Mollie Hemingway: Diehard Conspiracy Theorists In Media and NeverTrump Can't Figure Out if Tillerson Was a Lapdog of Putin or a Dogged Opponent

As I keep saying, it's about time we demand the Conspiracy Theorists begin telling us specifically what they believe and what they don't.

As this guy commented:

Last night on Special Report, Jonah Goldberg insisted that the House Intelligence Committee report that there was no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump actually vindicated the "Washington Consensus," which he claimed only believed that Russia had interfered with the election, but did not believe anything about collusion.

Are you kidding me? Look through Mollie Hemingway's tweets from the Conspiracy Theorists -- all in the media, or formerly in the media, like Twitter activist Bill Kristol -- and try selling me on this jackass notion that the "Washington Consensus" has not been pushing the "Trump's a traitor and Manchurian Candidate in cahoots with Putin" line for sixteen long hysterical months.

But Jonah Goldberg did rise up vociferously to claim the "Washington Consensus," which must no doubt include his buddies at CNN who push this literally all day long, never really believed there was any "collusion," just interference on Russia's part but without any collusion with Trump.

It's insane. It's literally insane.

Does he literally never watch CNN? That would shock me -- I have a feeling he watches CNN a lot, in between watching MSNBC.

Mollie Hemingway comments:

Just last night I was told on national television that the general consensus in D.C. is that Russia is bad but that Trump and Russia didn't collude. That a treasonous collusion narrative isn’t even "remotely" the general consensus. Someone might want to tell... everyone in the media who has been pushing it non-stop for more than a year no matter the facts on the ground.

As the media reaction to Tillerson's nomination and firing show, we're witnessing the Unified Theory Of Russia Collusion at work. If it's true that the "general consensus" in D.C. is nothing remotely near the idea that Trump and Russia colluded to steal the 2016 election, people should stop pushing the theory. Better yet, if they buy into the theory -- as so many of our supposed media elites obviously do -- they should start to be more specific about the theory. And if they don’t, they should not nibble around the margins of the theory.

Hear, hear. Less "Just Asking Questions" about whether fire can really melt steel, and more straightforward declarative assertions about what Trump either did do or did not do.

There is a game in politics. The Truthers played this game; some politicians hoping to curry favors with the Truthers played it. Like John Kerry.

The game goes like this: While not explicitly endorsing a conspiracy theory for which there is no evidence, you sort of talk it up to maintain its viability as a political attack point. You don't say definitively you believe it -- you just say, as Patterico says today, it raises "interesting" questions.

You keep your "Clean Skin" as far as being a Conspiracy Theorist, and yet you do all you can to suggest to the conspiracy-minded that the conspiracy is All Too Real.

It's a way to speak as Yasser Arafat did, to two different audiences telling two different stories. You encourage conspiracy theorizing, while (mostly) not committing yourself to any particular version of the conspiracy theory.

Just Askin' Questions, you know.

It's one thing for politicians to do this -- they lie.

But pundits and analysts and "thinkers" and "experts" are supposed to tell you exactly what they think.

If Jonah Goldberg, for lo these many months (sixteen or thereabouts) has known that the "Washington Consensus" was actually that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia, why did he keep that on the Q.T. and the D.L.?

Why didn't he tell people?

Why did he enable a conspiracy theory he's now telling us that those In-the-Know always knew was pretty much bullshit?

It's the equivalent of a guy who never quite declares that "Bush knew" that the 9/11 attack was coming but let it happen anyway to enable the PNAC warplan but who is careful never to pour cold water on such conspiracy theories to keep #TheResistance agitated and animated.

You are paid, supposedly, for the truth, and what you know, and what you don't quite know but think to a reasonable certainty.

If Jonah Goldberg is claiming that there is no, and was no, "Washington Consensus" about the Manchurian Apprentice conspiracy theory, why has he been so shy about saying so?

And why is he not throwing cold water on the various members of the Washington Consensus -- such as Patterico, Erick Erickson, Bill Kristol, and of course various and sundry members of the legacy media -- currently spinning out new conspiracy theories about Tillerson's long-expected firing?

If you don't believe in the Conspiracy Theory, then say so firmly.

And if you do believe in it -- then say that too. Do not hide your beliefs with equivocation, evasion, and insinuation.

