From Publishing the Pentagon Papers to Suppressing the Nunes Memo American Spectator, Feb 1, 2018, George Neumayr
In anticipation of the release of the Nunes memo, the media’s servile and sanctimonious treatment of objecting government agencies grows more and more absurd. Suddenly, the admirers of Daniel Ellsberg are shills for suppressing government secrets. These are the same pundits who told everyone to go see The Post, Hollywood’s nostalgic tribute to the release of the Pentagon Papers. Have they changed their minds? Do they now think the real villains in the movie were the publishers and leakers of classified information? To hear the anchors and pundits today on MSNBC and CNN — hysterically itemizing all the potential damage to the functioning of the FBI and Justice Department the release of the Nunes memo might cause, quoting reverentially government officials censuring the memo — perhaps the real hero of the film should have been John Mitchell.
It all depends on whose ox is being gored, of course. If the release of government secrets hurts Republicans or some cherished conservative cause, journalists support it. If the release hurts Democrats or some cherished liberal cause, they oppose it. Daniel Ellsberg, good. Devin Nunes, bad. But unlike Ellsberg, Nunes has broken no laws. No matter; the media will treat him as a traitor while exonerating real ones.
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Watergate started with a third-rate burglary; Obamagate originated in third-rate “intelligence.†Hillary partisans such as John Brennan and Loretta Lynch, assuming the worst about the Trump campaign, sent the FBI down the sorry trail that led to Steele and Hillary’s financed dossier. From this debacle came the next outrage, an outgoing administration spying on an incoming one, which in turn produced another one: an embittered campaign by the ruling class to hobble and impeach a president.
Read more:
https://spectator.org/from-publishing-the-pentagon-papers-to-suppressing-the-nunes-memo/
