The Obamagate Reckoning Has Begun

 

Mollie Hemingway has a great piece up today encouraging journalists to do the right thing. We are still at the beginning of the Obamagate revelations. They have a chance to report it honestly. But the window won’t stay open forever. Soon the historical opportunity to be among the brave truth-tellers of our era will be lost, and anyone who didn’t take it will be left twisting in the wind, their professional reputation in tatters.

It’s not a question of “if” anymore, but “when.”

Unlike the Russia collusion fiction that was maintained by the Obama administration, holdouts in the Trump administration, and finally the Mueller special counsel posse, the spying and leaking campaign story is coming out with facts. Declassifications, court documents, and investigative reports have all shown the falsehood of the Russia collusion hoax and the truth of the spying scandal. More could be coming.

It was one thing to spin the Russia collusion hoax during a time of mass elite freakout. But now everyone knows it was false. The truth is an existential threat to journalists, which is why the more activist among them are scrambling to kill the story and paint it as a distraction. These reporters won book contracts, TV gigs, promotions, and political success by peddling the hoax. They truly can’t be honest about it.

But others who weren’t so complicit have a shot here. There is no getting out of this easy, so if there are any reporters who care about their reputation, much less the truth, they should get on the side of truth now.

She’s right. And, susceptible as I generally am to schadenfreude, today I’m not feeling it. Instead, I’m feeling sympathy for the terrible dilemma these people and their followers are in. I’ve gone through enough disillusionment in my life to know that it’s extremely painful. Some are looking at an absolutely devastating identity crisis. They’re going to have to face the fact that the worldview they’ve been operating by and staking their careers and much of their personal lives on is false. Friendships are about to go up in smoke. Marriages might fall apart. Some of them will be going from rich to poor and from popular to pariah.

And those are the lucky ones. Those are the ones with the fortitude and grace to choose hard reality over comfortable illusion. A lot more are about to make a conscious or half-conscious decision to stay deluded and act as willing propagandists and/or dupes of liars. They’re actually buying tickets for that long, black train. It’s terrible.

The good news for those who make it, though, is that there’s a whole lot of unanticipated goodness and joy at the end of the pain. It’s like childbirth in the Biblical verse. You’ve got the pain of labor, which feels unendurable while it’s happening, but then gets relativized into nothingness as soon as the baby’s in your arms.

Your typical leftist can’t imagine it right now, but Truth really is liberating. And there’s wonderful fulfillment and companionship to be had among the dissidents. Just ask Brandon Straka and his #walkaway followers.

Anyway, I’ll be saying prayers for them all in the days and weeks ahead: that they manage it, that they do the right thing, and that it won’t be impossibly hard. And I’ll be working to stifle my urge to triumph over them. Instead, I’ll think about ways to welcome them and help bind up their wounds, like other people did for me when I faced my own reckoning with Reality.

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  1. Jim Beck Inactive
    Jim Beck
    @JimBeck

    Morning Katievs,

    I am not optimistic.  I have yet to see journalists hold each other to accountable.  Yes, you have Tucker and Sean naming folks on CNN parroting talking points of Russian collusion, but I have never seen Bret point out a false narrative, he has even had folks like Tumulty on as a panelists.  I do not see that corrupt journalists are shunned or that their publications cease to be quoted.  I have never seen a journalist or news organization acknowledge their part of the blame.  As an example, the recent Barr editing by Chuch Todd.  What is positive is that the corruption of the press is so clearly seen that the credibility of the press is low and I imagine it will go lower.  I wish that the community of journalism would take Mollie’s advice.

    • #1
  2. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    I’m not optimistic either. At least, like Mollie, I think whole networks and institutions like CNN, NYT and WaPo are in too deep to change course now. But I do hope there will be a number of individual “conversions” among journalists. For sure it’s happening already among their followers. I just joined Twitter this week, and I’ve come across several people saying words to the effect of: “I’m so sorry! I bought it all. I’ve been the worst kind of liberal all my life, but no more…”

    • #2
  3. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    I hope, too, that individuals will see the light. But to buck the pressure to conform will take real courage. I doubt there will be a sea change, at least not until after the election. And if Trump wins, they will probably renew their hatred and begin once again. They will turn the page, but it may very well lead them further into darkness. I just can’t get my brain around the level of hatred and self-destructiveness. Oh, and when see those who turn come out of their delusion, we must celebrate their enlightenment!