Where's Jonah on this? Will he ever say? Will he just talk around it without doing his basic job -- You Had One Job, you know -- of telling his readers what he really thinks?

Those pushing this theory should stop being cowards and dishonest hacks and tell us what they believe the quid was in this collusion, what was the quo, and how it was all agreed to.

And, as bonus: They should clue us in as to whether US troops killing Russian troops in Syria was done on Putin's orders.

And as another bonus: Given that the House Intelligence Committee is set to announce no evidence of any collusion -- are they now part of the conspiracy?

Or are they, the people with first-hand knowledge of witness statements and reams of classified reports the average blogger or Twitter blowhard does not possess, somehow less informed by the Washington Consensus Elites?

Details -- as Robert Wargas pointed out, it's very useful to a conspiracy theorist to get very vague about how the conspiracy was supposed to work, so that it can be changed up as needed to comport with emerging facts.

But these people are claiming to not be conspiracy theorists -- indeed, they claim to be the only sane people in the room, the only people with vision unclouded who can see through Putin's smokescreen and peer into the heart of the greatest Soviet conspiracy against the US since they recruited Eisenhower as a KGB asset.

If the Washington Consensus Elites have this the power to see through this maskarova and dezinformazinya , which most of us commoners are too stupid and blinded by tribal fury to see -- please, please Washington Consensus Elites, please do begin sharing with us the things you see which we cannot.

Why do you hoard your insights?

As you know these things so firmly and see them so clearly, why do you resort to hinting and insinuation? Why not unveil the Truths you have perceived so clearly to we, the blind mob, which so desperately needs to see the world through your keen gaze?

If you really believe, as the John Birch Society did, that Russian agents have recruited the sitting president of the United States as an agent, then that is obviously the biggest story in US history (except for the last time, of course) -- why are you so skittish and cowardly about announcing The Awful Truth to the world?

And if you don't believe this nonsense, if you're just feeding conspiracy crumbs to keep the #NeverTrump #Resistance agitated and frothy, if you're just maintaining a conspiracy theory you know is likely a total lie for reasons of political positioning and base-stoking -- you should be ashamed of yourselves.

And God Damn you if you ever strike a superior attitude about someone else's conspiracy theories again.

Pro-Tip: A conspiracy theory does not cease to be a conspiracy theory just because people who consider themselves smart and well-educated believe in it.

A lot of college professors pushed the 9/11 Conspiracy, and Madeleine Albright confided to Mort Kondracke that she believed that Bush had captured Osama bin Ladin near the start of the War of Afghanistan, but was holding him secretly until he could be presented to the public just before the elections of 2004.

People who consider themselves smart and well-educated are responsible for a lot of the world's conspiracy theories.

Pro-Tip II: Many of those who consider themselves smart and well-educated are, plot twist, not in fact smart and well-educated.

The great bulk of them, in fact.

Pro-Tip III: Those who have expressed skepticism about this conspiracy theory have been pilloried -- pilloried by the NeverTrump Smart Set Circle Jerk for a long time.

Jonah Goldberg certainly saw the attacks on Mollie Hemingway.

Why did he never say, "Wait a minute, the Washington Consensus is not agreed that there is any 'there' there, so her opinion, while it could be wrong, is perfectly respectable at this point in time, with this current state of the evidence?"

Seems very strange that the Washington Consensus has known there was no "collusion" for a while now and yet so few members of the Washington Consensus stepped forward to say that skepticism about this was a perfectly reasonable attitude to take.

Seems kind of like the very opposite to me-- if, like Lee Smith, you write an article and submit it to your editors at the Weekly Standard noting the shady operation known as FusionGPS and the lack of evidence for a "collusion" narrative, you get... fired by the Weekly Standard.

Or, at least, these two events coincided within a short period of time. One close upon the other.

Who knows why. Could all have been a big coincidence.

But if one were to take a sort of "these data points are linked" attitude that many of the conspiracy theorists do, then, based on Lee Smith's sudden firing from the Weekly Standard, that the Washington Consensus has been pretty set that Trump really did collude with Russia and anyone who says otherwise is crazy and unemployable by the Washington Consensus' outlets.

posted by Ace at 03:16 PM

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