10
Wednesday, July 19, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
Columnist
Don, Jr. goes to
Hollywood
For sheer overwrought
political drama, vigorously
milked for every last drop of
click-bait and ratings poten-
tial, last Tuesday was cer-
tainly a hoot.
Revelations that Donald
Trump, Jr. “took a meet-
ing” with the mysterious
Russian attorney Natalia
Veselnitskaya created the
largest case of mass apo-
plexy in the politico-media
machine since the final, unin-
spiring episode of “Seinfeld.”
Veselnitskaya, methinks,
has received precious little
attention, as the major organs
of American information
vigorously post breathless
headlines such as “Donald
Trump Jr., What We Know,”
or the more pressing version:
“What You Should Know
About Donald Trump, Jr.”.
Then there is my personal
favorite, and by far the most
Great hair
doesn’t happen
by chance.
It happens
insistent: “Smoke Meets
Fire!”
At any rate, Veselnitskaya
carries a “sketchy CV,”
according to hedge fund
manager William Browder,
who probably carries one as
well, given his slimy tenta-
cles in world finance.
Here’s a quick cast of
characters involved in the
kerfuffle, which I offer
mostly for amusement:
Sergei Magnitsky, who died
in prison, the aforemen-
tioned William Browder,
who was Magnitsky’s boss,
Rinat Akhmetshin, a fixer
for Russian oligarchs, and
a guy named Denis Katsyv,
who apparently launders
money obtained in tax fraud
schemes.
Toss in former Attorney
General Loretta Lynch,
MSNBC, and Paul Manafort,
and we have the makings,
for those of us who view the
faraway land of Washington
with a shrug and a bemused
smirk, of a perfect situation
comedy.
Mostly, I’m interested in
how Phil Donahue handled
the pressure of accurately
handling the revelations,
given his continued relevance
to the fourth estate.
Leaping in with the col-
lected teppichfressers of an
over-heating American media
juggernaut, Mr. Donahue
— moral lamplight of the
hard left who, without irony,
brought us KGB talk show
host Vladimir Pozner during
the Cold War — opined on
MSNBC’s “Morning Joy”
program that: “This is the
darkest political moment in
American history.”
In his defense, maybe Mr.
Donahue’s shoes were too
tight.
He might have, after
taking a deep breath, and
embracing the now passé
journalistic requirement
to provide broad historical
context, mentioned some
of the truly dark political
moments our republic has
endured.
The events between
December 20, 1860, and
June 8, of 1861, for instance,
when 11 of the United States
seceded from the Union and
sparked a Civil War that
killed an estimated 620,000
people — which in today’s
numbers would be the equiv-
alent of 6 million of our
countrymen.
Or, he might have, for his-
torical accuracy and at least
a modicum of balanced rea-
soning, mentioned Wounded
Knee, the Bud Dajo
Massacre, the Teapot Dome
Scandal, the McCarthy hear-
ings, Watergate, or the assas-
sinations of John F. Kennedy
and Martin Luther King, Jr.
But none of that contex-
tualizing sells very well, or
quickly, and the Russian
meme is in equal parts built
on speed, money, fascination,
and pandering.
So Mr. Donahue joined
the chorus, doubling down
Northwest Wines,
Friends & Cuisine
on the hype and hysteria to
grace us with his summation
of the Russian question —
with all of the same discern-
ment and studied gravitas
with which he investigated
Vince McMahon and the
World Wrestling Federation’s
sex-and-steroids scandal in
1992.
At least he is consistent.
Which is more than can
be said for many of the Deep
State retreads who populate
our news networks with a
dirt track variety of hourly
smashups that pass for reflec-
tive, responsible, and intel-
ligent reporting of national
issues.
The legendary com-
bat correspondent George
Weller, who saw everything
and met everyone, once
wrote: “Everywhere I go
in the world I marvel at the
narrow margin by which the
truth gets into print, when it
does.”
Boy, howdy. And it
appears now, in the Twitter
age, that we must all just
learn to live with the burrs of
instant punditry. Never mind
the damage it is inflicting on
our republic.
Holman Jenkins, writing
in the Wall Street Journal,
suggested that: “If there was
ever a need to rein in the
supercritical hysteria that
the websites of the New York
Times and the Washington
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Post and MSNBC on-air feed
when their competitive dan-
der is up, Tuesday showed
it. To their credit, all three
have since calmed down. Or
maybe it’s post-coital lassi-
tude…Scoops are overrated
— the public is not worse
for learning the news at 6:30
p.m., instead of 11:30 a.m.,
especially if somebody with
a brain has had a chance to
reflect on its presentation.”
Which isn’t to suggest
there isn’t something ran-
cid in the center of this big
babushka doll. There might
be. Heck, there probably is.
And what thinking person
would be surprised?
But let’s at least be hon-
est with each other about
our expectations: Mr. Smith
doesn’t go to Washington
anymore. At least he doesn’t
last there very long, and par-
ticularly if he doesn’t take a
few meetings with the hold-
ers of sketchy curriculum
vitae, which probably fairly
describes most everyone
killing time in the Capitol
rotunda.
And who, out here, in the
rain shadow of the Cascades,
honestly believes we will
ever know the truth about
any of it?
So I’ve come full circle.
Maybe it really is just another
episode of “Seinfeld,” which
was, after all, “A show about
nothing.”
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