This is posting here a day late, because I had already promised the Vox Day post yesterday. Yet there is still some fun to be had at the Stream: Is the Trump/Russia ‘Dossier’ the Fake News of the Decade?
Fake news or conspiracy theory? Or the most epic troll since Dan Rather was conned into accepting forged documents about George Bush? Or a hilarious amalgam of all three?
All elements of this story are as yet unknown, but what is unfolding has the makings of historical high comedy. Here’s a rundown.
Buzzfeed, a website whose specialty is celebrity tittle-tattle, asinine quizzes such as “Which ‘Pixie Hollow Fairy Are You?“, and get-skinny-quick-by-petting-cats articles, published a document, which they gave the graduated title of dossier, which purported to show how Russia, under the devious and genius scheming of Vladimir Putin, had been grooming and bribing Donald Trump for many years, and blackmailing him by threatening to reveal perverted sexual practices, so that Trump would be induced to enter the US Presidential election, win it by secret dirt supplied by Russian intelligence agents, and so place the once United States of America under the control of a foreign government.
Yes, really.
The last lines of the piece: “The story isn’t over. The news on why Steele wrote the document, if he wrote it, and why, including who paid him for it, is bound to generate even more fun.”
Assuming (it’s not a stretch) that Steele wrote the document, how did he arrive at the contents? Did he make it up whole cloth, filling in bits with suppositions he knew could never be checked because many of the events took place long ago in Russia? Was he given dirt by Republican NeverTrumpers and assured by them it was true? Was Steele himself duped by actual Russians who couldn’t believe their luck?
Did Steele, or whomever, do it to scam McCain and other NeverTrumpers? Would a real live MI-6 agent really think fictional scribblings would fool real live CIA and FBI agents? Maybe he thought the document would never be made public, because the Republicans who asked for it during the election would never release it, since it would paint the GOP in a bad light. But now that it has become public, Steele has scarpered, to use a Britishism. Is he now in Moscow sharing a flat with Edward Snowden?
If Steele was duped, are we going to hear of tales of a wigged Debbie Wasserman Schultz faking a Russian accent whispering in Steele’s ear? “Listen very carefully…I shall say this only once!”
Addendum: see also this.
I’m surprised more people haven’t commented on the language in the “dossier”; to wit, that Trump wanted to “defile” the Room Where Obama Slept.
In my experience, the word “defile” is normally used when referring to sacred spaces, like altars and worship sanctuaries. Are all Obama’s former hotel rooms now to be accorded religious significance? Can the White House be re-occupied, or will it be trated like Mt Vernon? What about the Hyde Park residence? National Monument?
And was NBC, I believe, that described Steele as a “real-life James Bond”, a description as ludicrous the Secret Agent status awarded to Valerie Plame. I have it on good authority that Plame was Chief of Station at the Tyson’s Corner Lord & Taylor.
Talk about flogging a story… if the language gets any more lurid, we’ll be in mythos territory.
My guess it is DNC rather than NeverTrumpers who dreamed this up. DNC and fellow travelers are so unhinged that I can imagine that in their fevered imagination the plan was hatched to discredit Trump and deem him unfit for office. In their hallucination, the end-game would be Hillary’s coronation as Queen (never mind the Constitution). (Trigger is onto something with the word “defile”–who but a Democrat would would use that word for a space occupied by Mr. Obama?)
As for Mr. Steele, he had to know what he was doing. If he were given documents, he had to know they were fake.. If he had to write the report from scratch, he knew it was fictional. I refuse to think that Steele was duped, as it would be an insult to his intelligence. I think he was given some guarantee that the trail wouldn’t lead back to him, and of course, this was his undoing. I don’t think we will see him again, at least not as “Christopher Steele.” (The name brings to mind both Christopher Reeve and his role as the Man of Steel.) The burning question is: What will become of his cat?
Of course the Russians are smarter and stronger and more winning than many, many Americans. The Dems tell us that every single day when they claim they were defeated by the Russians. Can’t be any clearer than that.
