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It’s Always a Surprise for Andrew McCarthy
Andrew McCarthy’s in the NY Post. You know, I used to trust this guy. I mean I liked his sober analysis and his history. Solid service to the nation. Good understanding when I needed it.
And then, stories I trusted him on, he was wrong. It kept turning out that it was that bad on subject after subject. Nevertheless, when the next allegation came up, McCarthy always backed the institution. And he was always wrong and always wrote how surprised he was.
Next time there is an allegation of malfeasance on the part of the FBI, I fully expect him to simp for them, even after the Durham report.
Of course, I could be wrong on that. It would make my track record of predicting what was reality and what was it still a lot better than his.
Published in General
Agreed. ACM was frequently great in the 2010-ish Tea Party days. But as you intimate, he will not update his priors, and so it’s always a surprise when Deep State gonna Deep State.
I don’t want to be cultish, but you should judge people by the by company they keep. People that hang out and share platforms with McCarthy should be treated with suspicion.
Unexpectedly!
Ellen DeGeneres used to do a routine about the world from a goldfish’s point of view:
“Oh, look! A castle!”
Trip around the bowl.
“Oh, look! A castle!”
McCarthy:
“Oh, look! Corruption!”
Trip around the news cycle.
“Oh, look! Corruption!”
Exactly !
ACM doesn’t believe in the Deep State, yet.
Maybe it hasn’t done anything to him.
Yet.
@charlescwcooke does a good job interviewing McCarthy on his podcast. I don’t think he is as far down the abolish the FBI road as Charlie is, but he’s getting there.
Yes and no. The flip side of sober assessment based on who one assembles with, is drunken weaponized cancel culture.
Peter Robinson also seems to be continually “shocked” a lot.
I think it is difficult for those who worked at times and places with other good people in government to realize how far things have fallen.
Or maybe to realize that perhaps those people weren’t really so good after all, even at that time.
But isn’t part of intelligence supposed to be adjusting to new things?
Whereas relying on the same failed/corrupt institutions (and people) over and over, while expecting different results, would be…. what?
So not there yet
You should listen to the podcast, or at least the last few minutes. Charlie is pretty funny.
I bought, read, and really respected Willful Blindness back in 2010. Somewhere along the line I bought The Grand Jihad but haven’t managed to get energized enough to read it yet. (Every appearance of his name on my computer screen over the last six or so years seems to push it deeper into the pile of books I give fewer s#!ts about.) I do see now that Ball of Collusion is among the small pile of books I purchased in early 2021 about and set aside to read at some select future vantage point that provides enough valuable perspective on the events of the time to show that, accepted recorded narratives be damned, many were fully aware of what was going on at the time and I, of course, was right all along.
Uh, no.
McCarthy is, by now, pretty far removed from his experiences as a Federal Prosecutor. Apparently, the rules he lived under then gradually morphed unto something quite different.
He was only a bit late to recognize the political changes that had occurred over time. He recognizes them now.
To ignore his insights is a grave mistake.
You seem to ignore the part where Andy (and Peter) seems surprised at each incident of misbehavior by the people and agencies he used to work for/with.
Or could it be that having been within the system, ACM would have to acknowledge that he was part of a corrupt system. Or hold to the belief that the corruption started after he served. Or that his particular corner of the system was double-plus-good and he wasn’t tainted by the corruption.
Andy … Dude … this is not your Grandfather’s DOJ/FBI.
It’s not even his own DOJ/FBI any more. He left 20 years ago.
I am always happy to cancel corruption and commies.
He infuriates me. From his perspective, every federal employee is noble and wants what is best for this country. He is simply, a fool.
Once a very, very long time ago I too liked Andrew McCarthy.
But then he started to defend gross , obviously criminal misbehavior with an irrational, irritating consistently, and just spewing utterly disgusting bullcrap about all the usual suspects.
Bullcrap is Bullcrap. Nonsense is nonsense.
I could care less about all the excuses why he does it. His once sharp legal mind should still be able to recognize criminal behavior no matter who does it. He is one of those who we thought was a good guy who has helped to create a near Totalitarian Police State right before our eyes. He has consistently sided for many years with pure evil, and if appropriate should be prosecuted for it, hopefully spending the rest of his days rotting in jail. I know in the not too distant future he will be rotting in hell.
Expect the Republican intellectual elite to always be a few steps behind the curve, the republican party to fund their enemies, and republican members in power to do nothing but send strongly worded letters.
A less charitable take on ACM’s past, back when I liked him:
Perhaps he “fossilized” in a time when the excesses and crimes of his favored agencies were open secrets, rather than open. That is, abuses by the FBI were a matter of winks and nods, and everybody knew it. He got set in his ways back then, things changed, and now he’s out of place. Now that through a number of changes, the excesses are glaringly obvious, he still thinks that the old game of shucksies will work, but his former fans in the crunchycons won’t accept it, and he feels betrayed.
Well, Gosh, imagine how we feel.
I don’t know — I don’t want to think of him this way. This whole thing feels like we’re eulogizing a person’s former appearance, and not just for ACM.
It may be that the crunchycon right has begun to digest the new situation, and is stirring for action. Could be the whole re-assessment of ACM is just one of many tingles in a furious and long-resisted awakening. It will be a while, but we can not continue like this, and therefore, by Gum, we won’t.
I see faults in anyone I read (meaning I’m right and they’re wrong). There’s no political pundent I’ve been a fan of that I’ve agreed with 100% of the time, or even more than 80% of the time.
I can’t say I’m a fan of Jonah Goldberg anymore, but I still follow his podcast and his free newsletter. I still get insights from him.
With Andy McCarthy, I do realize he has some residual loyalty towards federal law enforcement that he used to be a part of. I factor that in when reading or listening to him, and it doesn’t bother me when he turns out to be wrong because of it.
It sounds like Bryan put too much stock in him, and now he’s putting too much stock into his flaws because he didn’t take those into account in the first place.
I don’t particularly care if Andy McCarthy makes a fool of himself with blind loyalty to obviously deeply corrupt, anti-American institutions. But someone in his inner circle who cares for him might want to mention it. . .
Ah, so I am to blame. Interesting take.
Nobody should have to be responsible for his own behavior. It’s somewhere in the Constitution, I think.
His grandfathers FBI was undoubtedly worse.