Last Call For It's Probably Obama's Fault

Our increasingly worthless media has decided that there has to be a close race whether the race is actually close doesn't matter, and that means both attacking Democrats, and as Frank Bruni of the NY Times does today, enable Trump by making excuses for his awful behavior.

Did Democrats cry wolf so many times before Trump that no one hears or heeds them now?

That’s a question being asked with increasing frequency, though mostly in conservative circles and publications. An essay by Jonah Goldberg in National Review in late July had this headline: “How the Media’s History of Smearing Republicans Now Helps Trump.”

In Commentary, Noah Rothman has repeatedly examined this subject. He wrote back in March that when “honorable and decent men” like McCain and Romney “are reflexively dubbed racists simply for opposing Democratic policies, the result is a G.O.P. electorate that doesn’t listen to admonitions when the genuine article is in their midst.”

“Today,” he added, “they point and shout ‘racist’ into the void, but Democrats only have themselves to blame for the fact that so many on the right are no longer listening.”

I think he’s being more than a bit disingenuous about the potential receptiveness of the right — or the left — to anything that the other side says in this polarized, partisan age. There hasn’t been all that much listening for some time.

Also, the Democratic condemnations of McCain and Romney weren’t as widespread and operatic as the ones of Trump.

And this is a two-way street. Republicans paint a broad spectrum of Democrats as socialist kooks, and Obama has been as strong a magnet for hyperbole as any politician in my lifetime. Let us not forget Dinesh D’Souza’s 2010 book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” or Newt Gingrich’s assertion that “only if you understand Kenyan, anticolonial behavior” can you grasp Obama’s method of governing, or Trump’s insistence that Obama produce his American birth certificate.

The sad truth is that we conduct the bulk of our political debate in a key of near-hysteria. And this renders complaints of discrepant urgency, about politicians of different recklessness, into one big, ignorable mush of partisan rancor.

Both sides are awful, so what can you do?

Bruni does go on to say that Republicans are attacking Trump, so maybe, maybe the characterization of him by Democrats has some small merit, but that's as far as he's willing to go.  Being mean to Mitt Romney after all is what created Trump, apparently.

That's a nice argument if you're a puerile child, but out here in reality when Trump is repeatedly saying how he'll round up and deport millions of people, at some point the blame for Trump's rancid rhetoric has to be assigned to Trump, as well as the party that nominated him.

And that's the blame Bruni is trying to dodge.

Shoot The Mess, Assange-r

Can we stop pretending that WikiLeaks isn't a pro-Russian, pro-Trump outfit trying to affect the election and US politics in general, and that Julian Assange is far from a neutral, objective voice here?

In an interview with New York Times investigative reporter Jo Becker on Wednesday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange accused the press of supporting Hillary Clinton, whom he likened to a “demon.” 

“The American liberal press, in falling over themselves to defend Hillary Clinton, are erecting a demon that is going to put nooses around everyone’s necks as soon as she wins the election, which is almost certainly what she’s going to do,” Assange said in the interview, which was broadcast live Wednesday on Facebook. 

Hey Julian, I know you're not from around here, but let's talk about American history and the use of "nooses around everyone's necks" as far more than just hyperbolic imagery, especially when it comes to black folk.  See, saying Hillary Clinton is going to lynch people is really not the term you want to use in a country where black people were strung up and publicly hanged by the hundreds as recently as my parents' lifetime.  This wasn't figurative of symbolic, this was literal.  I'm offended by you using that, and I have to assume that someone who has spent years as an information broker and prophet of the power of words used that sentence entirely on purpose.

WikiLeaks has already aimed to influence the 2016 election. In July, the organization released a trove of emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee’s servers that showed Democratic staffers criticizing Sen. Bernie Sanders. Assange has defended the release of the emails, which prompted a flurry of resignations within the DNC. Assange has been accused of helping fuel conspiracy theories about the circumstances surrounding the death of Democratic staffer Seth Rich, who was killed in a mugging earlier this year. 

In Wednesday’s interview, Assange said WikiLeaks is impartial. He also reiterated earlier statements that he would publish more information about the 2016 election in the future.

