Christopher Chantrill "I think it is pretty clear now to all but the most klueless, given the bombshells and walls closing in of the past week, that the whole Trump Russia thing was a put-up job, that the Obama people, whether prompted by the Clinton campaign or President Obama himself, spied on the Trump campaign on a presumption about Russian spying. Predicates? We don’t need no stinkin’ predicates.
"And the latest line on the pursuit of Michael Flynn is that he had dirt on the Obama Iran Deal and wanted to clean out the Augean stables at the intelligence community. So he had to be eliminated.
"Here’s my objection to the whole Russia/Flynn thing.
"Rule One, for me, is that We give the guys in the Other party the benefit of the doubt. We do not investigate Them, or trap Them, or leak IC information on Them to the media. Why not? Because We are the smart ones; we know the day will come when They will do it to Us. And We won’t like that.
"If you ask me, that was really the bigger question in the McCarthy era, and why the liberals were right for the wrong reasons back then. So Harry Dexter White and Alger Hiss were spying for the Russians. They weren’t crazy radicals, but establishment figures, members of the ruling class. I expect that their “helping” Soviet Russia was almost conventional wisdom in progressive circles back in the 1930s and 1940s. Bottom line: When a significant sector of the ruling class thinks that “colluding” with Russia is the okay thing to do -- even if that means winking at the transfer of atomic secrets -- then that is the political status quo, even if Tailgunner Joe don’t like it.
"But now, 70 years later, collusion with the Russians is scandalous and traitorous, because something-or-other? Please. Tailgunner Joe got sent to the corner for that.
"The way we know that the Obama people were up to no good is what they did not do with Russia and Flynn. They did not call up the Trump campaign and say, with respect to Russia, that some of the Trump people were fishing in dangerous waters. Why not, if their purpose was to help America and not conspire to damage Trump?
"And President Obama did not tell president-elect Trump what his real beef was with LTG Flynn when, as Lee Smith writes, he called Trump two days after the 2016 election to warn him about Flynn. “Trump told aide Hope Hicks that he was bewildered by the president’s warning.” No doubt, because Obama wasn’t leveling with him." . . . Read more...
"And the latest line on the pursuit of Michael Flynn is that he had dirt on the Obama Iran Deal and wanted to clean out the Augean stables at the intelligence community. So he had to be eliminated.
"Here’s my objection to the whole Russia/Flynn thing.
"Rule One, for me, is that We give the guys in the Other party the benefit of the doubt. We do not investigate Them, or trap Them, or leak IC information on Them to the media. Why not? Because We are the smart ones; we know the day will come when They will do it to Us. And We won’t like that.
"If you ask me, that was really the bigger question in the McCarthy era, and why the liberals were right for the wrong reasons back then. So Harry Dexter White and Alger Hiss were spying for the Russians. They weren’t crazy radicals, but establishment figures, members of the ruling class. I expect that their “helping” Soviet Russia was almost conventional wisdom in progressive circles back in the 1930s and 1940s. Bottom line: When a significant sector of the ruling class thinks that “colluding” with Russia is the okay thing to do -- even if that means winking at the transfer of atomic secrets -- then that is the political status quo, even if Tailgunner Joe don’t like it.
"But now, 70 years later, collusion with the Russians is scandalous and traitorous, because something-or-other? Please. Tailgunner Joe got sent to the corner for that.
"The way we know that the Obama people were up to no good is what they did not do with Russia and Flynn. They did not call up the Trump campaign and say, with respect to Russia, that some of the Trump people were fishing in dangerous waters. Why not, if their purpose was to help America and not conspire to damage Trump?
"And President Obama did not tell president-elect Trump what his real beef was with LTG Flynn when, as Lee Smith writes, he called Trump two days after the 2016 election to warn him about Flynn. “Trump told aide Hope Hicks that he was bewildered by the president’s warning.” No doubt, because Obama wasn’t leveling with him." . . . Read more...