Fire first, facts last
Civic debate in America has become little more than a fast-draw contest, as demonstrated anew by the runup and the reaction to the Mueller Report’s release. Our motto: Ready, fire, aim.
We hardly notice that our real enemy has taken dead aim. And hit his target squarely.
The enemy is Vladimir Putin. His target was and is our basic political and electoral system.
From day one of Robert Mueller’s investigation, both sides in our civil war – pro-Trump and anti-Trump – rushed to judgment. Starting with Trump himself. According to the Mueller report, when Trump learned in May 2017 that Mueller had been appointed special counsel, he blurted out: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”
Trump embarked on a two-year campaign, amplified by Fox and friends, to brand the investigation a hoax and a witch hunt. Then Attorney General Barr announced – prematurely and inaccurately – that the investigation exonerates Trump. Now Trump can’t decide whether the report is a fine piece of work that should be trusted or a hit job packed with lies.
His opponents rushed to judgment in the opposite direction. They virtually built a monument to the steely, stoic, tight-lipped Mueller. They took as a given that he would uncover a conspiracy between the Russians and the Trump campaign. They just knew that the report would prove exactly what they believed from day one. For once, they agreed with Trump: He was fucked.
Instead, Mueller found a campaign that would have been happy to conspire but was too incompetent to. And he found a President desperate to hide the truth. Then he lost most of us with impenetrable legalese about whether Trump could or should be indicted.
What is striking about Mueller’s actual report, though, isn’t what it says about Trump. The media already reported most of that.
What’s striking is what the report says about Putin and the Russians. From the first line of the first page of the Executive Summary, which reads:
“Russian Social Media Campaign: The Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation – a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States….
“The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed ‘information warfare.’ The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton.”
Those are chilling words. “Provoke and amplify political and social discord.” “Information warfare.” “Undermine the U.S. electoral system.”
Not that we need a lot of help. Anybody on social media knows that we Americans are doing a pretty good job already of provoking and amplifying political and social discord, waging information warfare and undermining our electoral system.
Now we’re at war again over what the report says and whether Trump should be impeached. Democrats are at war with each other over whether to impeach him or move on to the election.
Once again, the one person in the Democratic Party leadership with a cool head is Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Her mantra: Get the facts first.
What a novel concept.
Meanwhile, no doubt, Putin is high-fiving his IRA (an apt acronym) like he did with the Saudi Sheik who had the journalist murdered. No doubt they’re plotting how to provoke more discord and more undermining. No doubt they’re marveling at how we not only let them get away with it, but help them do it.
Fire first, facts last
Civic debate in America has become little more than a fast-draw contest, as demonstrated anew by the runup and the reaction to the Mueller Report’s release. Our motto: Ready, fire, aim.
We hardly notice that our real enemy has taken dead aim. And hit his target squarely.
The enemy is Vladimir Putin. His target was and is our basic political and electoral system.
From day one of Robert Mueller’s investigation, both sides in our civil war – pro-Trump and anti-Trump – rushed to judgment. Starting with Trump himself. According to the Mueller report, when Trump learned in May 2017 that Mueller had been appointed special counsel, he blurted out: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.”
Trump embarked on a two-year campaign, amplified by Fox and friends, to brand the investigation a hoax and a witch hunt. Then Attorney General Barr announced – prematurely and inaccurately – that the investigation exonerates Trump. Now Trump can’t decide whether the report is a fine piece of work that should be trusted or a hit job packed with lies.
His opponents rushed to judgment in the opposite direction. They virtually built a monument to the steely, stoic, tight-lipped Mueller. They took as a given that he would uncover a conspiracy between the Russians and the Trump campaign. They just knew that the report would prove exactly what they believed from day one. For once, they agreed with Trump: He was fucked.
Instead, Mueller found a campaign that would have been happy to conspire but was too incompetent to. And he found a President desperate to hide the truth. Then he lost most of us with impenetrable legalese about whether Trump could or should be indicted.
What is striking about Mueller’s actual report, though, isn’t what it says about Trump. The media already reported most of that.
What’s striking is what the report says about Putin and the Russians. From the first line of the first page of the Executive Summary, which reads:
“Russian Social Media Campaign: The Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation – a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States….
“The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed ‘information warfare.’ The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton.”
Those are chilling words. “Provoke and amplify political and social discord.” “Information warfare.” “Undermine the U.S. electoral system.”
Not that we need a lot of help. Anybody on social media knows that we Americans are doing a pretty good job already of provoking and amplifying political and social discord, waging information warfare and undermining our electoral system.
Now we’re at war again over what the report says and whether Trump should be impeached. Democrats are at war with each other over whether to impeach him or move on to the election.
Once again, the one person in the Democratic Party leadership with a cool head is Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Her mantra: Get the facts first.
What a novel concept.
Meanwhile, no doubt, Putin is high-fiving his IRA (an apt acronym) like he did with the Saudi Sheik who had the journalist murdered. No doubt they’re plotting how to provoke more discord and more undermining. No doubt they’re marveling at how we not only let them get away with it, but help them do it.