gathering outfit, offered Trump Jr. a clandestine propaganda and domestic disinformation campaign that mirrored the one Russian trolls ultimately delivered in the final three months of the general election."

George Nader and Erik Prince involved yet again. This time, Joel Zamel, a veteran of Israeli intelligence is there, but the Russian connections are represented by proxy - through Nader and Zamel.

Abramson continues:

"If the Steele dossier and relevant reporting since its January 2017 publication are to be believed, Kushner personally benefited from this collusion in the form of hundreds of millions in Qatari Investment Authority-backed loans. This means that not only Trump’s historically pro-Russia foreign policy, but also certain policy decisions Trump made in 2017 and 2018 that were favorable to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel must be investigated."

By all appearances, the secret triangular alliance among Trump/Putin?Saudi(with UAE) is supplemented by active measures to join by Israel and Turkey (more to come on that). The losers in all of this are the traditional U.S. partners in NATO, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and, by the way, the United States of America.

And don't forget that Trump found a way to eliminate the most experienced FBI investigators during the past two years: Comey, McCabe, and Strzok and has applied enormous pressure on the employment of Bruce Ohr.

Republicans Redefine Elections

"Stung by Election Losses, Republicans in the States Seek a Way to Neutralize Democrats" reads the NYT headline.

source: random house dictionary

"Stung by losses...". Think about the meaning of that purported objective news blurb.
Feeling hurt and sad, a little depressed perhaps - and only due to their hurt feelings, Republicans in the State legislatures that have a majority in the current lame duck session and, thanks to gerrymandering, in the upcoming legislative session, Republicans who received a minority of votes in certain states while maintaining a legislative majority, have passed laws that the current lame duck governor will sign, in order to eliminate gubernatorial powers that these Republicans want to deprive the newly elected governor - powers that the majority of voters were fine with - powers that these same Republicans were fine with, if and only if, the next governor was going to be a Republican.

Being "stung" asserts a feeling and that headline implies a cause and effect relationship. Only because of their hurt feelings, Republicans are doing things they might not otherwise do. The headline is subjective, not objective, a subjective thought that, according to NYT journalistic standards, belongs in an Opinion piece, not the headline to a hard news story. But the Times pulls back and casually observes each Republican step in its own solitary universe, without regard to a pattern of increasing anti-democratic behavior. How can we downplay this latest Republican maneuver in order to maintain our casual air of objectivity?

So voters in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Michigan are denied the fruits of their ballots because Republicans are willing to act against the majority to change the laws that control the separation of powers - the very functioning of State government. Reps are only able to do this because the government has lame duck sessions as a means of assuring a smooth transition between legislatures. The existence of the lame duck is based on a basic trust,  the proposition that we are all in this together, that no one would think to take advantage of the lame duck to thwart the will of the people expressed at the ballot. But that is yet one more step in the destruction of a functioning democracy.

Feeling hurt, wounded and in pain, Republicans ....

Why not "Desperate to hold onto their minority rule and thwarting the will of the majority of voters, Republicans in the legislature are usingthe lame duck session...." ?

Republican tactics that are used to hold on to power are becoming more extreme. The more extreme and dangerous the tactics, the more the NYT news writers feel compelled to downplay the gravity of the threat to democracy, ostensibly because objective news writers must sound calm. But if you try harder to appear calm than you try to be accurate, you will find that it becomes too late to fix your reporting because it is too late to do anything to save functioning democracy.

It's the Fact Pattern, Stupid!

Let's take a look at this tweet from Adam Goldman of NYTimes fame:

Mr. Trump is not the first president to appoint an ally with thin credentials to run the Justice Department: John F. Kennedy picked his brother, Robert. Nor is it unusual to staff government agencies with officials who bring vested interests to the job https://t.co/aZcziEa4xk

— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) November 10, 2018

Some of the replies are apt. What the Times might call "critics of Mr. Goldman go into detail about contrasts between Whitaker and Robert Kennedy with persuasive arguments, but the most compelling is "this is classic whataboutism". When the president does this, it's all about distraction, denial, deflection, and accusations. When a reporter does it on behalf of the President because NYT reporting standards so dictate, then he or she is carrying his water.

