Normalizing the "nearly demented!"

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2016

McCaffrey changes his mind:
We were watching, and we were surprised, when General Barry McCaffrey vouched for General Michael Flynn a few weeks ago.

We thought it was already clear that something was wrong with Flynn. Watching cable, we saw McCaffrey vouch for Flynn in very strong terms.

McCaffrey seems to have changed his mind. Matt Shuman reports at TPM:
SHUMAN (12/8/16): Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey has changed his opinion on the incoming national security adviser, retired Army Gen. Michael Flynn, after reading his tweets.

In an interview on NBC posted online Thursday, McCaffrey acknowledged that he had initially been supportive of Flynn after President-elect Trump announced that he would be his national security adviser, a position which does not require confirmation hearings.

“But I must admit,” McCaffrey said, “I’m now extremely uneasy about some of these tweets, which don’t sound so much as if they are political skullduggery, but instead border on being demented. So I think we need to look into this and sort our what’s going on here.”

“I think that we need to aggressively examine what was going on with Gen. Flynn and his son, dealing with these transparent, nearly demented tweets that were going out,” he continued. “I think it needs closer scrutiny.”
We agree—Flynn and Flynn seem to be "nearly demented." That said, and this point is very important:

Thoughts and claims which were "nearly demented" were normalized long ago.

Chris Matthews' thoughts and claims were nearly demented for years. Maureen Dowd wasn't much better. In the darker reaches of The Crazy, major figures ran around for many years listing the Clintons' many murders.

Everyone agreed to pretend that this lunacy made perfect sense.

Donald J. Trump was nearly demented when he claimed, in 2011, that he had sent investigators to Hawaii to probe Obama's place of birth, and that they were blown away by the things they were learning. Five years later, in a front-page report this July, the New York Times was still unwilling to ask if Trump had actually done that, or if he had simply been lying the whole time.

The Times is tremendously strange. That said, demented behavior was normalized long ago, virtually by acclamation The press looked away when others did it, engaged in the practice themselves. We liberals kept our traps shut.

Within our demented national discourse, this has been normal for years. Our normalization of the demented has now produced President Trump, who simply loves General Flynn.

14 comments:

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  2. Operatives tangentially associated with Trump did go to Hawaii, so there is wiggle room with Trump's claim. Although, if they were blown away by what they were learning it would only be things related to Obama actually having been born in Hawaii. None of this diminishes Trump's generally demented behavior. His supporters I think are also demented.

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  3. Was a word omitted? Bob wrote: "We agree—Flynn and Flynn seem to be "nearly demented."" I suspect Bob meant:
    "We agree—Flynn and Flynn's son seem to be "nearly demented.""

    Appropriately, Trump fired Flynn's son. Hopefully, the demented stuff came from the son, but the father will be OK. Hopefully.

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    1. No, the father's a nut too.

      Happily (if one's in denial about the widespread nuttiness of one's GOP), the press seem to be following the party's desired script and playing it as being just about the kid.

      Sad (if you're sane).

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. Good point, gravymeister.

      I wonder what the evidence is that General Flynn is "nearly demented." I know he was incorrectly accused of promoting "pizzagate". I don't know what other comments he has tweeted demonstrating his dementia.

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    2. actually it is not clear his tweet was not about pizzagate, either way General Flynn has tweeted enough recently to earn the "demented" reputation.

      https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/flynn-pushed-fake-news-sixteen-times

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