Can I just say how much I loathe the new Kewl Kidz at Politico Playbook? It’s hard to believe that it’s gotten worse, but it has:
MEET YOUR FUTURE HOUSE INTEL CHAIR — Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY named Rep. MIKE TURNER (R-Ohio) as new ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, a prominent national security post that ensures he’ll be the leading contender to replace Rep. ADAM SCHIFF as panel chair if the GOP flips the House. Turner replaces Rep. DEVIN NUNES, who’s leaving to become CEO of Trump Media & Technology Group.
[…]
WHAT INSIDERS WANT TO KNOW: CAN TURNER RESTORE INTEL’S REPUTATION? Once upon a time, the House Intel Committee was considered among the most bipartisan panels on the Hill. That has changed drastically in recent years, with Nunes and Schiff at the helm. Democrats routinely dismissed Nunes as blinded by MAGA groupthink and in Trump’s pocket, and Republicans roundly dismissed Schiff for claiming to have seen classified evidence that Trump colluded with Russia when the special counsel never produced those goods.
Can you see the problem with this both-sides bullshit? I knew that you could.
Mueller didn’t produce “those goods”? Really? I think they indicted a whole bunch of people, including Trump’s campaign chairman who handed over private campaign data to a Russian agent. He also didn’t conduct a real counterintelligence investigation but rather a criminal one which means that whatever they may have seen in the classified information they couldn’t have used. Moreover, we don’t know what classified evidence Schiff saw and neither do they. It’s a ridiculous comparison to Nunes’s behavior as Intelligence chair.
There is no doubt that Nunes was blinded by MAGA. His midnight ride ruse, in which he snuck into the White House in the middle of the night to obtain classified information from Trump toadies and then held a press conference the next day announcing that he was urgently delivering it to the White House remains one of the most outrageous acts by a congressman ever. And the fact that he has now quit congress to become the CEO of Trump’s new media company should make them embarrassed to have written that “Democrats dismissed Nunes as being in Trump’s pocket” because it’s literally true.
They call Turner a “moderate” which is a meaningless term in today’s politics. He said some things against Trump once upon a time but was never there when it counted. Elevating him to the level of elder statesman simply because he isn’t frothing at the mouth like Paul Gosar is ridiculous.
But get ready. The Village 2.0 is preparing to welcome the “adults” back to the center of politics, by which I mean right wing Republicans. Just look at how they assume the GOP is going to win next year. It’s as if it’s already done.