The way it works is that people hire contractyors, who sub-contract other contractors, ad infinitum…
At each management interchange, data is suppressed or exaggerated. So, some politicians could tell a company to get some useful intel on an enemy. The company employs someone to run the project, telling then to get some dirt and the manager goes out to an investigations firm asking for ‘any rumours’. The investigator comes back with rumours, the manager writes them up as ‘dirt’, and the company presents them as ‘useful intelligence’.
No one has really done anything immoral – they have just spread the responsibility for the exaggeration around so widely that you can’t actually pin down where lies turned into ‘the truth’…
A good example, today’s post, of ‘stooping to the same level’ as Buzzfeed and some of the other “hot sheets”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brawJsSUtxk
(be sure to see the gratuitous salacious unnecessary & irrelevant bit presented as “(this is, unfortunately, relevant)” at the provided link [“Go there to read the rest.”] — the nature of that content is of the type even many of the “hot sheets” don’t touch).
Such is the stuff used for the objective (first remarks made at) maintained at: https://www.wmbriggs.com/contact/ . For the kind of presentations being made in this section of the website, I just “don’t get” what kind of reader is being targeted, what sort of consultation per the “contact” portion of the site, much less what the demand is or what it pays. The targeted prospects appear to be a very select & small niche.
I used to read the National Enquirer when I wanted to read fake news but now I read the New York times and Washington Post for fake news.
1 Trump doesn’t need anyone in the grand scheme of things. He is a rich man, independently so, he has the world at his feet and can do very well without the ungrateful American traitors. He could be providing tensile stress to two palm trees anywhere in the world if he so wanted.
2 It’s hard for some to imagine such a thing but he actually wanted to do something for the country. Some cannot understand this conceptually because they wouldn’t. Trump is a business player not a bunny player. Since he isn’t setting out to pretend, like some of the old school Republicans, that eh is holier than though, a sex scandal wouldn’t affect him anyway. It is the hypocritical pretend holy ones who are caught out who loose credibility. Even Bill Clinton pretended to be something he wasn’t.
3 This obsessing about Russia is paranoiac.
4 In a world of lies and deceit the truth looks like a revolution. When the liar is called ’true:’, as Alice noted, anything is possible.
5 “Listen very carefully, I shall say this only once” was a German accent and is the point of the joke.
6 “Could a real life MI 6 agent fool a CIA or FBI agent?” Evidently my dear Briggson, yes. British Intelligence is second to none but that’s not the official line, naturally.
7 This damages Trump’s reputation and plays into the hands of the enemy. Just as any false information given out or implied by so called trusted sources.
8 It gives credibility to the stories even that will be shown not to be true for any future questions of integrity will be considered likely
when, down the line, he is ever accused of anything else. It will be forgotten that this stories and their variations were not true.
9 I said there would be revelations when Trump was elected. This is the first distraction, the misinformation. The media (of all grades, amateur and professional)’s specialty.
10 As to chessy, cheesey conspiracy theories about Russia, it’s a broken record.
These things should be discussed in private only. “Careless talk costs lives.”
This Russian spying business is serious: “chestio! chestio!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRM0zf5nu-s
Ken,
Stop moaning and say what you really think.
In case anyone missed it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/25/world/europe/russian-military-plane-crash-alexandrov-ensemble.html?_r=0
They bridged the gap in their renditions for the western audience with humour and I loved them for it.
I was very sad to hear, I particularly liked the soloist who sang Skyfall. His voice was remarkable. I haven’t been able to discover if he is actually gone too. The news is all about the group as a whole an about the politics.
A huge unexpected bonus from the election is this “Fake News” meme. Finally, the perfectly succinctly dismissive term I’ve been looking for all these years. I fully intend to make heavy use of it to annoy my liberal acquaintances.
Funny to read from a consumer of fake news site such as Breitbart and a propaganda site state owned by Russia. RT.
You have no problem believing that the Clinton Foundation traffics children but somehow doubt your own intel service.
