In a purely self-serving ploy, I want to start with a little passage from my “Or, the FBI Is Lying” post from this last February:

At this point I am reflexively reminded of a strange tale from the late 1990s when (if I recall correctly) a married couple just happened to be out on one of their frequent evening drives around rural Georgia where they enjoyed listening to the various wireless phone signals for which their car just happened to be equipped to detect. It seems they came across a strategy call among Speaker Gingrich and his cohorts. Thankfully, this couple also just happened to have equipment for recording these signals and did so. Additionally, this couple just happened to be Democrat Party informants, so they delivered their recording rather directly to the DNC where is made some measure of “breaking news” for quite a few cycles…and the miraculously complex “just happened to” details behind the origin of the recording were quickly pushed out of the story. (That is all from memory…feel free to correct or add to the story as you wish.)

For the record, the couple was actually from Florida — my memory isn’t what it used to be.

I will leave it to you to go back to review the details of the context for recounting that back in February but the greater point centered on just how easy it is for narrative driving headlines to be planted into the breaking news cycle so that We the People can be quickly led by the nose down the desired narrative path and away from extremely suspicious (as in “not believable”) back story used as the delivery mechanism.

I jumped at the chance to re-use the story above just because I cannot resist highlighting when any somewhat obscure reference that I tend to use is also used by actual smart people. This example ties to an Instapundit posting this morning that uses the faked story about the Florida couple’s recording to provide the obvious answer to this timely question:

Is it conceivable that spying on GOP personnel is now standard practice in Washington in order that conversations can be leaked to the media and be amplified for political purposes?

And, as always, Professor Reynolds provides the correct answer:

OH, IT’S MORE THAN CONCEIVABLE

The question comes from an American Thinker column titled “We need to talk about Kevin McCarthy” that discusses the leaked phone conversation between McCarthy and the Left’s favorite new tool, Liz Cheney. Of course, “Cheney has denied leaking the conversation.” Well, while probably true, that is both convenient and irrelevant. The point is that it was recorded, ordered/approved to be leaked, and leaked by someone. The extended quote around the relevant question is :

Is it conceivable that spying on GOP personnel is now standard practice in Washington in order that conversations can be leaked to the media and be amplified for political purposes? That would be undemocratic and unfortunate. It would place the US in the same league of 3rd world nations or totalitarian states where opponents are surveilled.

[Emphasis added]

And, in case you aren’t really paying attention, that is exactly the league that modern American progressivism has planned for us. We are told that something like 80 million people voted for just that…the alternative explanation is that they were/are just too ignorant to be a free people. Either case is equally pathetic but I lean toward “ignorance” with a healthy side of “apathy.” Every case of obviously faked narrative headline driving fuel for the MSNBC crowd to pleasure themselves too that goes by unquestioned proves my case even more. This week just added padding to that case. Thanks, Liz.

Into the abyss…

___   ___   ___

RELATED HISTORY

Instapundit links to a 1997 story about that unbelievable not believable story about that Florida couple. Some of it is worth documenting here:

Florida Couple Say They Recorded Gingrich’s Call

A Florida janitor and his wife identified themselves Monday as the source of a clandestine tape recording of House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his aides and said that they had turned it over to the ranking Democrat on the House Ethics Committee not knowing that it might be illegal.

John Martin, a school custodian in the small town of Fort White, Fla., and his wife, Alice, a teacher’s aide, insisted that they were not motivated by partisan politics when they hand-delivered the tape recording to Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.).

Republicans deny that the speaker said or did anything improper by participating in the call. Moreover, they suggest that McDermott has tainted the ethics process and possibly violated federal law by providing the tape recording to the news media. McDermott has declined to discuss the accusations. …

Appearing at a news conference with their lawyer in Gainesville, Fla., the Martins said that they were listening to a police scanner in their car during a Christmas shopping trip on Dec. 21 when the scanner picked up a telephone conference call between the speaker and other top Republicans.

The couple said they began taping the call, using a hand-held tape recorder that they had with them in the car, after hearing the Georgia Republican’s ethics case mentioned in the conversation and deducing that the participants were prominent congressional Republicans. Public disclosure of the conference call has sparked a political firestorm. …

“Once it’s understood that these folks are Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Citizen, who happened to discover something they thought was pertinent to the Ethics [Committee] and did what I think we want citizens to do. . . . my hope is that those who are responsible for making prosecuting decisions will decide [that] it shouldn’t be prosecuted,” [the Martin’s Lawyer] said. “If they determine to prosecute it, we’ll defend it.”

[Emphasis added]

Red flags galore for the curious mind. And there is that universal “happened to” phrase that glosses over so much that is not believable…and so ripe for the curious to focus on and investigate. But, alas, we know that in American politics that kind of investigative drive resides on a one-way street…and exposing progressive BS clearly goes against the traffic.

Finally, more relevant exit questions for those who did go back and review the link in the opening sentence of this post:

Has anyone bothered to examine the silly story told about/by Karlin Younger and how she came to find and report a “pipe bomb” in DC on “that” January 6?

How is it that the FBI has now identified everyone who so much as farted in DC on “that” January 6 but there is still universal silence on this guy (who made sure to get captured on every camera in the area and even talked on his cell phone while doing it) ?:

Curious minds want to know.