Matt Taibbi Spent The Weekend Defending Trump. It Was An Embarrassing Disaster
This has not been a good week for Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone's erstwhile contrarian.
by Justin Rosario
This has not been a good week for Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone's erstwhile contrarian. The whole point of being the guy that speaks truth to power is that you have to speak the truth and Taibbi has apparently completely abandoned that concept in favor of just spewing his loathing of Democrats and anyone who thinks Donald Trump is a criminal who should be removed from office.
Taibbi kicked off the week with a column that should have been a fair critique of how the media responded to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Washington Post had an obituary with what became a widely criticized and parodied headline of, "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at helm of Islamic State, dies at 48."
Part of the uproar was perfectly fair, al-Baghdadi was a fucking monster and the Post chose the most innocuous description imaginable to describe him. It would be like describing Hitler as an "amateur painter." Technically accurate but kind of missing the point. They didn't have to say he was a rabid, bloodthirsty animal but the eventual headline they went with (after 3 or 4 tries) was clearly more appropriate: "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, extremist leader of Islamic State, dies at 48."
The other part was a little less fair; the part about "dies at 48." People complained that it made it sound like he died in his sleep, something Taibbi alludes to. Apparently, and I was not aware of this, obituaries don't specify how people die. Everyone "dies at age xx" no matter if they die from cancer, overdose, old age, or a suicide vest.
Still, the general outline of the criticism was fair. For about three paragraphs. Then Taibbi flies off the rails:
When important events take place now, commercial news outlets instantly slice up the facts and commoditize them for consumption by their respective political demographics. We always had this process, to some degree, but it no longer takes days to sift into the op-ed pages.
Now news is packaged for Republicans or Democrats on the first reporting pass. Moreover, it’s no longer true that Fox is more blatant about its slant than the Democrat-friendly press, which in the Trump years has become a bullhorn of caricatured bellyaching in the same way Fox was in the Clinton years.
That is such utter nonsense that it's almost impossible to believe that Taibbi believes it. It's true that it's the thesis of his latest book which directly equates Rachel Maddow with Sean Hannity but no rational person can look at Fox News and CNN or MSNBC and declare "both sides are the same" without denying reality.
But that's exactly what Taibbi does.
Taibbi doesn't want the press to report on Trump
He laments that the "anti-Trump" media didn't just report on the death of a wanted terrorist but only had the gall to put it into context, something we have seen far too little of over the last three years. But Taibbi finds outrageous, nonetheless.
Even if you’re not the kind of person who can ever celebrate a violent helicopter assault that results in the deaths of children – I count myself in that number – the difference in how this story was covered compared to analogous stories about bin Ladenor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was striking. Apparently, the salient facts about the death of al-Baghdadi included:
Taibbi goes on to list several aspects that were reported on as if they shouldn't have been. I'm going to list them and explain in italics why Taibbi is either a liar or an imbecile for suggesting they weren't important:
Trump didn’t “inform some key Democrats” about the operation; Why does this matter? Because it shows that Trump is so goddamn petty that even in areas of national security, he will be as partisan as possible. What happens when there's an emergency and Trump decides not to work with Democrats because they hurt his feelings?
Trump “notified Russians… before telling congressional leaders”; Why does this matter? How many freaking times does Trump have to show his loyalty to Russia over his own country before Taibbi stops pretending the alleged President of the United States is not a Russian asset? If Obama was this slavishly devoted to a foreign power, Taibbi would have set himself on fire on the South Lawn in protest.
The Baghdadi raid was “complicated” by Trump’s plans to withdraw from Syria, happening “in spite of” Trump, not because of him; Why does this matter? Trump put our troops in danger and almost let the head of ISIS get away because of his utter incompetence as president. If killing the head of ISIS is important, and Taibbi thinks it is, then almost botching the planning to get him is worth taking note of.