Goldman's tweet and the referenced article demonstrate the problem that false balance creates as it feeds into the favored narrative of this president. Clearly, the Times method of political reporting  requires looking at something Trump does and then, instead of a laser like focus on the context, dictates that they research comparable actions that a Democrat took as president. Due to the power of framing, magnified by any mention of the Kennedy's, this creates a greater persuader for the argument - See, the Democrats did it, so it is all right. And even if it's not all right, the Democrats do it and there is nothing you can do because that's politics. Or, more dangerously - "see, it happens all the time, so Trump is not as bad as you think, Democrats. And, moderate Republicans, nothing to worry about here - go back to your personal business and good times!"

The proper context requires reporting the nomination of Matthew Whitaker as part of a sequence of actions to quash Mueller's investigation. It's a fact pattern, stupid! Many of those steps were taken under false pretenses, which includes the firings of Comey, McCabe, and Strzok, and significantly, the appointment of Whitaker as AG Sessions' chief of staff a year ago.

A WaPo piece that places the Whitaker appointment in proper context ( and which could go much further, but for the constraints of space) is Aaron Blake's "Almost everything about Matthew Whitaker’s appointment is problematic". I know, it make's you wonder. You say, "Aaron, how is it you do not mention Bobby Kennedy in your article?"

Now, the NYT article by Mark Landler that mentions Kennedy, goes on to say, "...there was no precedent for installing a political crony as attorney general at the very moment he could decide the fate of a federal investigation involving the president." That's point, New York Times! You don't try to cram the facts into a story that forces balance between two equal and opposite sides in a never-ending search to report equivalance at all times in all things regardless of what the evidence tells us. Instead, examine the evidence and tell us what the truthful narrative is...which requires a careful examination of context. And you do not get to context by going back almost 60 years and starting a debate about the facts of that time and the story those facts may or may not tell, which may or may not compare in important ways.

The Incredible Lightness of Minimalism

Minimalism in journalism that is. Let me explain with an example.

Chris Hayes had Paul Campos on his MSNBC show last night to discuss Campos article in New York "Hey Look: More Evidence That Broidy May Have Been Covering for Trump in That Playmate Affair".

Campos lays out more indications to support the theory that Playboy model Shera Bechard was likely paid off by Trump/Cohen $1.6 million (quarterly payments still in process) to cover up Trump's role in an affair and her consequent abortion. See When News Becomes Opinion and Opinion Becomes News.

On the MSNBC show, Campos explains the basis for the theory, but he was quickly interrupted by Hayes who cautioned, (I paraphrase) "Wait a second. Let's get this straight. This is all just your theory, right? Based on circumstantial evidence." Campos agreed, but pointed out that the version offered by team Trump - four days after the raid on Michael Cohen's apartment - was accepted and reported as fact by the news organizations selected for the leak of the story. At that point, Hayes ignored Campos' point about the role of the news media, thus becoming part of the story of the failure of the news media.

Here's where the problem of minimalism comes into play. If Trump got a Playboy model pregnant and paid for her silence (and presumably the abortion), this could be a really big deal for his support among the Christian right (evangelicals and Catholics). And certainly would have been a very big deal just prior to the 2016 election. For the traditional media, the fact that the Trump role, if true, is so inflammatory raises the bar of scrutiny, subjecting the theory to a "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. Which is fine, but ignores the fact that the theory of an affair with Trump, not Broidy, is more credible, more plausible, than the claim that Broidy is "David Dennison" in this isolated case. It's minimalism in the sense that Chris Hayes came to a hard stop on the story because the evidence was circumstantial, despite where the preponderance of the evidence leads.

In other words, for the traditional news folks, if you are going to accept a leak from Team Trump on its face and report it as news, ignoring the consistent history of lies and fabrications, maybe because it "embarasses" someone (Broidy) in this case, you need to acknowledge that this approach has its shortcomings.

The traditional news media continues to be easily manipulated by Team Trump. The traditional journalistic model treats every story involving politics as a "he said/she said" story:

Step 1: "He said." Trump, Giuliani, or another Trump associate makes a statement that is treated as true by NYT, CNN, et al until and unless proven false. The proof of falsehood is made subject to fact checking. But the goal of team Trump to distract from the heart of the matter (whatever it is in each situation) has already been achieved. Traditional journalists still have no idea how to deal with this.