    • #3
  4. Locke On Member
    Locke On
    @LockeOn

    New today: Treasury Department was illegally monitoring Flynn, Manafort and other Trump supporters and officials:

    https://theohiostar.com/2020/05/18/exclusive-the-treasury-department-spied-on-flynn-manafort-and-the-trump-family-says-whistleblower/

    • #4
  5. Richard Easton Coolidge
    Richard Easton
    @RichardEaston

    I don’t know how reliable this source is, but it’s consistent with the other corrupt practices of the Obama administration. https://theohiostar.com/2020/05/18/exclusive-the-treasury-department-spied-on-flynn-manafort-and-the-trump-family-says-whistleblower/?fbclid=IwAR10XUjvUYMweiYA6xfM16eU_lrb8g-fzOuiruPmQZk3B8w5MXL-qoTNY4U

    I lived near Chicago in 2008, and the corruption of the Obama administration was no surprise. Here’s a taste of what they did during the campaign. Milt Rosenberg was a friend of ours (I was twice on later iterations of his program).  https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2008/09/16/obamas-character-assassins-target-another-national-review-journalist/

    • #5
  6. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    One reason it’s so hard is connected to one of the fundamental unexamined assumptions of the left, viz. that there’s no such thing as objective truth, there’s only narrative. So, politics is all about the effort to establish a narrative, and the one who does it best and first wins power.

    It’s like they’re not even aware that there’s such a thing as objective reality that all narratives are ultimately measured against. It’s going to be so embarrassing.

    • #6
  7. DonG (skeptic) Coolidge
    DonG (skeptic)
    @DonG

    I am not hopeful, because what remains of the mainstream media are Leftist hacks that like tyranny.

    • #7
  8. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    katievs: Mollie has a great piece up today encouraging journalists to do the right thing.

    Rachel Ryan Anderson Cooper, and Brian Stelter hardest hit.

    • #8
  9. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Redemption is still possible. The truth will set you free.

    Assuming your name isn’t Brennan.

    • #9
  10. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    I am not hopeful, because what remains of the mainstream media are Leftist hacks that like tyranny.

    If they find out we’re not hopeful, that will provide great incentive for any who might want to go straight to just keep on doing what they’re doing, because nobody expects anything different.

    • #10
  11. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Not holding my breath on these jourNOlists doing the right thing – their jobs! 

    • #11
  12. Limestone Cowboy Coolidge
    Limestone Cowboy
    @LimestoneCowboy

    katievs (View Comment):

    One reason it’s so hard is connected to one of the fundamental unexamined assumptions of the left, viz. that there’s no such thing as objective truth, there’s only narrative. So, politics is all about the effort to establish a narrative, and the one who does it best and first wins power.

    It’s like they’re not even aware that there’s such a thing as objective reality that all narratives are ultimately measured against. It’s going to be so embarrassing.

    Very thoughtful post Katie.

    I think that there’s some evolutionary biology in play here as well. I’m sure we’ve all seen and marveled at schools of small fish changing direction instantaneously in response to perceived threats or opportunities.

    Seem familliar?  Look…  over here! Russia! Over there! Stormy!! Just below us!! Sinister Ukrainians! Emoluments to the left! Yikes! It must get exhausting. I do have some sympathy.

    But this instinct to swim (act) in schools (groups) is many millions of years old and it is most evident when there are perceived threats to the group.  It takes a great deal of strength and courage to resist the pull of the group and of biology. This is another reason that identity politics has such a malign influence.

    So, like Katie I have sympathy for my friends and acquaintances on the left, and enormous respect for those like Brandon Straka who have summoned the courage to examine the water in which they were accustomed to swimming. Somewhere, Whittaker Chambers is smiling.

    • #12
  13. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    Limestone Cowboy (View Comment):

    Somewhere, Whittaker Chambers is smiling.

    I’ve been thinking about him so much.

    I first read Witness not long after the wall came down. I noticed right away his conviction that when he left communism, he was leaving the winning side for the losing one. He did it anyway, because it was right, and he believed in eternity.

    I remember wanting to reach back in time and tell him I had good news. Communism lost! The wall came down! And without a war! Since then, I’ve often thought maybe he was right after all. The wall came down, but the left has wormed its way into all our institutions. Our culture is debauched. Our children are thoroughly propagandized, and our government is corrupt. It’s too late to save.

    Lately I have some hope again, though. Maybe it’s not too late. 

    • #13
  14. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    A Democrat ran government, made up of Democrat bureaucrats / operatives, is going to investigate Democrat ran agencies, for Democrat scandals, done by other Democrat bureaucrats / operatives, and reported on by Democrat reporters / operatives / propagandist and judged by Democrat judges / operatives.   

    Color me skeptical, doubtful even.  

     

    • #14
  15. Jeffery Shepherd Inactive
    Jeffery Shepherd
    @JefferyShepherd

    I honestly don’t see that happening.  