Russia has undoubtedly un file on Trump and about anyone who’s anyone. The content of the file has probably very little to do with Trump sexual activity and a lot to do with Trump dealing with the mafia.
If Obama had said only a tiny portion of what Trump said and did in covering he would have been hang as a traitor.
The US are now officially the puppet of Putin and Russia and the laughingstock of the planet.
Speaking of the Clinton Foundation, from a time when Russia wasn’t the big bad DNC bogeyman that it is now: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
“The US are now officially the puppet of Putin and Russia and the laughingstock of the planet.”
“Oh no they’re not!” (pantomime season.)
The police choir and the army choir share the same banner ‘red army’.
Sylvain why not listen to some sensible and sober talks by Peter Hitchens?
Read what he has to say about the Russians and their nature from a man who lived in Moscow, and who does have some degree of sympathy for their attitude as he puts it. He described himself as a Russian Chauvinist. His father was a submarine commander during the cold war and as he says, one inch of steel between him and the cold dark sea and certain death for considerable periods of time.
It seems to me that to understand someone’s point of view you need to understand why they think the things they do. That is what is interesting. People don’t always think a thing or say a thing because they’re flawed. Maybe they are but it’s as well to discover the history and the facts which inform the premises. People aren’t all just mad or bad, most sane people, anyway.
Joy,
I’m not really anti-Russian, I know that they defeated the Nazi in WW2, and that the Cold War wasn’t inevitable.
But Putin is really not the guy you can put any trust in him. He is not attacking Isis forces in Syria and he does target civilian with his bomb.
Trump for sure looks like he is the right and of Putin.
It’s important to understand how those who are obviously more intelligent than the rest of us deal with the nuanced framing of “fake news”.
While Dan Rather gave us “fake but accurate”, our current betters claim they’re merely “inaccurate but not fake”.
https://thinkprogress.org/wapo-false-report-is-not-fake-news-30b5c9c89368#.11x3z75i7
Sylvain,
You underestimate Trump. Believing the misinformation about his ability to think for himself. A common error, but usually by the intellectual right. Don’t get tripped up by the same mistake as them.
“’tis well to weight thee enemy more mighty than he is.”
Also Sylvain, don’t underestimate the key logger or the trojan.
Just a thought.
Trump for sure looks like he is the right and of Putin.
Nothing like starting off the year with a good whine. One would think the New Year’s party would have ended days ago but then there are those addicted to whine. Skip those made from water. Habitual users prefer whines created from nothing.
Joy,
During the campaign Trump mentioned one of is moto: ”other people’s money”
He got rich with other people’s money.
How many small business declared bankruptcy because he refused to pay them.
The people that will be hurt the most by him are those who voted for him. There pay will decrease, the national deficit and debt will explode (this what happen when you you caught tax and spend money you don’t have, and this is not counting on the repeal of Obamacare which will cost billions of dollars and increase the premium even faster).
Trump is for real everything that the idiot white American complained falsely about Obama.
By the way, I would have no problem if Canada boycotted the sale of oil to the US (almost 20% of US daily need) or even closing the border between Canada and the US. Let’s see how American would deal with a 10$ a gallon to fill their car. China, Japan and South Korea would be very happy to have a better accès to Canadian oil.
Dav,
That must be why you like Trump so much. A billionaire that keeps whining that the world is not fair while sucking Putin genetalia.
sucking genetalia.
So it is ex nihilo then. Not surprising.
You have previously claimed that act is something to be celebrated and now we discover you are actually a homophobe — hypocritical and equally unsurprising. Why do you insist on showing us your dark side? Do you think it impressive?
Dav,
Thank for you reply people whom I show it to laugh real hard. You are my exhibit A to how much idiotic uneducated white American are. If you have any degree you should ask for a refund.
You’re welcome. Reasoning is certainly not your best skill and, quite obvious by your posts, that lack leads you to much misery. Glad to have brightened your outlook on life — sadly masochistic that it is.
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