What I am calling "minimalism" is a lack of imagination tied to an antiquated standard that says political news reporters are not responsible for finding and reporting the truth - reporters are responsible for reporting "maybe facts" - claims and statements that reporters are to accept as true in an almost "hands off" manner, until and unless "fact checking" establishes otherwise, or the "other side" refutes them in a debate based on reason, supported by facts. But what if that reliance on reason by "all sides" never comes? What if one "side" is happy with their truth supported by their claims?

When News Becomes Opinion and Opinion Becomes the News

What do we mean when we call something "News"? We mean an accurate report on what is actually happening. And, to be good and reliable, we expect that reporting to be supported by facts and to support a true narrative.

Unfortunately, journalistic standards applied by the NYT and other outlets require a certain "stepping away" from the story if politics is involved, presumably because all political reporters are presumed to be ruled by uncontrollable political bias that inevitably warps their ability to practice their chosen profession.

The result is a lot of reporting on politics - labeled "news" that fails the "what is really happening" test. And reporting on politics that is speculative regarding "what is really happening" that an organization like the NYT would consider "opinion" but which is better labeled "news", but with a caveat that the reporting represents a "best guess".

A case in point appears in the current New York Magazine. Notably in some versions the title is "Another Trump Affair Coverup?" and in others, it's "Here's a Theory About That $1.6 Million Payout From a GOP Official to a Playboy Model" by Paul Campos."

NYMag;Broidy, Bechard, and the original "Dennison"

The author, Paul Campos, makes a compelling case that Playboy model Shera Bechard was paid off $1.6 million to cover up an affair and pregnancy with Donald Trump, not Elliott Broidy per the story "leaked" to the NYT, WSJ, and CNN. (Interesting aside: when Team Trump wants credibility, they still leak to traditional news organizations despite Trump's persistent accusations of "fake news".)

As Campos states on the Broidy allegation, "This is the story that was leaked to the Journal — and to the New York Times, and CNN, which the Journal beat to the punch by publishing it first. It has since been repeated as fact by just about every major media outlet in the country. But there are good reasons to consider whether it might not be yet another audacious lie from Trumpworld." (Note: The "audacious lie" would fit into the category of the "Silver Bullet" described in "Both Sides Don't Do It" - in this case a fabrication, whether credible or not, that can be used on its own to discredit a truthful narrative in favor of a false narrative."

Campos lays out cogent arguments every step by step - under the following headings - to a reasonable conclusion:
The New David Dennison Sounds Exactly Like the Old Donald Trump
Elliott Broidy Seems Exactly Like Someone Who Would Pay $1.6 Million to Protect a Lucrative Influence-Peddling Business
Who Is Shera Bechard More Likely to Date?
It Doesn’t Make Sense That Davidson Would Have Reached Out to Cohen
The Sum of the Settlement Is Fishy
Are We Really Supposed to Believe That Broidy Wanted Cohen to Represent Him?
Broidy’s Actions Don’t Add Up

The article is a must read, but all you really need for evidence is the sum of the settlement - $1.6 million - and the relative unknown Broidy whose actions don't add up -  Broidy paying so much hush money, but then jumping at the chance to disclose "his" affair at the earliest opportunity.

But the NYT reporting April 13th was completely credulous in "RNC Official Who Agreed to Pay Playboy Model $1.6 Million Resigns". Despite knowing that Team Trump lies constantly, the NYT took the story first published in the WSJ as fact, presumably because it was an admitted embarassment, never stopping to question whether the objective was to hide a much bigger, more plausible, and potentially devastating embarassment to POTUS.

As to that admitted embarassment - the WSJ reported that Bechard terminated the pregnancy while the NYT made no such mention. Was the NYT editorial decision that the outcome of the pregnancy was irrelevant to the story? Or was the NYT thinking that making the abortion part of the story might make the reader start to wonder whether $1.6 million to Bechard and $130,000 to Stormy Daniels means that $1.3 million is the price to conceal an abortion on behalf of a sitting president who counts on the support of conservative Christians. And the NYT prefers the minimalist approach to political reporting on Republican officeholders and candidates. Until we have incontrovertible proof of politically explosive information, we can not posit plausible explanations for certain behaviors. We must shy away from damaging or incriminating stories until we have proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

So this is yet another case of the failure of mainstream journalists to update their standards to better handle the endless stream of lying from the powers that be. In this situation, the proper response would have been - 'OK, we are getting this embarassing information now leaked from people who lie all the time. That was easy. Why now? Should we believe it? Might there be a motive to lie about this? What do we think is going on here?'

