Michael Barone: Time for Truth and Reconciliation on the Russia Collusion Hoax

What are the benefits? “the major problems this country faces”? David Brooks, a columnist for The Atlantic, leads his list with “inequality, political polarization, social mistrust” Before you accept the inevitable “climate change.” Today’s “inequality,” He points out that it is as “savage” As the inequality in 1890s.

That was a decade that the U.S. had no welfare state safety net. Today it does. Phil Gramm and his co-authors pointed out in “The Myth of American Inequality,” Government transfer programs have nearly doubled incomes for the bottom 60% and almost eliminated poverty. This doesn’t sound like a lot. “savage.”

Brooks also mentions recent real income gains. He cites American Enterprise Institute economist Michael Strain and writes that “recent administrations have moved to redistribute wealth downward.” He apparently omitted names of recent presidents, lest he credit Donald Trump with positive accomplishments and cause apprehension among Atlantic readers.

Brooks says that inequality is not the problem, but what about political polarization. It’s a pain for Twitter users. You can argue that it’s worse than in the 1990s, when Brooks was a Weekly Standard colleague. Tucker Carlson, whose current audience Brooks has not quite accurately described, also sees it as an agonizing problem. “affluent white Republicans.”

Partisan divisions are inevitable in adversarial political politics. They have been decried ever since George Washington’s Farewell Address (1796), or Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural (1801). Brooks, like Jefferson and Washington, places more blame upon his political enemies than his political allies. “You may think one political party has gone crazy, and I will agree with you,” He writes in the safe assumption it is not the party preferred by his colleagues at The New York Times and the vast majority their readers.

They are right to point fingers at Trump and his supporters for falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen. The New York Times and other publications consistently and accurately note that this is true. It would have been better for the country if they admitted their error and sought forgiveness.

Brooks’ employer, colleagues, and readers would all be in better shape if they admitted to their error and sought forgiveness for their continued election denial of leading Democrats.

They should also beg for forgiveness for a side effect from the election denial, Russia collusion hoax. This conspiracy theory was concocted and supported by the Hillary Clinton campaign. It was propagated by lying and misrepresentations made by congressional Democrats and was reported with relish by many media outlets.

A transcript of a meeting between angry editors and reporters shows that Dean Baquet, the executive editor of New York Times, admitted to an error in August 2019. Baquet stated that the paper was a “publication”. “a little tiny bit flat-footed” Robert Mueller, the special counsel, ended his investigation without verifying Democrats’ incessant accusations of collusion with Russia.

“Our readers who want Donald Trump to go away suddenly thought, ‘Holy s—t, Bob Mueller is not going to do it,” Baquet said. “And I think that the story changed” — the story that, as Baquet was careful not to note, the paper had been pursuing for months.

Aside from that, The New York Times, and other major media outlets, has been reluctant to admit they have fostered a false narrative. They started with the baseless claim that Russian bots had somehow won the 2016 presidential election to Trump.

Matt Taibbi (a journalist whose roots are in the Left) admitted that the charge was baseless after he reviewed Twitter files. Left-leaning Twitter executives also admitted this in private, even though it was made at first.

Taibbi called for an immediate response. “truth and reconciliation process.” He sounds a lot like David Brooks. “The country is currently paralyzed by distrust of media that runs so deep that it prevents real dialogue.” He then goes to Brooks’ place of employment, which he and his employer won’t allow him to. “That situation can’t be resolved until the corporate press swallows its pride and admits the clock has finally run out on its seven years of loony Russia conspiracies.”

Brooks and others on Brooks’ side always made the valid point about Trump’s election denials poisoning the political atmosphere. This cast doubt on legitimacy of the government’s leadership.

The same argument can be made about his supporters for their election denials and promotion of the Russia collusion hoax. Their actions made governance more difficult for an administration that was unusually unstable and inexperienced. They caused the country to suffer.

They must, just like Trump, admit to their mistakes and offer an apology. Are you game, David?

Michael Barone, a senior political analyst at the Washington Examiner, is a resident fellow at American Enterprise Institute and a long-time co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.

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