The WaPo Moves The Goalposts: Collusion Isn't a Thing And The Mueller Report Is Really About Other Bad Things About Trump Anyway

They're not even pretending to be objective anymore.
First, there's the headline:

"Armed With Mueller Report, Democrats Face The Challenge Of Trump's Messaging Machine." 

Here's a headline for a story that would actually make a lot more sense, but which we didn't--and will never--see:

"Armed With Mueller Report, Trump Faces The Challenge of Democrats' Messaging Machine." 

But, given that the Post is a key component of the Democrats' messaging machine, I suppose that's to be expected.
Look, We just spent two years hearing from Dems...and the Post...and the rest of the media...that Trump had colluded with Russia. First and foremost, the Mueller report allowed Trump to rebut that charge. But the Post breezes by those fantastical tales of yore--lies really. They stand the whole story on its head by going after Trumpian exaggerations and inaccuracies that pale in comparison to what the other side did...before simply moving the goalposts.
   Here's how the Post story begins, if you can believe it:

President Trump summarized the special counsel report on the day of its release with four words in all caps — “NO COLLUSION. NO OBSTRUCTION.”
The first two were not addressed by the report. The second two falsely described Robert S. Mueller III’s findings.

Honestly, this may be the last straw, Post-wise, so far as I'm concerned. Collusion was not addressed by the report? Really? I mean, I haven't read the report...but the Attorney General of the United States thinks the report addressed the collusion question and found none. So what's Scherer/the Post thinking? Near the end of the story, we get:

The Russian campaign to help Trump’s campaign, which he had also denied and minimized, was laid bare, as were many contacts between suspected Russian agents and his advisers that stopped short of the legal definition coordination or conspiracy. As for the catchword “collusion,” adopted by Trump, Mueller said it was not a legal standard to steer a criminal investigation.

Right. Collusion isn't a criminal charge. That doesn't mean that the report doesn't address the question of collusion. It does, and there was none. Unless we mean 'address' in a narrower-than-normal sense: Mueller wasn't focused on collusion, but on conspiracy and coordination. But: no conspiracy and no coordination, so no collusion. So no collusion. And 'collusion' was the term Democrats and the media chose, not Trump. The main charge was cast in their terms, and they were wrong. Splitting hairs at this point as a way of avoiding the fact that they've been ostentatiously wrong for two years is utter shit. The question is "was there collusion?"...until the report finds no collusion, and Trump reports "NO COLLUSION"...now collusion was never the issue at all, you see... More Trump lies!

   And, unsurprisingly, the bulk of the story is an exercise in moving goalposts: it's mainly about what a piece of crap Trump is. Which is true, and newsworthy, I'll grant. But different. 

   Another main theme is how hard it is for the Dems to get their lies about Trump to trump his lies about their lies...now that the internet prevents the Post et al. from shaping the respective lies in such a way as to guarantee the triumph of the former. I hope we'll be forgiven if our outrage about this is rather muted...

   I'm not saying not to be concerned about Trump. But me, I've become even more concerned about the coalition of progressive nutjobs that control basically all the main cultural salients. This is the point at which I usually say: we've got 637 days of Trump remaining as I write this...but we're stuck with progressive control of the culture for the foreseeable future. However, I'm no longer sure that Trump will lose in 2020. Not because of anything he's done, really. But, rather, because the other side has flipped its shit, and Trump looks less and less bad by comparison. As Glenn Reynolds repeatedly notes: all they had to do was not be crazy...