The raid was a “victory built on factors Trump derides” (i.e., it was a win by intelligence agencies Trump has criticized); Why does this matter? Trump pounded his chest over "his" great victory while doing everything possible to make sure we can never do anything like it again. I get it, Taibbi hates the I.C. with every fiber of his being (just like Trump!) but you don't get to enjoy the work the people you hate do while cursing their existence.
Trump’s gloating tone contrasted with the more “measured” tone of Barack Obama after the bin Laden operation; Why does this matter? Because like it or not, the president represents the country and we shouldn't be seen as a drunken frat boy bragging about their latest conquest, something Taibbi knows all about. Also, ISIS will use Trump's arrogance as an excellent tool to recruit more terrorists, resulting in more death.
The operation was like watching a movie, except “there was no live audio” (this was the New York Times where the “whimpering and crying” detail came from); Seriously, how dishonest do you have to be to think the press shouldn't report on the President of the United States lying yet again?
Trump is going to “milk” the political benefit of Baghdadi because he needs to, because of impeachment and other problems; Where's the lie? Taibbi literally complains in his own column that Fox and right wing media "emphasized the political benefit of the raid to Trump." But when the "liberal" media points this same exact thing out, it's bad because...why? Because a liar said so, I guess.
Trump’s situation room photo appeared more “staged” than Obama’s, experts said. In fact, they were taken before the raid even happened! Why is this important? Even if the timing aspect of this was wrong (it does not appear to have been taking hours after), the picture is still clearly staged. That is not a group of men watching a raid. It's a group of men posing for a photograph. Trump himself made it clear that the only thing he cared about was having a "bigger" moment than Obama and that included having an iconic photo to match Obama's bin Laden photo.
Hint: Taibbi is being incredibly dishonest
Maybe because he was dragged over his column or maybe because the stress of being a "progressive" who can't stop defending Trump, Taibbi had what could be charitably be described as a meltdown on Saturday that lasted the entire day.
It started off really bad and it got, ahem, progressively worse throughout the day:
As I've mentioned before, I am not an extremely well-paid professional journalist for a venerated publication like Rolling Stone. So imagine my surprise when it turns out that I appear to understand American politics better than one of the more well-known political writers in the country.
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A little cold water on this hot take: The president does, indeed, set U.S. foreign policy. But he does not do so in a vacuum, does not have absolute unilateral authority to do so, and it is absolutely illegal for the president to benefit personally at the expense of the country's interests. If Taibbi honestly didn't know this, he should quit his job.
But really, he does know this. He's just being incredibly dishonest.
Taibbi goes on and, of course, has to toss in some "whataboutism." But it's possibly the worst attempt I've ever seen outside of Fox:
I'll say it slowly for the chuckleheads that think this was clever: Obama chose not to give Ukraine lethal military aid because he did not want to escalate tensions between Russia and the United States by fighting what would be essentially a proxy war. Taibbi, who loathes the military-industrial complex (not without ample justification), should 100% agree that avoiding more war is a good thing.
But in his need to defend Trump, suddenly Obama not giving military aid is just like what Trump did. Except it's not, and a child could see that.
Trump had already agreed to the escalation (hey, remember when people like Taibbi said Trump wouldn't be a warmonger?), but then withheld the aid in order to force the Ukrainian president to open a fake investigation into Joe Biden and his son for the explicit purpose of helping Trump with his reelection.
Obama said no to avoid a larger conflict. Trump said yes, but only after you do something to benefit me personally. Again, if Taibbi is incapable of sussing this out himself, he is not qualified to write about politics.
But of course he knows he's not being honest here. He just doesn't care.
Here's another gem. Taibbi invokes the dreaded name of...Hillary Clinton!!!!!
Except, if one were to, you know, actually read the article, one would find that Hillary did not, at any point, ask Ukraine to investigate Trump. Nor did anyone in her campaign. Officials in Ukraine saw, accurately, that Trump was Putin's creature and even before Manafort (a known Russian asset) was hired as his campaign manager, they were raising the alarm. (cont below)
Read the latest for Banter Members: The Poll That Should Really Worry Democrats - Ben Cohen explains why a new batch of polls released shows Democrats need to be very careful about their policy positions heading into 2020.
