BREAKING: Concern about "information campaign!"

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2017

The madness of tribal living: We haven't read the New York Times' report about the now-famous meeting with the now-famous Russian lawyer. We've only read Kevin Drum's short, snarky treatment of same.

Drum is treating the report as some sort of vindication for our tribe. That said, here is the excerpt he posts:

Interviews and records show that in the months before the meeting, Ms. Veselnitskaya had discussed the allegations with one of Russia’s most powerful officials, the prosecutor general, Yuri Y. Chaika. And the memo she brought with her closely followed a document that Mr. Chaika’s office had given to an American congressman two months earlier, incorporating some paragraphs verbatim.

….In the past week, Ms. Veselnitskaya’s allegations—that major Democratic donors were guilty of financial fraud and tax evasion—have been embraced at the highest levels of the Russian government. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia repeated her charges at length last week at an annual conference of Western academics. A state-run television network recently made them the subject of two special reports, featuring interviews with Ms. Veselnitskaya and Mr. Chaika.

The matching messages point to a synchronized information campaign. Like some other Russian experts, Stephen Blank, a senior fellow with the nonprofit American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, said they indicate that Ms. Veselnitskaya’s actions “were coordinated from the very top.”

That's the excerpt from the Times. Our question goes something like this:

How lunatic has the world become when we liberals, along with the Times itself, seem to be shrieking and moaning about an alleged "information campaign?"

An information campaign! That's literally what the Times said!

Small-d democrats used to worry about disinformation campaigns. Now we're worried about an alleged campaign to produce information!

Tribal living destroys the brain. Perhaps the full report in the Times will seem different.

Award-winning further note: Based upon that excerpt, it sounds like our long-standing hypothesis is coming to pass.

Putin is making speeches in which he reveals some alleged information. Should we cover our ears and go "la-la-la-la" so we can't hear what he says?

Meanwhile, warning to the tribes: A troubling "information campaign" may be coming to pass!

We've said it any number of times. It sometimes seems that modern journalists no longer have a clear idea of what "information" is. They've trafficked in novelized stories so long that they no longer seem to understand the basic concept of "facts."

We started saying that when this whole Russian lawyer fandango surfaced. Today, the Times has issued a red alert:

A troubling "information campaign" may be taking shape!

(No, really—an information campaign! Honest to god, that's rich.)