The National Review, not always without honor

I read the National Review to find out what the opposition is up to, and it’s usually no good, but once in a while someone comes through with a piece that’s not only “not bad” but actually impressive. Such is the case with David French’s recent article, “The Schiff Memo Undermines Republican Claims of FISA Abuse”, in which he not only calls out GOP hypocrisy but even goes so far as to directly confront fellow NR pundit (and former assistant U.S. district attorney) Andrew McCarthy on his vicious conspiracy mongering, though I suppose, by Dave’s standards, my summary errs on the side of brevity and pungency (and accuracy).

The GOP, led by House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes, have been engaged in a furious campaign to discredit the FBI, a campaign most recently exemplified by Nunes infamous and execrable, not to mention farcical, four-page memo¹ “proving” that the FBI conspired to manipulate, and did manipulate, a FISA court into approving surveillance of former Trump campaign official Carter Page, using that most wicked pack of lies known as “the Steele dossier” without identifying it as the product of Hillary Goddamn Clinton. As French boldly noted at the time, the Nunes memo refuted itself by acknowledging that the FBI was suspicious of Page before it even saw the dossier, which in addition was identified to the FISA court as partisan research, though without the specifics of its history.²

But even that wasn’t enough for the true believers like McCarthy. When Adam Schiff, the Democratic ranking minority member, on the House Intelligence Committee, was finally allowed to make his rebuttal, after his first draft was “edited” by the White House, McCarthy engaged in some furious casuistry³ (linked above) to “prove” that those goddamn lying Democrats were, well, goddamn liars.

To (politely) refute the GOP’s (and McCarthy’s) conscious dishonesty—without, of course, admitting that that is what he is doing—French has to do little more than lay out the facts. The infamous “dossier” was identified as the product of “opposition research”. Right-wing hysterics like McCarthy assume without even bothering to think about it that Democratic oppo (and particularly goddamn motherfucking Hillary Clinton oppo) is necessarily a pack of goddamn motherfucking lies, but, as Dave points out, such is not the case:

“The words ‘salacious and unverified,’ used by James Comey, in his congressional testimony, to describe parts of the Steele dossier, are seared into their [i.e., Republican assholes] brains. So is the phrase ‘Hillary Clinton opposition research.’ No doubt the Steele dossier is salacious, but never forget that ‘unverified’ is not the same thing as ‘false.’ Moreover, no one should think that opposition research is always inaccurate. Sometimes even partisan investigations can reveal real wrongdoing.”

One should also not forget, although Dave doesn’t mention it, that a dossier compiled on Donald “I am one salacious son of a bitch” Trump is quite likely to be salacious. A boastful old lecher who brags about “being on top of some of the most beautiful women in the world” takes his “Miss Universe” pageant to Russia. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. Move along.

Dave, to get back to him, diligently picks a few nits—diligently or desperately—with Schiff’s memo, to prove that he’s not a complete hippie. In fact, he calls it “almost completely useless”—well, except that it refutes the original memo prepared by Nunes, aka Toady McToadface, even more effectively than that memo refuted itself.

French also points out, as others have, that all four FISA judges on the panel who heard the case were Republican appointees, along with the fact that all judges are quite familiar with the issues involved in evaluating possibly biased testimony, though he doesn’t note what has also been pointed out, that reapplications for the continuance for the surveillance, which must show that relevant information has been obtained, were repeatedly obtained from the FISA court. Furthermore, he doesn’t go on to note, as he should have, that the entire Republican “case” on this matter is predicated on the assumption that the entire top leadership of the FBI would engage in a conscious conspiracy to deceive the FISA court so that it could conduct a partisan intelligence operation⁴—a partisan intelligence operation on behalf of Hillary Motherfucking Clinton. And to believe that, you have to be awfully goddamn motherfucking stupid.

Afterwords
Over at “The Week*, Reason gal Shikha Dalmia lets us in on the future: “The GOP as we knew it is dead. And what comes next is terrifying.”: “For better or worse, modern conservatism’s defining ethos has been a protectiveness of American institutions — “standing athwart history yelling stop” — in the face of left-wing demands for social justice and radical reform. Yet ever more conservatives are swallowing the Flight 93 outlook that these institutions have become so irremediably corrupted by left-wing liberalism that the only way forward is by running them into the ground just like 9/11 passengers did to their hijacked plane.”

We can argue about the details of Dalmia’s analysis, but what is unquestionably true is that the modern GOP sees every event in terms of conspiracies, that the Democratic opposition is simply a gang of hijackers. What is needed is not due process but bigger and sharper box cutters.