Most of the American media are “reporting”
that President Obama ordered an investigation “Russian hacking of our
election,” and that the intelligence community “confirms” that it happened. Yet
there is not yet any evidence that Russia hacked the election
or was responsible for the DNC email hacks. None.
When self-interested people and their
media allies proclaim something is true, and for a chorus that drowns out any
other views, I always suspect a con. It is so easy for the Left, since it
controls education and the media, to sell any tale it wishes, from global
warming to Michelle Obama as a glamorous fashion icon. Most people will simply
fall in line because it is too much trouble and risky to dispute what is
regarded as a received truth by the power elite.
Glenn
Greenwald debunks the media rush to proclaim fact-free conclusions as
if they were certainties.
THE
WASHINGTON POST late
Friday night published an
explosive story that, in many ways, is classic American journalism of
the worst sort: The key claims are based exclusively on the unverified
assertions of anonymous officials, who in turn are disseminating their own
claims about what the CIA purportedly believes, all based on evidence that
remains completely secret.
These unnamed
sources told the Post that “the CIA has concluded in a secret assessment
that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the
presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral
system.” The anonymous officials also claim that “intelligence agencies have
identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided
WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails” from both the DNC and John Podesta’s
email account. Critically, none of the actual evidence for these claims is
disclosed; indeed, the CIA’s “secret assessment” itself remains concealed.
A second leak
from last night, this
one given to the New York Times, cites other anonymous officials
as asserting that “the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee’s
computer systems in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but
did not release whatever information they gleaned from the Republican
networks.” But that NYT story says that “it is also far from clear that
Russia’s original intent was to support Mr. Trump, and many intelligence
officials — and former officials in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign — believe that the
primary motive of the Russians was to simply disrupt the campaign and undercut
confidence in the integrity of the vote.”
Why it’s just as settled as the science
that told us we wouldn’t be seeing any more snow, right about 2016 or so.
The Post did manage to allow that there might be a teeny-weeny bit of doubt
about entirely unimportant details, though:
Deep down in
its article, the Post notes — rather critically — that “there were minor
disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in
part because some questions remain unanswered.” Most importantly, the Post adds
that “intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials
in the
Kremlin ‘directing’ the identified individuals to pass the Democratic
emails to WikiLeaks.”
Where is the skepticism? The Russian
hacking scenario is an excuse for the Democrats to explain away their loss
without blaming themselves or their candidate, and it serves to delegitimize
the next president – a bad thing for the country.
My own suspicion is that an insider at the
DNC leaked the emails. There is as much evidence for the public to see
supporting that assertion as there is for the claim that the Russians did it.
