When Did The News Become the news?

Maybe it was always thus. Maybe the news media and the news were always Clark Kent and Superman but they at least wore glasses and pretended to be separate and distinct characters. 

Maybe the Cronkites and the Bradlees and the Sulzbergers were not essentially different from their descendants, but they at least pretended to be reporters. Maybe they were just a little more suave, a little more subtle, a little more sophisticated. None of them ever proclaimed, "I am Kal-El and I come from the planet Krypton!" Maybe they were just good at keeping secrets to themselves.

Can we pinpoint when the News became the news? I cannot do so but I can tell you it was a fairly recent phenomenon. If I were pressed to give an immediate answer I would say that holes appeared in the dike during the Reagan Administration and the dam broke in 2008. At any rate, the dam did break and the fourth estate flooded all those other estates as well. 

Sometimes a snap shot tells the story better than a video. The ever-insightful, always profound, always truthful Daniel Greenfield offers a revelation that succinctly captures the state of American news media.

But this time the media wasn’t just manufacturing a messaging consensus through its echo chamber. Instead it was directly involved in a conspiracy that eavesdropped on the political opposition and that is attempting to overturn the results of the 2016 election using not only dirty tricks, but the government.

Media smears are nothing new. Media coups are a whole other thing.

James Clapper, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, allegedly coordinated with CNN. And then took a job at CNN. Clapper isn’t alone. Obama’s CIA boss, John Brennan, is over at NBC News. Josh Campbell, Comey's assistant, is at CNN. The three arms of the Deep State offer interchangeable employment. Much as Fusion GPS was paying the wifeof a top DOJ official to investigate Trump.

This is what organizational integration looks like. And that’s what a Deep State looks like.

CIA or CNN? Who can tell the difference?

The investigation of the investigation has made it very clear that top CIA and FBI people were coordinating with the media. When CNN knows what’s going on at the FBI, that’s a leak. But when the FBI knows what’s going on at CNN, that’s close coordination.  

Spygate depended on close coordination between Clinton’s people, the media and Obama’s intel folks. But it was the media that lubricated the alliance of the Democrat Deep State behind the coup.

Why Have The Democrats Given Up On The Moral High Ground?

I lifted the graphic from Reuters, via Pacific Pundit. According to a poll that probably over-sampled Dems, the Republicans now hold a 6.2% lead over their arch-rivals in Congressional races.

Usual caveats. A a lot can happen between now and November. The GOP has blown slam dunks before. Your mileage may vary.

With the fine print out of the way, I filed the blue wave reports in the drawer with Nate Silver's election night predictions. And as Spygate unravels, Independents, some Democrats and possibly even one or two Never-Trumpers will sour on the Democrat Party. A growing number of voters are disgusted with the Obama/Clinton Crime Cartel and the Dems are not trying to win them over.

Not that the Dems have a rightful claim to the moral high ground but they always recognized its advantages and by fraud or foolishness they would play a mean game of King of The Hill. Usually, it was about the children. The women. The poor. Not that they cared about members of these groups but they always expressed their unending concern for them anyway. The Dems seemed to understand that their moral superiority was NOT self-evident to everyone and they pressed on tirelessly with their conspicuous compassion. 

Today's Democrat sees no need to wrestle for moral superiority. Their virtue is axiomatic. It is so obvious and so unending, there is no need to sell its existence to a larger audience. With each skin of the onion, with each display of corruption,with each revelation of Obama spying, the Dems never see the need for damage control.

 Yes, there are distractions like porn stars and Robert Mueller and the umbrage that comes from a brash man calling gangsters animals. Yes, these are attacks on Trump to establish the moral upper hand but it is all negative. More limbo than pole vault. Not even an effort to say, "We are so wonderful." 

Clapper is a serial perjurer, so ask CNN to hire him as a blather boy.  If Comey is a crooked cop, make sure he lands an ethical leadership gig and gets plenty of airtime for his silly ass book. If John Brennan is a Commy thug who abused his powers in a big, big way, who cares? These guys are overdue for the landfill and the Democrats put them on their coffee table. Don't mind the smell.

When Richard Nixon's White House was caught in acts of wrongdoing that were trivial by comparison to the crimes of the Obama Administration, the GOP did not circle the wagons for their miscreants. They recognized that Attorney General John Mitchell was a crook and they allowed him to be treated as such. On the Senate floor, Republican Howard Baker famously asked, "What did the president know and when did he know it?" When it had become obvious that the president had lied to the citizenry, Senator Barry Goldwater privately asked him to resign. 

One could make the cynical case that the actions of Watergate-era GOP were motivated by political calculations and not displays of moral clarity. Point taken. To that one could counter that The Republicans had the good sense to distance themselves from bad actors. Take out the trash, move on and six years later Ronald Reagan would be on his way to the White House. Whatever the motive, the Republicans never conceded the moral high ground.

I used to think the Dems would always have an advantage because they were, on average, smarter than Republicnas. That changed. Not sure when it changed, but change it did.  Unless and until the Dems distance themselves from thugs and thuggery, there will be no blue wave.