The Baffling Steele Dossier and Dueling Certainty
This semester is, I have no doubt, actually taking time off my life. I'm so over-worked and stressed-out that I honestly kinda don't know what to do. Really. It's very, very bad. Like, honestly, the only reason I can even write this post is that I'm too overfreakingwhelmed to do anything productive right now. It's bad. Bad, I say. Bad.
But this wasn't supposed to be a post about me whining. I was going to say that I haven't had the time, nor the energy, to dig into the Trump-Clinton dossier story. For months now I've seen dueling stories...on the left, the Steele dossier has been largely confirmed...on the right, it's been basically proven to be bullshit. Now comes the latest twist...which the left is dismissing as utterly irrelevant...and the right is proclaiming to be a game-changer...or game-inverter. Now it's Clinton, not Trump, who should be under investigation, I read. I know it's no insight to say that the ends of the political spectrum are drowning in dogmatism...but Jesus...I thought I could at least get a sense what's going on by trying to just take the pulse of the respective sides... But that is just not going to happen.
I've heard people who spent time in Iraq talk about the people there basically swimming in a sea of rumor. I kind of feel the same way here anymore. I just don't have the time or energy--and it's not worth it anyway--to dig down to the bottom of every goddamn disagreement. Reflecting on this has driven home the point that you don't have to be right. If you can just obfuscate a couple of moves deep, you can prevent the average person from figuring out that you're full of shit. And also that partisan zealots are just a different kind of person than I'm used to dealing with. God, what a repulsive bunch.
Anyway. I have no point.
But if you know anything non-insane to read about this, by all means, link me, baby.
But this wasn't supposed to be a post about me whining. I was going to say that I haven't had the time, nor the energy, to dig into the Trump-Clinton dossier story. For months now I've seen dueling stories...on the left, the Steele dossier has been largely confirmed...on the right, it's been basically proven to be bullshit. Now comes the latest twist...which the left is dismissing as utterly irrelevant...and the right is proclaiming to be a game-changer...or game-inverter. Now it's Clinton, not Trump, who should be under investigation, I read. I know it's no insight to say that the ends of the political spectrum are drowning in dogmatism...but Jesus...I thought I could at least get a sense what's going on by trying to just take the pulse of the respective sides... But that is just not going to happen.
I've heard people who spent time in Iraq talk about the people there basically swimming in a sea of rumor. I kind of feel the same way here anymore. I just don't have the time or energy--and it's not worth it anyway--to dig down to the bottom of every goddamn disagreement. Reflecting on this has driven home the point that you don't have to be right. If you can just obfuscate a couple of moves deep, you can prevent the average person from figuring out that you're full of shit. And also that partisan zealots are just a different kind of person than I'm used to dealing with. God, what a repulsive bunch.
Anyway. I have no point.
But if you know anything non-insane to read about this, by all means, link me, baby.
posted by Winston Smith at
3:02 PM
4 Comments:
It's a ridiculous claim, exploded by the obviously disqualifying fact that Steele started off employed as a Republican oppo researcher during the Primaries. And of course he 'made contaft' with Russians: he'd have to if he were, you know, doing research on the Trump organization's contact with Russia. The difference is stark in the two cases. And I really don't understand why it's supposed to an issue now, because we've known about it for *a whole year*.
Why would it matter if it began with Republicans? That wouldn't show that there's nothing dirty going on.
This is a worthwhile take at WSJ (might be paywalled), which has mostly been #NeverTrump but it's tough to follow all the posturing.
Winston: you are confusing "Russians" and "The Russians" in your argument. "The Russians" took ads out on Facebook, created Twitter bots, and supported Trump explicitly on RT. They also made multiple documented overtures to the campaign itself. Compare to Steele, who went looking for *connections between Trump and Russia*. For another angle, see here:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/26/trump-team-prey-putin-215743
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