Taibbi was in rare form on Saturday. His thin skin was on full display as he started to lie about his lies. Here's him justifying lying about comparing Obama's sending nonlethal aid to Trump withholding lethal aid for personal gain:
If you're not sure what Taibbi is talking about (2016 feels like a million years ago, I know), he's talking about some of the first and most overt signs that Trump was Putin's puppet.
During the Republican National Convention in 2016, the Trump campaign changed one part of the GOP's platform. Just one. They pushed the GOP from supporting sending lethal aid to Ukraine to only sending non-lethal aid.
It's hard to recall but back then, Republicans all hated Russia and would have loved nothing more than to go to war. These days, of course, most of Trump's cult adores Putin because their orange god has told them to admire the dictator. But in 2016, the average Republican was quite eager to show the Reds how tough America is, so it was extremely odd that the Trump campaign did this.
It wasn't that the press wanted Obama to go to war and the GOP switching its platform to a less aggressive stance that alarmed the press. It was that a huge warning light was flashing — one of the first of many. Taibbi has dedicated the last 3 years to dishonestly distracting anyone he can from noticing those lights and calling everyone that comments on them "conspiracy nuts" and "idiots."
You never go full Breitbart
To cap it all off, Taibbi went full Breitbart by the end of the day:
That is 100% pure right wing tinfoil hat nonsense based on the fever dreams of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Reddit. Republicans controlled all three branches of the government for two full years and somehow failed to uncover the vast conspiracy behind the Deep State. But when you have nothing but bullshit to begin with, why not go all the way?
Taibbi hasn't started blaming "globalists" and George Soros yet, but it really is just a matter of time.
It's clear that from the triumphant peak of March, when he was gloriously stomping around screeching "I told you so!" at all of his detractors in the wake of Bill Barr's "summary" of the Mueller report, that Taibbi has been watching the last three years of his life crumble to dust.
It took a massive and concerted effort from the right wing media and the GOP to obscure the Mueller report. And even then, it was obvious that Taibbi was full of shit for denying its conclusions. The only reason that Democrats didn't impeach Trump eight months ago is because the investigation was so limited in scope and extreme Republican obstruction.
But the Ukraine extortion scheme is too out in the open, too simple, and has too many credible witnesses willing to speak. Taibbi has been frantically moving the goalposts almost by the hour in a desperate attempt to discredit the investigation. He's invested so much of his intellectual capital in painting Trump's critics as liars that he's bankrupted himself.
The once excellent journalism of Matt Taibbi has turned into a parody of itself. Instead of speaking truth to power, Taibbi only speaks lies to defend the powerful in a perversion of "the enemy of my enemy."
It's only going to get worse from here as Trump's criminality becomes more brazen and Taibbi struggles to convince his base of progressive readers that Trump is actually the victim here and Democrats and the mainstream media are all out to get him. One can only assume that when Trump tries to declare his impending 2020 loss null and void and attempts to seize control of the country through a coup, Taibbi will take to twitter to blame Democrats for forcing him to resort to such extreme measures.
It's the only logical outcome of an ideology whose sole guiding principle is "always oppose Democrats no matter what."
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Read the latest for Banter Members:
The Poll That Should Really Worry Democrats
Ben Cohen explains why a new batch of polls released shows Democrats need to be very careful about their policy positions heading into 2020.
And to think Taibbi was once considered legit.
"Taibbi struggles to convince his base of progressive readers that Trump is actually the victim here and Democrats and the mainstream media are all out to get him."
Well, the Democrats are out to get him. AS THEY SHOULD BE. It's their Constitutional obligation to investigate apparent wrongdoing by the President.
And the mainstream media is (slowly) starting to more openly and truthfully report things (which inevitably is not in Trump's favor). AS THEY SHOULD BE.