The willingness of the NYT and others to report claims made by this administration as fact makes journalists a powerful tool for deception in the arsenal of duplicitous politicians.

Oh well. Maybe next time. Not.

When Reporters are Accomplices

For journalism in modern America, false balance is the root of all evil. But false balance derives from "fair and balanced" journalism. So fair and balanced journalism is the source of all evil. How can that be? What can be wrong with fair? OK, nothing is wrong with fair. The problem is balance. But balance is not always wrong and balance in journalism worked pretty well in the 1970s. Times change.

Forcing balance in every news article about politics is a problem. Balance is not objectivity, but reporters try to use balance as a perfect proxy for objectivity. The fact that reporters on politics do this creates an opening that ruthless politicians and their allies at ruthless media outlets are willing to exploit to make the purveyors of false balance look and act like fools.

This site has many blog posts decrying False Balance. In our current political environment, with an extremist president and Congress, the failures of the false balance squad emerge in new formats.

Jay Rosen's "What savvy journalists say when they are minimizing Trump’s hate movement against journalists"
breaks this down for us with numerous examples, noting "To the uninitiated it may look like a fight. Actually, it's a dance, they tell us." and "For two years I have been tracking a speech pattern among American journalists, in which they try to explain to us — and perhaps to themselves — why Donald Trump’s campaign to discredit them is not what it seems, why it’s no big deal."

Several examples are taken from the some of the usual suspects from Politico, Vox, and ever the New York Times. Rosen's brief, trenchant essay culminates in:

"So that’s the pattern I wanted to show you. What are we to make of it? First, the speakers in this post make valid points. Among them are: 

* In Turkey journalists are being arrested. Independent media has been absorbed into the state. Nothing like that is happening in the U.S. 

* Journalists can still report freely and publish what they find. As far as we know, Trump’s worst threats on that score have not materialized. 

* The civic emergency created by Trump’s election has been good for the media business, and good for writers who wish to be read. 

* Reporters on the White House beat find sources eager to talk and an almost unlimited supply of big, important stories to chase. 

* Trump is desperate to be liked. He craves press attention. He is a media animal. These facts modify his public expressions of disdain for journalists. 

I do not contest the truth of these observations. Journalists are right to point them out, and we should factor them into our understanding of events. 

But I do dissent from the larger theme of a “phony war.” Something quite dangerous is happening. I have put my arguments for that proposition into an essay for New York Review of Books. You can read it here. It begins, “There is alive in the land an organized campaign to discredit the American press. This campaign is succeeding.” 

So what is going on here?

I would argue, by inference from these behaviors, that for the traditional, objective media, standards of reporting news about a president who appears to behave very badly require strict adherence to a standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt". That is, the more extreme Trump's behavior, the more compelled these reporters feel to report only the facts and deliberately avoid collecting those facts into identifiable patterns that would point to extreme levels of guilty intent.

And to the extent Trump's patterns of behavior, and those of his inner circle, appear to indicate malfeasance and criminal acts, the more inclined these reporters are to push themselves to concoct innocent explanations for these statements and actions. In order to be "unbiased", the so-called objective reporters act as proxies for the administration.

Basically, if it has not happened yet, it's not going to happen could be their motto. Reporters have not yet been locked up. Hillary Clinton has not been put in jail yet, so it could never happen and must be taken as a joke, or bad form.

The endgame may not be locking up journalists, but totally discrediting them. If the coalition of the Trumpanistas and loyalist Republican voters are able to maintain the electoral advantage through hook or by crook, then there is no need to lock up the journalists. Their articles can be called fake news when reporting is negative on Trump and Republicans and weaponized as "real" news when weaponized as balanced favorable reporting on Trump.