    • #15
  16. Bill Gates Will Inject You Now Inactive
    Bill Gates Will Inject You Now
    @Pseudodionysius

    • #16
  17. Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo… Coolidge
    Gumby Mark (R-Meth Lab of Demo…
    @GumbyMark

    That ship sailed with Obama’s 2008 campaign and Presidency.  Their mission is to combat anything conflicting with the preferred narrative.  They will not give up.  From their perspective their credibility depends upon it.  And their livelihood – with the fragmentation of the media in the internet age, niche markets are the key, not broad appeal across the political spectrum (this is true on the Left and Right).  Their niche, albeit a large one, is to appeal to progressives and commercially it would be damaging to let them down.

    • #17
  18. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

     It was one thing to spin the Russia collusion hoax during a time of mass elite freakout. But now everyone knows it was false.

    This is a very naive statement by Mollie.

    It may be objectively false.  But it is demonstrably untrue that “everyone” knows this.  

     

    • #18
  19. Limestone Cowboy Coolidge
    Limestone Cowboy
    @LimestoneCowboy

    katievs (View Comment):

    Limestone Cowboy (View Comment):

    Somewhere, Whittaker Chambers is smiling.

    I’ve been thinking about him so much.

    I first read Witness not long after the wall came down. I noticed right away his conviction that when he left communism, he was leaving the winning side for the losing one. He did it anyway, because it was right, and he believed in eternity.

    I remember wanting to reach back in time and tell him I had good news. Communism lost! The wall came down! And without a war! Since then, I’ve often thought maybe he was right after all. The wall came down, but the left has wormed its way into all our institutions. Our culture is debauched. Our children are thoroughly propagandized, and our government is corrupt. It’s too late to save.

    Lately I have some hope again, though. Maybe it’s not too late.

    I don’t think it’s ever too late. Whittaker Chambers fought his battle and then handed the struggle off to us. In the culture wars there are no permanent victories, and whatever victories we gain will need to be defended. And whatever losses we suffer can be reversed. In the long run, the battles take place, not in legislatures or courts but in the human mind and soul. Win those latter two, and the courts and legislatures will follow.

    Be of good cheer. Keep faith.

    • #19
  20. Bill Gates Will Inject You Now Inactive
    Bill Gates Will Inject You Now
    @Pseudodionysius

    As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.

    — Christopher H. Dawson

    • #20
  21. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    It was one thing to spin the Russia collusion hoax during a time of mass elite freakout. But now everyone knows it was false.

    This is a very naive statement by Mollie.

    It may be objectively false. But it is demonstrably untrue that “everyone” knows this.

    By “everyone” I take her to mean normal people—people not demented by partisanship. You could say similarly (speaking of Whittaker Chambers) that “everyone knows that Alger Hiss was guilty.” Of course there are lots of people left in the world who still defend him. There are even more people who have no idea who he is. But the facts of the matter have been so well established now that to doubt it is to expose yourself as irrational.

    • #21
  22. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    katievs (View Comment):

    Limestone Cowboy (View Comment):

    Somewhere, Whittaker Chambers is smiling.

    I’ve been thinking about him so much.

    I first read Witness not long after the wall came down. I noticed right away his conviction that when he left communism, he was leaving the winning side for the losing one. He did it anyway, because it was right, and he believed in eternity.

    I remember wanting to reach back in time and tell him I had good news. Communism lost! The wall came down! And without a war! Since then, I’ve often thought maybe he was right after all. The wall came down, but the left has wormed its way into all our institutions. Our culture is debauched. Our children are thoroughly propagandized, and our government is corrupt. It’s too late to save.

    Lately I have some hope again, though. Maybe it’s not too late.

    Ah, but for Chambers Communism was a religion, too. He realized that it was a false one. Reading his account of his crisis of conscience was harrowing enough to make it possible to imagine the anguish of going through it. 

    Speaking of today’s “journalists,” Dick Morris described George Stephanopoulos’ White House memoirs as “the most gripping story of a man’s successful struggle with his conscience since Albert Speer’s Inside the Third Reich.”

     

    • #22
  23. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):

    Ah, but for Chambers Communism was a religion, too. He realized that it was a false one.

    Yes, I agree with him about that. Communism—leftism generally—is a religion, though only a fraction of its adherents realizes it.

    • #23
  24. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    I can’t help but think about the story of Queen Esther, Mordecai, and Haman. And how Haman was hung on the gallows he built for Mordecai. 

    May G-d give the honest among the government and journalists the strength to tell the truth. 

    • #24
  25. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    katievs (View Comment):

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):

    Ah, but for Chambers Communism was a religion, too. He realized that it was a false one.

    Yes, I agree with him about that. Communism—leftism generally—is a religion, though only a fraction of its adherents realizes it.

    In the late 1940s, a book came out, called The God That Failed. It’s been reprinted a couple of times.

    The God that Failed is a 1949 collection of six essays by Louis Fischer, André Gide, Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, Stephen Spender, and Richard Wright. The common theme of the essays is the authors’ disillusionment with and abandonment of communism.

