If you are a serious person interested in good government, no matter what your ideology or party preference might be, you are being played.
See, for example, the contrived “scandal” concocted last week by the establishment news media in conjunction with their Democrat allies about Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
There was no new information, and the information reported did not actually constitute news. But President Trump had just delivered a game-changing speech before Congress that inspired the country and showed him to be worthy of their confidence.
The partisan Democrat news media could not allow that to stand.
So, enter the New York Times and the Washington Post with their contrived scandal.
During Sessions’ confirmation hearings, he was asked during questioning about his activities on behalf of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, whether he had been in contact with the Russians. He said he had had no such communications.
And, in fact, there is not a single shred of evidence that contradicts this testimony when taken in context.
But he did not add the redundant phrase “on behalf of the Trump campaign” when he said he’d not had any contacts with the Russians during questioning about his activities on behalf of the Trump campaign.
So, the establishment news media, sensing a “gotcha” opportunity against a member of the Trump administration, created a narrative that two meetings Sessions had had last year with the Russian ambassador as a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee proved him to have committed perjury and maybe even treason.
To any serious person, regardless of ideology, this would not constitute a story worthy of ink on any page. But to the Democrats’ partisan news media, it was a front-page above-the-fold four-alarm Watergate-level scandal. And to the Democrats in Washington, it was an opportunity to demand that an attorney general whom they already reviled for his conservative ideology resign.
President Trump has been through all of this before, of course. In fact, this is the routine treatment given him by the Democrat partisan establishment news media.
So early in his presidential campaign he devised a way to deal with these kinds of attacks by the hostile news media: He tweets out a message that is so shocking and provocative that the news media, in all of their hate for him, can’t resist swarming to cover it to try to portray him as an idiot.
What Trump knows and the news media have never figured out is that Trump’s supporters see the news media for the hostile enemies that they are, and so when the news media attack Trump, his supporters just roll their eyes and reflexively double down in their support for him.
So, in the wake of the news media’s contrived scandal regarding Jeff Sessions, President Trump sent out one of his patent-pending distract-the-news-media-and-change-the-narrative tweets – this time alleging that former president Barack Obama ordered Trump Tower to be wiretapped during the campaign.
True to form, the news media reflexively swarmed all over it demanding evidence that Trump has thus far been unwilling or unable to provide. In fact, it’s doubtful that he has any such evidence because proving scandalous conduct by Obama was never Trump’s objective.
He achieved his real objective. He played both the establishment news media and his own supporters.
Jeff who?
So now we’ve got the Democrats screaming for an independent counsel to investigate alleged collaboration between Russia and the Trump campaign based on nothing but unsupported innuendo by the Democrats themselves and their loyal news media.
And we’ve got Republicans screaming for an independent counsel to investigate alleged wiretapping of Trump and his campaign by President Obama and his partisans based on nothing but unsupported innuendo by Mr. Trump himself and some of his own partisans.
What we don’t have is serious news reporting, serious governance, or even a serious public discussion.
We are all being played.
Author: Ken Falkenstein
Ken Falkenstein is the Managing Editor of Committed Conservative and brings a wealth of experience and expertise in public affairs to the job. Ken served in the U.S. Army in the last years of the Cold War as a Russian linguist for military intelligence and the NSA. After leaving the Army, he earned his degree in Secondary Education from Old Dominion University, where he also wrote a popular column in the student newspaper.
Upon graduation, Ken worked as a Legislative Aide to two Republican members of the Virginia House of Delegates. Ken also served as Corresponding Secretary of the Young Republican Federation of Virginia, managed several successful political campaigns, and managed governmental affairs operations for a local Realtor association.
In 1995, Ken moved to Washington, DC to serve as a Legislative Assistant to Sen. John Warner (R-VA). While working for Sen. Warner, Ken attended law school at night, earning his J.D. with honors from the George Mason University School of Law (n/k/a The Antonin Scalia Law School). Since that time, Ken has practiced as a civil litigation attorney, including serving for three years as an Associate City Attorney for the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Ken previously was a contributor to the highly-regarded political blog Bearing Drift and was a weekly co-host of The Steve Batton Radio Program. In 2016, Ken ran unsuccessfully for the Virginia Beach School Board. Ken is also a former President of the Down Syndrome Association of Hampton Roads.
Ken now lives outside of Denver, Colorado with his wife, Kim, and three sons, Adam, Dylan, and Joshua, who has Down syndrome. Ken’s writing is motivated and informed primarily by his concern for his kids’ future.
