From the right, a deafening whispering campaign

"[Trump] has seen his cautious approach to Saudi Arabia bolstered … by the maligning of Khashoggi."

How — you ask, I ask, any rational person would ask — could Trump possibly find the tender-heartedness he expresses to cold-blooded killers bolstered by defaming a brave, murdered journalist?

The answer is: We should have known.

The right's disinformation machine, in all its pernicious configurations and malign grifters, is "mounting a whispering campaign against Jamal Khashoggi," reports the Washington Post, "that is designed to protect President Trump from criticism of his handling of the dissident journalist’s alleged murder by operatives of Saudi Arabia."

More than a whispering campaign, it's Goebbelsesque codswallop made anew by personalities with somewhat lesser dazzle than Brother Joseph of the Ministry of Propaganda. (If you've read any of his diaries, you know that Goebbels could at least write well.)

"Trump wants to take a soft line" toward the barbarous Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, says NeverTrumper Bill Kristol, "so Trump supporters are finding excuses for him to take it. One of those excuses is attacking the person who was murdered." You, I, we all ask, Is there any bottom to the right's indecency? But that, in the negative, we do already know.

Fox News' Harris Faulkner: "Khashoggi was tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. I just put it out there because it is in the constellation of things that are being talked about." The quite possibly psychotic David Horowitz's FrontPage magazine: ["Khashoggi was a] cynical and manipulative apologist for Islamic terrorism." The definitely psychotic Rush Limbaugh: "[Trump is] not going to get sidetracked by what happened to a journalist, maybe, in the consulate there." Sidetracked. 

The Post notes that according to Middle East specialists who objectively followed his writings, "Khashoggi was once sympathetic to Islamist movements, [but] he moved toward a more liberal, secular point of view."

We wait for similar enlightenment to take hold among those on the right. And wait, and wait, as Casablanca's narrator introduced the wartime tale of romantic Heroes vs. Trumpian Fascists.

 

Comments

[Peter G]

I am sure we all know what particular Gunga Din carried that water to us before any of us were even thirsty for reasons why it was okay to literally slaughter the journalist in question. What an honor it must be to be in the vanguard of the deplorables. And look ma! No brain cells required!

[Peter G]

And what scintillating debate this is producing. Why I just read a fascinating article that suggested, ostensibly as a joke, that Britain’s Brexit difficulties might best be addressed by executing a third of Britain’s civil service. It is they, you see, who are responsible for making the promises Brexiters made to themselves regarding Brexit not come true. The commentary attached is equally interesting for the commenters feel this third is insufficient and posit that somewhere between eighty and one hundred percent would be more advisable.

Why attach this here? Well it is the further humorous assertion of the author that the task would best be handed over to Saudi intelligence agents for execution, pun intended. Gosh, the moderation is just so inspiring. And butchery allusions so funny.