In a way, the situation reminds me of the days prior to the 1990 Iraq invasion of Kuwait when reporters briefed by "senior government officials" were told that Saddam Hussein was "saber rattling". News reporting at the time, at the NYT and other outlets, tended to accept the Bush administration depiction. Sure, that intelligence assessment might have been accurate, but simple common sense suggests that gradually amassing up to 100,000 troops and all of the necessary weapons of war along the border of a small country rich in oil is the logical first step to a rapid strike.

The Slow Turn to Reality Based Journalism

In The Democrats Are the Party of Fiscal Responsibility David Leonhardt writes that Republicans claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility, but they are not. Not only that, but as Leonhardt continues:

"Ever so slowly, conventional wisdom has started to recognize this reality. After Ryan’s retirement announcement last week, only a few headlines called him a deficit hawk. People are catching on to the con.

But there is still a major way that the conventional wisdom is wrong: It doesn’t give the Democratic Party enough credit for its actual fiscal conservatism."

What is this "conventional wisdom" of which he writes? Why it is the inevitable outcome of both sides journalism which has been a staple of NYT journalism basically forever.

Leonhardt, the NYT opinion writer is, one could say, "shocked, shocked that both sidesism has been going on here at the NYT." though he prefers to call this "conventional wisdom" or, most glaringly "the culture of bothsidesism."

source:tenor.com

Leonhardt has written about bothsidesism previously, so this is nothing new. But his persistent resistance to recognizing asymmetry between the behaviors of Republican and Democratic party operatives is alarming. He deserves recognition for documenting the pattern of Republican adminstrations that run up deficits vs. Democratic administrations that reduce deficits.

After presenting the case, Leonhardt wraps it up thus:
"So it would certainly be false to claim that Democrats are perfect fiscal stewards and that Republicans are all profligates. Yet it’s just as false to claim that the parties aren’t fundamentally different. One party has now spent almost 40 years cutting taxes and expanding government programs without paying for them. The other party has raised taxes and usually been careful to pay for its new programs.

It’s a fascinating story — all the more so because it does not fit preconceptions. I understand why the story makes many people uncomfortable. It makes me a little uncomfortable. But it’s the truth."

Notice the necessary nod to the "Democrats aren't perfect" as if we don't know that and need to hear it. Does Fox News attack Democrats and then say "Republicans aren't perfect". I don't think so.

But the big problem with this piece is there at the end:

"I understand why the story makes many people uncomfortable. It makes me a little uncomfortable."

Sorry, but that is a ridiculous statement that screams out that Mr. Leonhardt is OK with propagating a so-called "culture of false balance" even as he criticizes it. Because, not only are the tactics of Republican party operatives unlike those of Democratic operatives in significant ways, some of those Republican party tactics rely on acting in bad faith without regard to the truth as a central strategy AND those reprehensible tactics gain greater success precisely because the reality based journalistic institutions like the NYT are so reluctant to recognize and report on patterns of behavior that go against their own false premise that "both sides do it" in equal and opposite ways on all occasions.

Publications that are considered "liberal", like New York Magazine and Washington Monthly, among others, have been documenting false balance for some time as has NYT columnist Paul Krugman. The Times slow turn to recognize patterns of behavior as facts that need to be considered part of a truthful narrative due to the Times' adherence to the doctrine of false balance has meant that the so-called "liberal' journals have been faithful to the truth, and the Times, by bending over backwards to appear objective, has missed one of the big political stories of the past three decades.

Trump Believers

Jonathan Chait is on to something in I'm a Peeliever and You Should Be Too.

And you should be too. On to something that is.

Chait sets forth 5 reasons to believe the pee tape is real. But the point is not whether or not there is a pee tape with compromising images of Trump, or some other tape. Assuming that Russia has first hand evidence of collaboration with Trump going back years, they don't really need such a tape.

But there is a certain fascination with this one item in the Steele dossier.

Public controversy over the dossier (which is not a dossier, but a compilation of raw intelligence) has taken the form of our usual political debates.

For Trump and his defenders, if any allegation in the dossier is false, then all of the allegations in the dossier are false. This is, of course a logical fallacy. But logical fallacies are the currency of the realm.

