Whenever you start to dig into the media conglomerate that was created in order to push the Russia collusion hoax, things can get confusing quickly. There’s a network of “journalists” (such as Politico’s Natasha Bertrand) and bloggers who proclaimed themselves to be idle observes, but who always seemed to be pushing whatever talking point the FBI wanted pushed on a given day. The idea that they have a direct line to outfits like Fusion GPS is not even really conjecture at this point.
Enter Benjamin Wittes and Lawfare Blog. As the editor of the aforementioned site, Wittes has spent years fluffing the Steele Dossier and preaching to the converted on all manner of crazy Russian conspiracy theories. His reward has been cable news hits and notoriety, because that’s basically the reward for every media personality who decides to go full #orangemanbad.
But there’s something more insidious about Wittes and his connections to the very people he claims to be reporting on. He’s admitted being friends Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, the famed FBI lovers who batted around “insurance plan” ideas on official government phones.. That’s all well and good from a personal standpoint, but it’s exactly how you get a supposed unbiased narrator making the kind of insane, ridiculous rant that he decided to throw down on Twitter yesterday morning.
Without further ado, here it is in all its glory.
Notice he’s couching all this in a Holocaust style “and then they came for” theme. Because overpaid, insubordinate bureacrats getting full retirements and book deals are just like Jews being gassed on Nazi Germany. Get it?
This entire screed is just crazy. On what planet are any of the people he listed victims? Andrew McCabe, who lied to the FBI? Page and Strzok, who had an affair and trafficked in coup porn on official government devices? James Comey (lol)?
Vindman and Yovanovitch are not victims either. They chose to undermine Trump’s foreign policy and they were rewarded by getting to keep their jobs. They should count themselves lucky, not oppressed. This idea that anyone is entitled to an ambassadorship or NSC appointment is insane. But it’s the kind of idiocy that passes for intelligent thought in anti-Trump ethos, where all things must be described in the most sinister manner.
A president wants people he can trust to enact his policies, which are subject to the oversight of the electorate via elections. That’s hardly new or unique to the latest inhabitant of the White House. If you cross that trust, you can back to the Pentagon or whatever agency you came from. You’ll still be getting your fat check and pension because no one is ever really fired from a government job.
Enough with the pretending that civil servants as actually servants. They are typically overpaid, with huge benefits packages and get more time in a single year than most private sector employees enjoy over half a decade. They are not martyrs, they are bureaucrats. The fact that they can’t just be outright fired with ease is bad enough, but painting them as everything that holds this country together is asinine and a false sense of grandeur that’s incredibly idiotic. If James Comey didn’t want to be fired, he shouldn’t have lied to the President and faciliated illegal warrants. If Andrew McCabe wanted to keep his job, not lying to the FBI would have been prudent. There are similar retorts to everyone Wittes lists above.
Here’s Lisa Page responding to Wittes.
(and HERE is the LINK to her TWEET - the replies she got are good)
