As Atrios Says, "That F%$#ing Paper"

Only Atrios writes it as if it were, "Say F%$# January."

I am referring, of course, to the New York Times, and specifically, I am suggesting that you Will Bunch's latest OP/ED in the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he suggests that, with the recent arrest of Charles McGonigal, used to run the FBI counterintelligence in their New York office, for corruption, that the Gray Lady might very well have been deliberately deceived by the anonymous sources that it used throughout the 2016 campaign.

It does seem likely that McGonigal, a now-retired FBI agent who has been accused of taking money from Russian oligarchs before he retired from Bureau, was one of the sources on the Times', "But her emails," stories that came out less than a month before the 2016 Presidential election:

It was arguably the most consequential “October Surprise” in the history of American presidential elections. In the waning days of the 2016 race, with polls showing Hillary Clinton clinging to a lead over Donald Trump, two last-minute stories broke that rekindled on-the-fence voters’ ethical doubts about Democrat Clinton and quashed a budding scandal around her GOP rival.

Except the “October Surprise” was no surprise to one key player: Rudolph Giuliani, the ex-New York City mayor and Trump insider who later became the 45th president’s attorney. Late that month, Giuliani told Fox News that the trailing Republican nominee had “a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.”

………

The supposed bombshell — it turned out there was nothing incriminating or particularly new on the laptop — wasn’t the only FBI-related story that boosted Trump in the homestretch of the 2016 campaign. On Oct. 31, citing unnamed “intelligence sources,” the Times reported, “Investigating Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia.” That article defused a budding scandal about the GOP White House hopeful — at least until after Trump’s shock election on Nov. 8, 2016. In the coming days and weeks, the basis of that Times article would melt, but by then the most unlikely POTUS in U.S. history was ensconced in the Oval Office.

………

This week’s stunning corruption charges against a top FBI spymaster who assumed a key role in the bureau’s New York office just weeks before 2016′s “October surprise” — an agent who by 2018 was known to be working for a Vladimir Putin-tied Russian oligarch — should cause America to rethink everything we think we know about the Trump-Russia scandal and how it really happened that Trump won that election.

Here I need to interject, the idea that Russia somehow is pretty ludicrous.  The idea that spending, as is alleged, $100,000.00 on Facebook ads was somehow more important than numerous other electoral factors is ludicrous.

Off the top of my head, we had:

• Aggressive voter suppression in some of the swing states.
• Hillary Clinton was a profoundly uninspiring candidate.  (A lazy one as well, Bernie Sanders did more campaign events for than she did in September)
  
• Her campaign was run by incompetents who she selected more for loyalty than she did for competence..
  
• The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) was complacent and corrupt, and to this day still has a lackadaisical and ruinously expensive GOTV effort.

Yeah, I know, I've said this many times before.

………

As a veteran journalist, I find the Times’ role in this fiasco — although likely an unwitting one — deeply disturbing. To be sure, the 2016 FBI leaks weren’t the first time a major news organization has been burned by anonymous law enforcement sources, and regrettably, it probably won’t be the last. Media critics have been talking for years about the Times’ flawed coverage, and how its near certainty that Clinton would win and a desire to show its aggressiveness toward a future president seemed to have skewed its coverage.

The New York Times screwed the pooch on this, and they did so repeatedly.

They have continued to do so since.  (And before)

It was egregious journalistic malpractice, and even if the don't decide to publicly reveal a source that deliberately deceived them, and I would argue that they should, there should be some deep examination of all of this, and some people, and by people I mean editors, not the reporters on the beat, who should be let fired  ……… Out of a cannon ……… And into the sun.  (OK that last bit is hyperbole, but the editors should be shown the door)