Thread by @RadioFreeTom

I used to use a passage by Noam Chomsky in my class on deceptive writing, but maybe I'll start using this, by @DouthatNYT. /1

nytimes.com/2019/05/04/opi…

We start with the anodyne “hey, everyone does it,” emphasized by a picture, so help me God, of E. Howard Hunt, as if that’s relevant to anything right now. /2

Then Ross moves to the ignition of a strawman so large it should have Edward Woodward burning in it. "I agreed with the predicate" - see, I'm reasonable! - "but it didn't confirm some *crazy* charges, so now I'm considering the Trumpist view." /3

Then we have this careful misdirection. "Where there other entrapment efforts?"
Excuse me? "Other?" We've established that there were efforts at entrapment?Here, Douthat helpfully quotes Lee Smith, who, to put it gently, is not exactly a model of disinterested probity here. /4

But of course, Douthat is, you know, just wanting to know things that would be helpful. Not making accusations. Not siding either with the conspiracy nuts or anti-conspiracy nuts, just being the reasonable "who can say?" guy who is Just Asking Questions. /5

Finally, we end with two lovely hypotheticals, in which Douthat (like so many others) either has no idea how raw intel is collected, or knows and doesn't care. He asks if some of the "bad intel" is Russian disinformation and if Mueller was affected by it. /6

Of course some of it is trash. That's the nature of getting information from...Moscow. That's not "bad intel" - nicely played phrase there - it's part of anything you get when you have sources in Russia.
And did it affect Mueller? Maybe reading Vol 1 would help. Just an idea. /7

Why Ross wrote this, I don't know. It's probably the closing of ranks among conservatives who want what they want in 2020 (like, say, more judges) but don't want to be overly identified with Trumpism. But it's a great example for my writing students in the future. /8x