I don’t read The Wall Street Journal. By all accounts its reporting of news is good, even after having passed under the Mordorian Murdoch regime, but its editorial and opinion pages are, as the kids say, cra-cra, pure, unadulterated, high quality (which means low quality, sapientially speaking) movement-conservative fantasy and supply-side theology. Not wanting digits added to my blood pressure needlessly, I avoid it. I have bought a copy occasionally by accident or for lack of another national newspaper. That’s probably what happened here. When I purchase a newspaper, I want my money’s worth, so I went to the “comforting fiction” pages and was not disappointed. An unsigned editorial and an op-ed by Kimberley A. Strassel were bent upon perpetuating The Conspiracy Theorist in Chief’s assertion that the Special Counsel’s probe was part and parcel of the “Russia hoax” predicated on the mistreatment of onetime National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Ugh. I sent a letter with no expectation it would ever see the light of day. The Wall Street Journal didn’t disappoint.
“The Flynn Entrapment,” The Wall Street Journal, 14 December 2018, A16 (www.wsj.com/articles/the-flynn-entrapment-11544658915).
Kimberley A. Strassel, “Checking Robert Mueller,” The Wall Street Journal, 14 December 2018, A15 (www.wsj.com/articles/checking-robert-mueller-11544745831).
Michael Flynn’s guilty plea for lying to the FBI can be equated with “entrapment” only through willful self-deception, the shoveling of manifold facts into the memory hole.
One must first forget that Flynn was informed beforehand that the focus of the interview on 24 January 2017 would be his contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and that Flynn himself signaled his sense that the FBI was already privy to what had been said. He in effect received a take-home examination to which he knew the correct answer and prevaricated anyway. Into the pit of forgetfulness then must be cast Flynn’s dishonesty with Mike Pence, Reince Priebus, and Sean Spicer in the interval between his chat with Kislyak on 26 December 2016 and the FBI interview. Next to be consigned to oblivion are the potential charges against Flynn for his pre-election dealings with Turkey. One must also ignore Flynn’s grasping for immunity in March 2017 in exchange for testimony before US Senate and House committees because he had “a story to tell.” One finally must purge from consciousness the stated reason for Flynn’s departure from the Trump administration: his dishonesty. To accept that Flynn has been shabbily treated, one must nearly drink the river Lethe dry.
Nor can it be credibly asserted that Flynn was merely doing his job. He had the relevant conversation with Kislyak during the transition just as President Obama was imposing sanctions on Russia for its meddling in the election. There is only one president at a time and Flynn was undermining him, conduct that becomes even more troubling as signs emerge of conversations between Flynn and Kislyak before the 2016 election to arrange a geopolitical “grand bargain.”[1] In light of his misconduct, Flynn has enjoyed gentle treatment.
[1] David Corn and Dan Friedman, “Did Michael Flynn Try to Strike a Grand Bargain with Moscow as It Attacked the 2016 Election?” Mother Jones, 13 December 2018 (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/12/michael-flynn-contacts-russia-campaign-robert-mueller/ [accessed 16 December 2018]).