THE WALLS: The Berlin Wall came tumbling down!

THURSDAY, MAY 18, 2023

New walls have gone up Over Here: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

The famous statement was made by President Reagan in June of 1987. He was speaking at the foot of the Berlin Wall, which separated East Berlin from West. 

During the years of the Cold War, it had been designed to keep East Berliners from escaping into the West. The leading authority on this particular barrier thumbnails the matter as shown: 

The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government of the GDR on 13 August 1961. It included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, accompanied by a wide area (later known as the "death strip") that contained anti-vehicle trenches, beds of nails and other defenses. The primary intention for the Wall's construction was to prevent East German citizens from fleeing to the West.

The Soviet Bloc propaganda portrayed the Wall as protecting its population from "fascist elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people" from building a communist state in the GDR. The authorities officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart...

According to that leading authority, "The evening of 9 November 1989 is known as the night the Wall came down."

The Berlin Wall was a physical barrier. Due to the so-called "democratization of media," a type of metaphorical wall currently separates our own nation's various population groups and political tribes.

Within the medium known as "cable news," our own blue tribe is currently serviced by MSNBC. The red tribe turns to the Fox News Channel, where they're typically offered bright red accounts of the day's alleged news.

In yesterday's report, we showed you how the newly released Durham Report has been reported in the New York Times in the past few days. On Tuesday morning, in the Times' initial news report, readers were told that Durham's report "revealed little substantial new information."

According to the Times reporting, the Durham Report "failed to produce the kinds of blockbuster revelations accusing the bureau of politically motivated misconduct that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies suggested Mr. Durham would uncover."

That's what it said in the Times! On Monday night, on the other side of a very large wall, red tribe viewers heard a vastly different account of what the Durham Report had shown.

Jesse Watters was speaking on the other side of a very large wall. As we showed you yesterday, he  offered this account of that same Durham Report at the start of his 7 P.M. Fox News program, Jesse Watters Primetime:

WATTERS (6/15/23): Fox News Alert! It only took four years, but the Durham Report has finally dropped, and he found out whatever everyone already knew.

The whole Trump/Russia collusion story was a giant hoax started by Democrats. 

The FBI knew it was a hoax. The CIA knew it was a hoax, and Barack Obama knew it was a hoax.

Everybody knew it was a hoax the whole time, but they acted like it was real. 

The CIA knew Hillary started the Russia collusion story, and then went in and told Barack Obama all about it, that she was trying to link Trump with Russia to distract from her email scandal.

Over at Fox, at 7 P.M., that's the way the news report started. At this point, Watters daringly went where the rubber meets the road:

WATTERS (continuing directly): But this is the best part—the pee tape...

The best part was the pee tape, Fox News viewers were told. It was soon described as "the pee-pee tape" as the news report continued.

Long story short! Red tribe denizens watching Watters heard an account of the Durham Report which bore little resemblance to the accounts which had appeared in the New York Times. 

In fairness, it wasn't Watters alone. At 7:08 P.M., the rising cable news star introduced a major political figure to comment on Durham's report.

Watters threw to Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). Their exchange began as shown:

WATTERS: Turn it over to Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, he's a member of the Judiciary Committee. So what are we going to do now? Are we going to do another report, Senator?

HAWLEY: There needs to be a lot more than reports, Jesse, People need to be prosecuted for this, the Clinton campaign and Hillary Clinton herself...There needs to be consequences for her and also for the FBI.

As of 7:08 P.M., it was time to lock her up! As we ponder life behind walls, let us say this about that:

In fact, John Durham had called for no new prosecutions in his long-awaited report. 

In the New York Times and on MSNBC, that fact was cited as one of the signs that his lengthy investigation had failed to find evidence of the serious crimes Donald J. Trump had endlessly alleged.

Durham had called for no new prosecutions! On Monday night, this fact went unmentioned on Watters Primetime, even as Hawley eventually added this:

HAWLEY: We've got to get justice here. And justice needs to be served.

You can't interfere in a presidential election without consequences, at least you couldn't, you used to not be able to in America. And that's what happened here.

That's what this report shows. That one political party, the Democrats, tried to use the FBI to rig a presidential election and just about got away with it.

[...]

I mean, it's amazing! If there is something like this in American history, I don't know what it is. And that's why I say there needs to be prosecutions, there needs to be accountability, and the FBI had got to be overhauled now, top to bottom.

Hawley was calling for prosecutions. After a four-year probe, Durham hadn't done so, but red tribe viewers weren't told.

Red tribe voters were hearing an account of the Durham Report on the red tribe's cable channel. 

What they were hearing was very different from what had been written in the New York Times. It was very different from what blue tribe viewers were being told on MSNBC programs.

In July 1992, at the Democratic Convention in New York City, future president Bill Clinton quoted a well-known passage from Proverbs:

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." 

Where there is no vision, the people perish! But how about when there are two (or more) grossly contradictory visions? When there are visions which may exclude other visions? What happens to the people then?

Tomorrow, we'll return to what Barack Obama said, this very week, about the danger of "divided media." Also, we'll think about the type of segregation by viewpoint now widely practiced across the "cable news" dial.

Way back in 1989, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down after three decades of service. Here within our own flailing nation, elaborate networks of metaphorical walls are steadily being erected.

These walls are separating the people, thus impeding "the vision thing."

Tomorrow: It's amazing how rarely you hear it