KLAVAN: The Media Scandal Is An Obama Scandal

The American news media is resisting an honest assessment of how very badly the end of the Mueller investigation damaged whatever was left of their credibility. After nearly two years of well-documented false reporting meant to create the impression that Donald Trump was the most treasonous Russian agent since Boris Badenov stalked Rocky and Bullwinkle, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC, ABC and many other mainstream outlets have been exposed as what they are: the communications wing of the Democrat Party.

“Serious journalists should be proud of — not bullied over — their Russia reporting,” cried WaPo absurdly. An entire world of cluelessness, sanctimony, narcissism and intellectual corruption condensed into a terse twelve word headline. So at least they learned how to do something in journalism school.

There’s no mystery here. A news media which is, by my estimation, 90 percent Democrat at the editorial level is corrupt per se. It cannot possibly overcome the confirmation bias and group think that plague any gathering of like-minded individuals. That corruption certainly manifested itself in all the “noose tightening,” “walls closing in,” “impeachment is on the table,” “beginning of the end,” reports, headlines and commentaries that accompanied the Mueller investigation like a bad soundtrack. It was also apparent in the mistakes and fake news that never once went the president’s way. No reporter has ever had to go on TV and say, “I’d like to correct a story that accidentally made Trump look good.”

But if they think that’s the heart of the problem, the journalistos are even more blind to their own failings than they seem.

The problem is not the way they treat Trump. The problem is the way they treated Obama.

No one would blame a news media that was equally hard on everybody, right and left. The president is a powerful guy. The press should feel free to dog him at will. But after eight years of blaming George W. Bush for everything from intelligence failures to the weather in New Orleans, the media — heartstruck by Obama’s leftism and mesmerized by the color of his skin — lay down on the job and allowed him and his corruption to vanish in plain sight.

Obama was a Chicago pol. We got a good glimpse of how that all-Democrat-all-the-time machine city works this week: a police force weakened by scandal was wrongfooted by a prosecutor mobbed-up with the Obama family and, after an intervention by Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff, charges against Jussie Smollett were not just dropped but erased from existence.

Obama brought that corrupt machine culture to the White House. His IRS became a tool for silencing the opposition. His State Department became a fount of cover-up and lies. His Attorney General announced he was the president’s “wing man,” and proved it by stonewalling Congress to bury the Fast and Furious scandal until he was held in contempt.

And his Justice Department and FBI became so stoned on the haze of power and sanctimony they decided it was up to them to save the nation from its free choice of president. Having let the Democrat presidential candidate off the hook for genuine malfeasance, they went after the Republican tooth and nail on the basis of a creepy piece of oppo research partially supplied by — guess who — the Russians.

And all the while, the media served as a magic ring that kept Obama and his corruption from becoming visible to the public at large. Like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, the president could act at will without being seen, and like Gollum, the more he realized he could get away with anything, the more he got away with everything. Obama — who appointed James Clapper, John Brennan, James Comey and all their co-conspirators — was declared “scandal-free” by virtually every news outlet. Of course. He was invisible. They never saw a thing.

Well, he’s not invisible anymore. And neither is the press who made him so in the first place. The media can bluster and protest and attack all they want. We see them. We know who they are. They are not doing their jobs. They are enemies of the people’s freedom.