View original post
Because really, everything rather hinges on that. No doubt there are many people in the opinion sections of the media, in politics and among liberals in general who have promoted conspiracy theories that went well beyond the evidence, and who should now accept that there is no smoking gun. They will probably seize on Mueller's comment pointing out that he can't claim to have the full picture about the 'collusion', but I agree that that's just desperation and they should just give up. And if you want to take a particularly Christian view, you could argue that they should indeed apologize, without any regard as to whether Trump or his ardent defenders will also apologize for all the things they've said. But I don't think anybody seriously expects that to happen.

But if 'you' is intended to refer very broadly to the media establishment, the Democratic party and liberal voters in general (and sadly I have to say it rather seems like it is), then this is utter horseshit. Because the Mueller report confirms most of what the media reported as facts and strongly suggests that Trump did indeed attempt to obstruct justice even if he can't be indicted for it - though as it also points out, that isn't a particularly shocking conclusion anymore since a large part of that obstruction was done in plain sight in interviews or on Twitter.

The Mueller report is good news for Trump, and for the country as a whole, in the sense that it most likely rules out any smoking guns or further dramatic revelations. But it's also good news for the news desks (columnists or op-ed writers are another matter) of the NYT, WP, Politico, and so on, because it confirms most of what they wrote.

All in all, I don't believe the report will make a strong difference to the public's views on either the media or Trump.

Nearly the entire complex of elite media, huh? See above re: horseshit. There might have been a valid point in this paragraph if it hadn't been drowned in hyperbole. Most of the 'elite media' was, a) sticking to the proven facts or to what credible sources reported to them (at least in their news reporting), and b) devoting plenty of attention to the various factors involved in Clinton's defeat and to her flaws as a candidate. And quite frankly, it's not their fault that both Trump and his defenders were so touchy on the topic that any serious analysis into the matter was immediately interpreted as 'they're accusing Trump of being in a personal conspiracy with Putin!!!' - and that Trump kept overreacting to the matter in ways that only made everything worse.

Certainly, plenty of people did make precisely that accusation, but again, there is a difference between news reporting and opinion.

And since the president has no filter, no long-term vision, no discipline and most importantly of all doesn't allow his entourage to provide those things for him, he kept trying to sabotage the investigation and making it look like he had more to hide than he really did.

The Russians did hack and they did attempt to get Trump elected. Trump did display a remarkable and at times incredible deference to Russia, for reasons still best known to himself. People in his campaign did have contacts with the Russians. And last but not least, both Trump himself and Stone did show public encouragement to WikiLeaks and the Russians.

I repeat all those points just to say, hell yes there needed to be an investigation and it's only Trump's fault if he made things worse by letting that investigation goad him into adding obstruction of justice into the conversation.

I do really hope, but somehow doubt, that the author is realizing the irony of pontificating on conspiracy theories in the middle of his giant rant about how 'nearly the entire complex of elite media' conspired to wrongly slander Trump.

I very much doubt it. He might well get re-elected, but it would hardly be because of the Mueller report or the collusion investigations.

I'm obviously not going to deny that Schiff and others tried to milk this for all it was worth and use it as a political weapon. I do agree it would be nice if the Democrats de-escalated the situation and toned down the rhetoric now. But in the current American political climate, I understand why that just doesn't happen anymore, and it wouldn't either if the shoe were on the other foot.

The author seems to think Schiff's quoted statement is somehow outrageously wrong, but although you may well call it sour grapes, it's still a reasonable enough comment on the proven facts of what Trump and his associates did do - to a large extent publicly. It's not particularly crazy to describe Trump's public encouragement of the Russian hacking activities, or Trump Jr's enthusiasm at possibly getting dirt on Clinton from the Russians, as 'immoral, unethical, unpatriotic and corrupt'.

No, but it did find that they did things which can reasonably justify the descriptions used above. Though we knew that already.

Oh, the current level of civil discord and political acrimony is Adam Schiff's fault? Never realized the guy had that much influence...

In all seriousness, of course both sides are to blame for the increasing polarization (and really, were the late 1960s as bad as this?).

I'm curious who he means by 'those who knew it was false all along' - it can't be the journalists since those are in the next category. Who was it who somehow knew everything about the Trump campaign's interactions with Russia 'all along', and how did they know that?

There are some for who this is good advice. There are many more who have done little or nothing to apologize for, or to 'admit they were wrong' because they mostly weren't.