Like Chait, I too was originally skeptical of the pee tape. The claim did not fit in with the tone and substance of other items in the dossier and seemed like a possible planted item, perhaps by a Russian operative who suspected or learned other Russians were leaking information to Steele. Whatever.

But one aspect of the pee tape stood out. When an accusation is leveled at Trump, his immediate reaction is to deflect attention away from himself. Deny, deflect, distract and, often accuse. Accuse Hillary. Accuse Obama. And so on.

Surprisingly, Trump kept the attention on the pee tape by offering evidence to demonstrate why the accusation was false. That behavior by Trump was shocking. Yet few, if any, news organizations caught on. Trump's failure to distract attention attention signals an important difference about the pee tape. Perhaps the accusation is true. Or, not true, but there is an underlying truth that the Russian government has different recorded evidence of misbehavior by Trump showing more disgusting behavior.

And, as a matter of interest, Trump reacted surprisingly to another Steele "dossier" allegation, presenting "evidence" that Michael Cohen never went to Prague in the summer of 2016 because he had examined Cohen's passport himself (never mind that Cohen could have multiple passports or that Cohen could travel to Prague on the ground and not have a passport stamp. The fact of Trump presenting "evidence" rather than dismissing the allegation out of hand is a tell, a giant red flag.

And now, apparently, there may be evidence that Cohen went to Prague after all.

What to Call a Counterprotester

What do the following headlines have in common?

"Demonstrators who brought guns and an opposing message 'shoot back'"

"Supporters of the Second Amendment staged counterprotests in state capitals and city centers"

They both introduce the same March 24, 2018 news article in the NYT, only varying depending on the format of the device used to access the article.

The first headline is fairly objective. But the second one uses a charged term that the gun people prefer when referring to their movement.

If the counterprotesters are "supporters of the second amendment", that would strongly suggest that the primary protest could be described as "opponents of the second amendment". But the truth is more complicated. The counterprotesters can be described as opponents of an assault weapons ban or opponents of restrictions on guns, but labeling them with the catchall term "supporters of the second amendment", while economical, casts the gun people as those on the constitutional high ground and the people in favor of reasonable restrictions on guns as somehow advocating illegality.

The NYT, as a purportedly liberal news organization, leans toward letting conservatives define themselves in order to maintain the appearance of objectivity. But this avoidance of faithfully reporting the news based on facts in context is a consistent point of failure.

In a similar vein, instead of reporting statements made by Trump and Republicans accurately, the Times will instead report that "Trump believes..." or "Ryan believes...". So, in any case where Trump or Ryan makes a tactical statement about policy that they do not actually believe, the Times takes them for their word. This faulty approach by the Times lends support to politicians who lie for effect.

More to come on this tactic and flawed reporting.

The Middle Ground is Unsafe

Josh Marshall makes an important point in The GOP and Big Lie Politics:

"The biggest impact of the Nunes Memo – and the accompanying wave of propaganda – is that conventional news and commentary is incapable of handling willful lying in the public sphere. This is a pattern we’ve seen again and again. It’s one of the hallmarks of this political age. It’s worth saying it again: conventional media is not equipped to deal with willful lying in the public sphere."

In this piece on Talkingpointsmemo, Marshall distinguishes between Fox's propagandistic reporting and reality-based reporting.  His first example of faulty reality-based coverage is Chris Cillizza . We have called out problems with Cillizza's reporting in Running on Empty and Confusion about Confusion. The problem with Cillizza is a tendency to lean to the middle in his analysis, which is similar to false balance.  False balance dictates that if you have a story that presents a narrative that seems to favor an outlook that is more to the left, then, as an "objective" reporter, you need to offer up your own arguments that might come from the "other side", regardless of  your own assessment of the reality. So it is a matter of saying - "here is the story from the left, but here is the story from the right." And the implication for the reader is OK, here are two stories and you decide which is faithful to the truth.

The problem with Cillizza is, like some other pundits, the inclination to head straight to a narrative that hugs the middle - sort of like the "Third Way".

TPM quotes Cillizza on CNN today:

"I think ultimately – I’m actually with [former Trump advisor Jason Miller] in that – I don’t know that either of these [memos] are the smoking gun that either side wanted. I know conservatives insist the Nunes memo – I shouldn’t lump them together – some conservatives think the Nunes memo, now that it has been released, proves once and for all that everything is totally fine and that Donald Trump is exonerated. I don’t think that’s so. I don’t think the Schiff memo is going to say, oh, my gosh, here it is, the smoking gun we have been waiting for."