    Richard Crossman, the British Member of Parliament who conceived and edited the volume, at one point approached the famous American ex-communist Whittaker Chambers about contributing an essay to the book. At the time Chambers was still employed by Time magazine, having not yet gone public with his charges against Alger Hiss, and so declined to participate.

    The book contains Fischer’s definition of “Kronstadt” as the moment in which some communists or fellow-travelers decide not just to leave the Communist Party but to oppose it as anti-communists. Editor Crossman said in the book’s introduction: “The Kronstadt rebels called for Soviet power free from Bolshevik dominance” (p. x). After describing the actual Kronstadt rebellion, Fischer spent many pages applying the concept to some subsequent former communists—including himself: “What counts decisively is the ‘Kronstadt.’ Until its advent, one may waver emotionally or doubt intellectually or even reject the cause altogether in one’s mind and yet refuse to attack it. I had no ‘Kronstadt’ for many years” (p. 204). Writers who subsequently picked up the term have included Whittaker Chambers, Clark Kerr, David Edgar, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Norman Podhoretz.

    It’s been a while since I read Witness, but I vividly remember Chambers’ conviction that his espionage for the Party and the USSR had been a sin for which he must make whatever amends he could.  In a famous incident in 1939, anticommunist journalist Isaac Don Levine (his memoir, Eyewitness to History, is a great read) introduced  Chambers to Soviet defector Walter Krivitsky.  Krivitsky asked, “Is the Soviet Government a fascist government?” Chambers responded, “You are right, and Kronstadt was the turning point.”

    • #25
  26. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    I am not hopeful, because what remains of the mainstream media are Leftist hacks that like tyranny.

    You are asking people (these leftist so-called journalists) to change their political views or put them aside to do their job. As the left races toward the socialist mindset, it’s never going to happen. I’m surprised as much came out about the scandal as it did, revealing much more about the O administration than anyone knew. That won’t change one thought, written word or vote by these people.

    • #26
  27. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Front Seat Cat (View Comment):

    DonG (skeptic) (View Comment):

    I am not hopeful, because what remains of the mainstream media are Leftist hacks that like tyranny.

    You are asking people (these leftist so-called journalists) to change their political views or put them aside to do their job. As the left races toward the socialist mindset, it’s never going to happen. I’m surprised as much came out about the scandal as it did, revealing much more about the O administration than anyone knew. That won’t change one thought, written word or vote by these people.

    As a group, I think you’re right. But, there will be individuals mugged by reality — there already are (#walkaway movement).

    It seems the biggest handicap of leftists is the almost complete lack of self-awareness that they are the baddies. Even the most appalling political scandal in the country’s history won’t get through to them because they’re so, so righteous and because it was perpetrated by The One — the clean, bright, articulate demigod who, because of those attributes, but mostly because he’s (half) black is impervious to criticism. We should call him The Impervious One.

    Their inability to handle the truth (especially the media) makes them defenders of the indefensible — Obama is just another anti-American, corrupt Chicago thug. His only competence is in destruction of republican self-rule. He’s very good at that. 

    • #27
  28. katievs Inactive
    katievs
    @katievs

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    …Obama is just another anti-American, corrupt Chicago thug. His only competence is in destruction of republican self-rule. He’s very good at that.

    Personally, I think he’s much worse than that. I think he’s an ideological hard-leftist, in practical effect at least, a marxist. He’s a marxist disguised as run of the mill corrupt thug.

     

    • #28
  29. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    katievs (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    …Obama is just another anti-American, corrupt Chicago thug. His only competence is in destruction of republican self-rule. He’s very good at that.

    Personally, I think he’s much worse than that. I think he’s an ideological hard-leftist, in practical effect at least, a marxist. He’s a marxist disguised as run of the mill corrupt thug.

    I’m not sure what the difference is. 

    • #29
  30. Richard Easton Coolidge
    Richard Easton
    @RichardEaston

    katievs (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    …Obama is just another anti-American, corrupt Chicago thug. His only competence is in destruction of republican self-rule. He’s very good at that.

    Personally, I think he’s much worse than that. I think he’s an ideological hard-leftist, in practical effect at least, a marxist. He’s a marxist disguised as run of the mill corrupt thug.

    My wife talked to him for about 15 minutes in her office at WBEZ circa 1996. He had the charm of a upwardly mobile politician, but she said there was something off about him. Little things were inconsistent or not polished. 

    He’s a far leftie. He’s not a genius but thinks he is one. He’s also corrupt and money grabbing (where’s his autobiography – $65M four years ago for his and his wife’s books – no sign of his coming out anytime soon). He campaigned as a moderate in 2008 but it should have been obvious to everyone that he was lying. His opinions are a lot closer to Rev.Wright’s than he’s ever admitted.

    • #30
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