I'm going to thread a few sentences from this piece by @benjaminwittes in the hopes that you'll read the whole important thing:
lawfareblog.com/sliming-susan-…
lawfareblog.com/sliming-susan-…
"When a broad political movement has consistently put lies ahead of truth in the service of its own power—as the Trumpist right has with respect to Russia, Trump and associated matters—it simply has to smear those who faced the issue squarely.
"To acknowledge that Susan’s writings are accurate, that she is superbly qualified to serve at the Justice Department, and that her work reflects not bias but care, wisdom, and factual rigor is to allow that there really was something to talk about concerning Russia and Trump.
"By painting her as a crazed conspiracy theorist who does not belong in government, the right-wing ecosystem can elide its own failure to grapple with Trump’s gross failures of patriotism...
"... and the movement’s own failure to put country and national security before its immediate political interest in defending him.
"Sliming Susan is also about whitewashing history:
The project of rehabilitating Flynn, even as he urges a military coup against the Biden administration, requires discrediting those who took his criminal behavior seriously at the time it happened.
The project of rehabilitating Flynn, even as he urges a military coup against the Biden administration, requires discrediting those who took his criminal behavior seriously at the time it happened.
"The project of pretending that Russia collusion concerns were a 'hoax' requires discrediting those who followed carefully and spoke about the investigation of those matters in real time.
"It is by painting the Susan Hennesseys of the world as disreputable that the right can pretend these things did not happen. It is by sliming people like Susan that Trump’s defenders can maximize the disincentive for others to speak candidly about these issues in the future.
"This is how history gets rewritten—through the mindless and endless repetition that the Capitol insurrectionists were just tourists, that the Russia investigation was a 'collusion hoax' and that those who took the allegations seriously were partisan conspiracy theorists."
Sorry for the long thread, but perhaps this might echo further by tweet than just by link.
In any case, read the whole thing -- it's worth it:
lawfareblog.com/sliming-susan-…
In any case, read the whole thing -- it's worth it:
lawfareblog.com/sliming-susan-…
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