This post first appeared on Russia Insider
The Trump vs. neocon elites battle continues apace.
Yesterday evening, in a sneak ambush, the NYTimes, CNN, and Wapo launched their latest salvo - trying to give as much airtime as possible to some particularly salacious, old-news, opposition research that has been bouncing around Washington since the summer, which everyone passed on, including team Clinton and the Trump-hating media as just too ridiculous.

Back in December when this whole ‘Trump is a Russian Agent’ meme was gathering momentum, I wrote that this was a massive own-goal by a failing neocon establishment which is being washed out on a tide of new media like Russia Insider which pierces through their buffoonery.
I expected the whole thing to blow over pretty quickly, as they realized that they were just digging their own political grave.
Luckily, I was wrong.
I differ with many commentators who are live-blogging this slow-motion meltdown of a corrupt and rotten establishment. Many see a supremely intelligent and dangerous evil, a serpent steadily moving towards a complete usurpation of our societies which will plunge us into an Orwellian misery, in other words, Doom and Gloom.
I see a fantastically stupid and inept elite who are being completely upended by a new reality, stumbling towards an ignominious end.
They are like the Catholic church at the time of the spread of the printing press. It had become hopelessly corrupt and was completely unable to defend itself against a 1000 pamphleteers, and so ceded 50% of the countries it formerly controlled.
So what we have now is the elites doubling down on a losing strategy. Thomas Knapp explains it very well in an article in today's Antiwar.com. Knapp’s advice to Clapper: When in a hole, the first rule is - Stop Digging! Our elites simply do not understand that the world has changed. Their frantic flailing about resembles nothing so much as a Great Wooly Mammoth caught in quicksand.
Their strategy with this latest ploy is completely transparent: - run these stories as huge news all over the place, with modest disclaimers that this is of course all unsubstantiated rumor, but nonetheless, lay it all out in gory detail with big headlines, with the idea that some true-believers will believe it anyway, and to generally drill the impression into the heads of many more that something about Trump and the Russians is fishy, and that Trump might be a sexual degenerate.
All well and good, as far as it goes. It is fiendishly devious, the evil fruit of true slimeballs, and will no doubt be somewhat successful. They will find eager dolts in the media who will happily front this stuff with bated breath. But what the plotters don’t see is that a great chorus of voices will rise up and laugh them out of court - the 1000 pamphleteers of our age.
The eager dolts don’t realize they are walking into a hail of well-sharpened pens which will rip them to shreds.
Indeed, the bloodletting has already been brutal with blow after vicious blow being landed on these hapless neocon warriors since the whole Russia meme got going in December - by Drudge, Greenwald, Carlson, RT, Breitbart, Assange, Paul, Jones, and the formidable Trumpenfuhrer himself. These are the big guns.

Add to this the thousand cuts from the second tier sites like Russia Insider, and most of social media, and what you have is a major debacle. And the great thing is, the kill rate is in one direction only. The neocon elites and in particular, their media, are being crucified, and we’re looking smart and growing our audiences.
The damage to their reputations, already so besmirched, will be far more than the silly allegations, which in the long run will be seen for what they are and dismissed as baloney. They took a drubbing during the election, and this time it will be no different.
This 2 minute clip from CNN is must-see stuff. Here we have some eager dolts marching to their demise.
Blitzer can barely contain his excitement with some “Breaking News!” he really wants you to hear. He keeps repeating the word “breaking”, he says that is “major”. The word “BREAKING!” is blinking on the screen in big red letters! It’s so important he can’t even pronounce it himself, so trembling with excitement, (and for dramatic effect) he asks Jake Tapper to do so.
Tapper has a very serious look on his face, like someone has been shot. He announces the awful news, and then explains that it is so important that they had to get a whole team of dolts up there to dissect it, so then Tapper, (for dramatic effect) asks some guy I never heard of, to explain it again.
Priceless. Great TV, by any measure.
This post first appeared on Russia Insider
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