Impartial, but more than happy to make damaging leaks against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party, and promising more such damaging leaks before Election Day.  You know, that kind of impartial.

“We have a range of information related to the U.S. election and a number of different institutions,” he said, when Becker asked whether the organization would release information damaging to the Clinton Foundation. 

Some critics have accused the WikiLeaks editor in chief of trying to undermine the Clinton campaign in an effort to help Donald Trump’s campaign and advance Russia’s political interests. (Russian hackers are widely suspected to be behind the DNC email hack.) Assange has denied the claims and in the interview said the concerns over Russia’s involvement are “neo-McCarthyist hysteria.”

This is exactly the tack Double G has taken this week: if you mention the numerous Russian connections that Donald Trump, Julian Assange, or Edward Snowden have to Vladimir Putin, you're now automatically dismissed as a "Clinton neo-McCarthyite".

So there's something a lot bigger going on here with Assange and his little info shop. But mention it and you're instantly pegged as the new Tailgunner Joe.

So Hillary Clinton Was In Cincinnati...

While a lot of the attention yesterday was on Donald Trump's disastrous trip to Mexico to meet with President Nieto, followed by Trump's truly scary calls in Phoenix for a mass deportation force to round up millions, Hillary Clinton was here in downtown Cincy speaking to the annual American Legion conference and providing a major contrast with actual foreign policy leadership as opposed to Trump's inchoate screaming.

Donald Trump's visit to Mexico Wednesday serves as an example of the way a Trump presidency would undermine the U.S.'s leadership as an "exceptional" nation, Hillary Clinton told veterans Wednesday.

Clinton censured Trump for "trying to make up for a year of insults and insinuations by dropping in on our neighbors for a few hours and then flying home again," as her Republican opponent headed to Mexico to test his diplomatic prowess in a visit with the country's president.

Trump has criticized some Mexican immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally, and his signature campaign issue has been his pledge to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and persuade Mexico to pay for it.

"That's not how it works," Clinton said of diplomacy and international leadership. Still, she avoided the jokes and mockery she sometimes uses when criticizing Trump and avoided saying his name in her speech to the American Legion gathering – a group that included some Trump supporters – at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati.

Clinton carefully pitched her foreign policy, you know, the one that doesn't include the absolute fantasy of a massive multi-billion dollar wall and an army of ICE deportation goons.

In Cincinnati, Clinton argued Trump has rejected American exceptionalism, the notion that the U.S. has a special role in the world as a leader and purveyor of democracy. The principle has traditionally been championed by Republicans, whom Clinton is trying to woo, and Trump has drawn on the principle in some ways, such as by insisting that America strive to become "great" again.

But Trump generally has opposed the use of the term and rejected the principle that the U.S. is better than other countries, to whom he routinely says the U.S. is losing.

"My opponent is wrong when he says that America is no longer great," Clinton said Wednesday, echoing the feelings of many devotees of American exceptionalism. They advocate for more engagement of the U.S. internationally to spread democratic ideals, while Trump has often taken a more isolationist approach.

That approach would hurt the U.S.'s standing, Clinton said, vowing to keep the U.S. the "greatest country on Earth."

“Our power comes with a responsibility to lead humbly, thoughtfully and with a fierce commitment to our values," she said. "When America fails to lead, we leave a vacuum.”

Trump will be in town today to address the American Legion, so I'd stay out of downtown if I were you.

StupidiNews!

• In a strident speech in Phoenix last night, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump promised once again to deport millions of people from the US within hours of taking office if elected.
• The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld an Arizona ruling that a gun store owner can deny selling firearms to people with medical marijuana cards.
• Reuters is reporting that the Iranian nuclear deal included some "secret" exemptions  in order for Tehran to be able to meet conditions of the agreement.
• 2016 was a lousy summer for movies with at least nine major summer releases losing at least $60 million each as moviegoers avoided both sequels and remakes.
• Science host Bill Nye will be getting his own talk show in 2017 thanks to Netflix, where he will take on science claims from religious leaders, politicians, and the corporate world.