But that mischaracterizes the reality by presenting a case of two dueling memos that start equally out of the gate, are both to be taken seriously on their own terms, and then the public decides what to believe based on these memos. The Democrat's memo was only necessitated by the Nunes memo. Democrats did not want to have to write any such memo. They are concerned with the danger of releasing classified information solely for rank political purpose. Nunes, of course, had to recuse himself early in the investigatory process when he was caught collaborating with the White House even as he was charged as head of the committee with leading the investigation. And so on. In this environment, Cillizza feels compelled to navigate to the middle.

TPM does not quite capture the worst problems with Cillizza, but Marshall's explanation of the problem of the reality-based press is expressed well, reading in part:

"This is actually quite black and white. There’s no evidence of politicized intelligence or law enforcement or counter-intelligence work at all. Actually not any. All the evidence is based on false claims, logical fallacies or intentionally misleading representations of how standard law enforcement procedures work. There’s also a high brow version of this which redirects the conversation toward longstanding and legitimate concerns about whether the FISA system is consistent with the rule of law in the first place. This is a grave error which only confuses the situation and makes general considerations about the rule of law into a tool of someone trying to trample on it."

By insisting on balance in reporting or, as in the Cillizza case, reporting directly from the middle as somehow representing the "safe ground", reality-based reporters, even while acting in good faith, fail miserably because bad actors - think Fox News - can so easily outmaneuver their definition of objective journalism.

Another recent example of the weakness of the objective journalists is illustrated by the NYT piece:

How Our Reporter Uncovered a Lie That Propelled an Alt-Right Extremists Rise

Despite recent history the Times still believes that calling out a lie matters - in this case, a neo-nazi's lie claiming military service in Iraq and doubling down on the lie when caught (remind you of anyone?) As if that matters. The nazi's followers are supposed to care about the lie and, what, ask him about it? Stop following him? Stop being neo-nazis? Sorry NYT, that is not how this works.  He got himself a profile in the Times. That's all that matters.

What did the Times expect?

The Times reporter tells us:

I had pictured the phone call going a lot of different ways, but I hadn’t quite prepared for this.

I thought he might swear at me and then hang up. Maybe he would try to turn the conversation around, attacking me and the credibility of The New York Times. Or maybe he would become contrite and emotional, and finally answer some real questions. But I never thought he would just deny it."

Contrite and emotional? Really?

Unfortunately, at the NYT, reporters are slow learners. They have been so steeped in their belief of a rational universe, that they can not believe that the world is populated by vast numbers of basically irrational people who begin with a strongly held belief and then collect facts (or lies, it doesn't matter which) to support that belief and who feel free to rely on logical fallacies to inform their views.

Will the NYT ever learn? Will Chris Cillizza? Not likely. Not any time soon.

But I'm a Republican!

What's happening in America today is like a slow motion train wreck when the engineer is drunk,  the brakes fail, and the cars head toward a bridge that has just collapsed into a lake. When so much goes wrong at once, if we try to understand what happened, the blow by blow of the cars collapsing on one another as they plunge into the lake does not help us understand.

Much of our current political analysis goes into detail about the awfulness of the current situation, but separating the key elements of the continuing tragedy from other significant factors is difficult, now that so much has gone wrong. Some commentators finish their essays with "This will not end well." But a fair question to that would be - "What makes you so sure this will end?".

Amanda Carpenter writes in Politico "I'm a Republican. Why is My Party Gaslighting America?" OK, but a better question might be, "What Took You So Long to Notice?". Carpenter was communications director for Ted Cruz and wrote speeches for Jim DeMint.

One problem is the title of the piece. Saying "I'm a Republican" is supposed to lend greater credibility to Carpenter than we should afford any person who is a Democrat because she is supposedly going against an established bias. But that logic fails in several ways. The same logic argues that she worked for Ted Cruz, who was the last man standing in the Republican presidential primaries against Trump. The article even notes Trump's attack on Cruz's father, but could also note the attacks on Cruz' wife. If "I am a Republican" is supposed to signify credibility, then similar logic can be employed to counter argue "I am a Ted Cruz operative and therefore any of my criticisms of Trump can not be believed." So credibility needs to be based on a record of, well, credibility, not membership in a particular group.

