OPINION:
Voter distrust — hatred, really — of the media has reached record highs. And it is all your fault.
It is all your fault because you stopped believing in the media.
It is your fault because you read too many stories about how Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election — only to discover that it was Hillary Clinton and the Democrats who colluded with the Kremlin to smear Mr. Trump before the 2016 election.
It is your fault for reading stories about how Mr. Trump lies about everything and will make up anything to destroy his political opponents — only to learn that Democrats in Congress wake up every morning to do that every single day, especially when it comes to Mr. Trump.
It is your fault before that for reading all of those stories during the 2016 election about how Mr. Trump was such a tyrannical megalomaniac for suggesting he might not accept the results of the election — only to spend three years listening to Mrs. Clinton, all the Democrats and most of the crooked media refuse to accept the results of the 2016 election.
It is also your fault for turning to that new-fangled internet device in search of actual news that did not utterly defy logic or facts or all the details that seem plainly obvious to any rational observer.
Credibility of the media is in a free-fall death spiral. And it is all because you have given up and walked away.
And just when you think our world has been drained of every last drop of absurdity, along comes the media carnival peddling one more bogus story.
Again, Mr. Trump is the culprit. Supposedly, according to a hearsay witness who did not actually observe the offense, Mr. Trump colluded with the president of Ukraine over the phone and pressured him to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joseph R. Biden.
Turns out, according to two named, on-the-record sources who were on that actual phone call, Mr. Trump never colluded or pressured anybody.
Also, turns out, there is a heinous little swamp scandal involving Mr. Biden and some apparently crooked deal his son had with a Ukrainian company in which it appears Mr. Biden used diplomatic pressure to protect or promote his son’s business interests.
You are probably sitting at home wondering what the hell is this all about.
Well, here is my theory. I believe the so-called “whistleblower” — the hearsay gossip witness who neither saw nor heard anything directly — went tattling to the inspector general knowing full well that the IG would take his evidence, thank him kindly and send him back to his cubicle in whatever “intelligence” agency was dumb enough to hire him in the first place.
The inspector general would handle appropriately and realize there was absolutely nothing to report to Congress.
Then, of course, it would leak.
And in all the swampy murk and whispered evidence, the story would sound absolutely terrible. It would make Mr. Trump look like a real crook after all and drive the nuts in Congress totally bonkers, demanding impeachment all over again.
Only Mr. Trump did what he always does these days. He took to Twitter and went on live TV and laid it all out himself. It is just what you have to do when you cannot trust the media to do its job anymore.
And, once again, the story backfires and blows up in the Wile E. Coyote media’s faces as Mr. Trump zooms into the sunset like the Road Runner with a giant orange crown.
Beep! Beep!
• Contact Charles Hurt at churt@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter @charleshurt.
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