Yesterday’s release of John Durham’s investigation of the investigation report was Breaking News on all the major news channels. Officially the report is called REPORT ON MATTERS RELATED TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AND INVESTIGATIONS ARISING OUT OF THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS. Unofficially, it was a Trump directed, via Bill Barr, special counsel investigation of the FBI investigation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as it involved the Russian government and its agents.
Confused yet? The resultant 306-page report cost taxpayers $21,241.83 per page. Taxpayers got a slightly better deal as there were more pages to the report that will remain secret due to their source material coming from FISA authorities, i.e.., “it’s classified.” If you wish to see these classified materials, you will either need to get a security clearance or a job as a caddy at the Mar a Lago Resort where their Caddyshack has an unabridged classified documents library. There, the classified portion of the Durham Report can be found on the shelf next to the gopher poison.
My observation here has nothing to do with the meat of the report but with the coverage by the top three (?) cable news channels. As this story broke in the media, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News all interrupted their regular broadcasts to report that, at that moment, they knew absolutely nothing and had not yet read the report. Each news source did, however, have an opinion as to what was or might be contained in the report and they would share their views ad nauseam with their viewers.
The meat in this report, according to Fox News, was a thick juicy tenderloin complete with a loaded baked potato, side salad, and a delightful Cabernet Sauvignon. Over on CNN, they were reporting on a Big Mac with fries and a chocolate shake. MSNBC was reporting what they knew to be fact, and they described it as a tofu patty served in a Buddha bowl with quinoa and stir-fried vegetables.
Yes, true to form, Fox News said that the Durham report all but declared Trump to be the de facto winner of the 2020 election, the new king of America, and the Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of the International Order of Friendly Sons of the Raccoons, as he was completely exonerated of any wrongdoing by asking for Russian help with the election. It must be assumed that they were busy with a traffic report when Trump asked, “Russia if you’re listening — I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”
On CNN, I heard that Republicans would be rejoicing in the streets with the release of this long-awaited report, as it surely excoriated the FBI and their overreach in this matter. They went on to confuse viewers with conflicting announcements while their on-air talking heads were trying to report the breaking news, read the report during ad breaks, and listen to the people in their earpieces telling them what they just learned. While they were describing their “Big Mac with fries” the picture they were painting was more like a Salvador Dali rendering of a Mcdonald's poster. CNN seems to be searching for a new identity and they are hoping to offer a life raft to the disenchanted rats swimming away from the sinking Fox News ship.
MSNBC had their "ever-handy team of experts on all matters of any importance," pontificating on the report. In their view, it was a “nothing burger” as there was no more beef here than in a tofu patty. They claimed that “bull” Durham spent 4 years and only managed to get one FBI employee convicted of an overstatement in an email for which he had to do 400 hours of community service. Two other trials resulted in not-guilty verdicts.
If, like me, when you first heard that the Durham report was just released and said, “Who?”, you can feel justified in knowing that this all goes back more than six years. During the campaign that culminated in the November 2016 election of Donald Trump, members of the Trump campaign “spoke” to Russians, some of whom were government agents (spies). They shared campaign information. Several investigations were initiated after the FBI concluded the 9+ month Crossfire Hurricane investigation, one of which was the special counsel Robert Mueller investigation which resulted in a 448-page report that convicted Paul Manafort and got guilty pleas from Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, Alex van der Zwaan, George Papadopoulos, and Richard Pinedo. Then there was Roger Stone who was convicted of seven felonies but was pardoned by Trump days before he was to report to jail to serve his 40-month sentence. This was the outcome from the Mueller Report where he was hamstrung by DOJ policies that prohibited him from charging the sitting president. The Mueller Report got 30 people indicted, including four members of Trump’s campaign team or administration, 26 Russians, and three Russian companies.
I “glanced” at a CNN-provided copy of the Durham report and concluded that, if you remove the footnotes, references to work by other people, government BS, and legal doublespeak, the whole document would be a ten-page book report that might get a C-. Rating it as a Trump-sponsored hatchet job of the FBI, I would give it an Incomplete. As to Crossfire Hurricane, I give the FBI an A+ for clever inspirational naming. I don’t know what a crossfire hurricane is, but it certainly sounds exciting.
To the cable news media, struggling CNN and Fox seem to be bailing their lifeboats with a sieve. MSNBC gets a C+ for making the early tofu patty call regarding the meat content of the story, but they will still pound this nothing-burger into the sidewalk until it is pre-empted by another Texas mass shooting or an interesting Tik Tok video of a cat chasing a laser pointer.
For those of you of a certain age who may have gotten the above reference to the International Order of Friendly Sons of the Raccoons, you also know the name Ralph Kramdon. I will leave you with a bit of trivia I stumbled upon when researching this post. It is the list of benefits and privileges bestowed upon anyone winning Raccoon of the Year:
- Opening the first clam at the annual clambake;
- Steering the boat on the annual ride up the Hudson River to Raccoon Point;
- Free burial with a spouse at Raccoon National Cemetery in Bismark, North Dakota;
- Opportunity to run for Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler;
- Throwing the first bag of water out of the hotel window at the Raccoon convention.
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