And, to take this same point, further - ad nauseum - then Rod Rosenstein can be called a "Democrat from Baltimore", which is false on both counts and lifelong Republican Mueller can be accused of favoring the Democrats. Anyone who challenges those claims is suspect. Which leads to anyone who challenges the current occupant of the White House is suspect. Which is how we lose the rule of law and ultimately end up with an autocracy.

If we want to take note of membership in a particular group, we might better pay attention instead to the fact that Amanda Carpenter is only the latest in a growing list of conservative Republican political operatives and former officeholders who are willing to call out Trump for the horror that he represents. These people are to be believed not because they are Republicans, but because their arguments, supported by the facts, make sense!

False balance got us into this mess. Not because balance as a starting point is bad, but balance has its limits. When bad actors are willing to stretch the rules and norms of behavior and behave indecently, efforts at balance become strained.  Political reporters ignore known facts and prior and current patterns of behavior. What if this time, everything that is happening is unlike anything that has ever happened in the past? Assuming that is possible - how could that be impossible? - assuming that is possible, forcing balance becomes false and provides support for deliberately false narratives. The false narrative is taken seriously, sucking energy away from truthful narratives, effectively equating a web of lies with a carefully developed honest story.

Nevertheless the Carpenter article is helpful because it adds to the growing chorus of Republican operatives who are quite conservative, complaining about the Republican-led Congress that is ditching democratic institutions in order to buttress the looming Trumpian autocracy. And Carpenter makes a valuable contribution to public understanding by noting Trump's use of vagueness as a weapon in his arsenal - referring to Trump's penchant throughout his career of "casting vague aspersions". Vague accusations are tougher to rebut precisely due to their vagueness.

And finally she highlights the use of the false narrative as a weapon. When the truth is your enemy, only false narrative can save you. In the case of Trump, there is no detailed story that is any way believable and supported by evidence that can depict him as an innocent party. The only way to buttress his story is to avoid telling it completely and distract with lengthy conspiracy theories about anyone who opposes him.  Obama. Clinton. That worked for a while, but is being stretched thin. So it became Comey and McCabe. But that is not enough. Rosenstein is at risk and, of course, Mueller. For anyone who has not himself committed crimes, supporting Trump through all of this requires an observer to ignore this Trumpian pattern of behavior that has extended to Republicans in Congress.

This is not going well.

Next up: Suspending the 2018 elections as a "temporary" measure.

Family Ties or Son of From Russian With Love

The New York Times loves comparing presidents with other presidents. From this perspective, every action by Trump, in order to be understood and evaluated, needs to be compared with the action of a different president, usually beginning with a president of the opposing party and usually more recent to be considered most relevant. As a result, the NYT feeds the Trumpian narrative of blaming Obama for anything bad and taking credit for anything good.

The NYT takes this one step further, adding greater historical perspective in They Were Bad. He May Be Worse, an Opinion piece by historian Sean Wilentz.

The problem with comparing Trump with past presidents, the Times is telling us that past is prologue, there is a spectrum, and we can begin a reasoned analysis by assuming that Trump falls somewhere within that established spectrum.

But what if Trump is the first president who comes into office as the head of an extensive family-run, Russian-backed criminal enterprise. Current investigations, if allowed to proceed, may demonstrate that Trump and his family are dependent on a powerful foreign adversary, a billionaire who controls a vast criminal enterprise of oligarchs and crime families. That is, of course, Putin.

Any opinion article that compares Trump with other U.S. presidents that ignores the possibility (really the likelihood) that Trump is a money launderer for Russian criminals effectively normalizes Trump even while pretending to criticize him with comparisons to the worst presidents.

Trump is the first president who has no background in government or experience as a general in the military. He bears no resemblance to prominent business people in the U.S. by temperment, intellect, or other indicators of capability. If we need to make historical comparisons for better understanding, let's start with organized crime families or other masters of extensive criminal enterprises and then ask, why was no mafia head never president of the U.S.?