The dumbing down of scandal.

Paul GleiserThe dumbing down of scandal.

The first president for whom I ever voted left office in disgrace. Richard Nixon’s role in Watergate was a front page, top-of-the-fold, lead-story-on-the-nightly-news, week-in, week out-for-months-on-end scandal.

The media was relentless. Watergate served to hound Richard Nixon from office. Following his momentous fall from grace, eight top officials in his administration went to prison. Across the country – among both Democrats and Republicans – there was a proper sense of outrage and the malefactors in the Watergate story were made to pay a price.

We have since dumbed down scandals. Exhibit “A” is “Russiagate.”

Beginning in 2016, Hillary Clinton created – mostly out of thin air – a portfolio of Russian collusion and conspiracy theories targeted at Donald Trump. Her concoctions were intended to deflect attention from damaging material on her personal email server, thwart her bitter opponent Donald Trump in the 2016 election and then later serve as a public explanation for her humiliating 2016 election loss.

Fine. Politics, you say. Scurrilously dirty politics, to be sure. But politics, nonetheless.

The episode becomes a scandal by virtue of the actions of the FBI, nominally the nation’s premiere law enforcement agency. The top leaders of the FBI were adamantly opposed to a Trump presidency and willing to abandon all scruple to prevent one from happening. Using as the predicate material that they knew was utterly bogus Clinton campaign oppo “research,” (the now infamous “Steele Dossier”), the FBI pursued a cosmically dishonest, legacy media-enabled campaign to prevent a Trump presidency from ever happening. When that effort failed, there was an immediate pivot toward kneecapping Trump’s presidency by “investigating” (while systematically leaking to the media) allegations of Russian “collusion” to steal the 2016 election.

On the Richter Scale of scandals, Russiagate dwarfs Watergate. Watergate was at its root a garden variety political dirty trick. Russiagate, on the other hand, was an attempt by high-ranking officials within the government to nullify the expressed will of the American electorate. Yet, save for one FBI lawyer who got 12 months probation, the Russiagate perpetrators all skated while the media yawned.

Since then, we’ve learned that Hunter Biden has made millions peddling his father’s position in the U.S. government to international thugs and tyrants. To quote Joe Biden himself, that’s a big effin’ deal. The proper word is, ‘bribery,’ one of the specific words used by the founders as a basis for impeaching presidents.

We’ve learned that Hunter did not pay income taxes on those millions. And we’ve learned that it was nevertheless the first instinct of the federal prosecutor assigned to the case to let Hunter off scot-free. Scandal on a massive scale. Yet, no accountability. No reckoning. Most of the media remains disinterested.

That lack of accountability, that dumbing down of scandal, is happening concurrently with the nakedly partisan prosecution of a former president who still enjoys widespread support. The obvious double standard has created a civic division that threatens to rend the very fabric of the nation.

If a proper accounting never comes, it’s not clear the republic can survive.

Paul Gleiser

Paul L. Gleiser is president of ATW Media, LLC, licensee of radio stations KTBB 97.5 FM/AM600, 92.1 The TEAM FM in Tyler-Longview, Texas.

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10 Responses

  1. C M Solomon says:

    Mr. Gleiser, without a doubt, your post is one of the most succinct, exquisitely accurate summary of the detestable, (and can I say) CRIMINAL, MOB-LIKE behavior of our fundamental Law Enforcement agencies that are bound by our Constitution to keep our Nation free of tyranny, that I have read, so far! The next few years will determine if we can keep the most blessed Republic ever created by mankind alive and strong enough to survive this scourge on our wonderful Nation that we inherited from generations of sacrifice by our forefathers that paid for our freedom with their blood, sweat, and tears!

  2. Richard Anderson says:

    Very thoughtful piece.

    Every righteous man and woman of honesty and integrity must be “doing something” to correct the course of our Constitutional Republic now more than ever.

    One thing I suggest is to WRITE a letter TODAY and mail via The U.S. Post Office to your Representatives and Senators and our U.S. Supreme Court Justices expressing you concern that our Forty-Fifth President DJT is being wrongly prosecuted and persecuted for something that he is COMPLETELY innocent of!!! And that the utterly FALSE charges being “politically weaponized and propagandized” against him by “the corrupt Biden regime” MUST STOP.. NOW.

    The current tactics being imposed on AMERICA and WE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE by the leftist communist fascists democrats are evil.. evil of a Dr. Joseph Goebbels and Chairman Mao vein. And therein lies the problem when up against such evil. Our Founding Fathers in 1776 had a word for this.

    TYRANNY.

    So every Citizen who loves God, their Family, and our Country, must act now to do all they can to STOP the tidal wave of Marxism* (*i.e. really a spirit of anti Christ) which has gripped the minds of too many in our government, by calling on and DEMANDING action by those in government of GOOD REPORT in positions of EQUAL authority to PUSH BACK and ROLL BACK this evil which has our Republic, our beloved United States of America, in a dire position of grave peril unlike any in our 247 years a Constitutional Republic established under GOD in Freedom.

    If you, as a Citizen, are in a position of authority.. a Judge, a Teacher, a Pastor, a Catholic Priest, an Entrepreneur, a Peace Officer, a Nurse, an Attorney, a Factory Manager, and so many others, RAISE YOUR IMPORTANT AMERICAN VOICE as it must be heard! And we need Christian Prayer to GOD now, more than ever. Thank you.

    God Bless The United States of America and God Bless President Donald J. Trump.

  3. C M Solomon says:

    Would “someone tell me” why the Republicans failed to strip funding for the new FBI headquarters complex that is 2X LARGER THAN THE PENTAGON? Please, would “someone tell me” WHY the FBI needs more office space than the Pentagon? What could possibly be their motivation for such a large LAW ENFORCEMENT monstrosity? Exactly what kind of “LAWS” are they planning to surveil among a formerly “free” society?

  4. Elaine says:

    I volunteered for JFK’s campaign in 1960, both Clinton campaigns(liked his welfare to work program) both Bush presidents and Trump. A true independent. Did not vote for governor or any top officials last year as I am a survivor of rape and my sis didn’t survive incest,. The Abbott administration sent us back to PRE ROE days. I remember
    them. If we haven’t before, we should consider a ticket with both parties represented. Like RFK,Jr (Pres.) and Nikki Haley VP. Didn’t we have a ticket like this once.

    If it is between Trump and Biden , I will do a write in. Manchin comes to mind , but definitely RFK .

    Was a Democrat, then Republican and now a true independent. Republican women friends of mine who remember PRE-ROE abortions are flocking tohe Democrat party as the Republican party has nothing to protect us.

    Also, senior women and men who had daughters and wives pre-Roe are voting Democrat next near no matter who is on their ticket….for this reason alone.

    Turned 78 last Friday and finally found a church that sings hymns I know!!!

    • C M Solomon says:

      1945 was a good year and finding churches that sing old fashioned sacred songs that make you weep and seek God’s mercy and forgiveness are rare in today’s “modern churches”.

      One of my favorite verses is contained in Job 10:10-12 as follows: “10) You guided my conception and formed me in the womb. 11) You clothed me with skin and flesh, and you knit my bones and sinews together. 12) You gave me life and showed me your unfailing love. My life was preserved by your care.”

      This is the essence of God’s loving mercy to His creation, bar none, when He could have left us without hope for all eternity!

  5. Linda E. Montrose says:

    The framers of our CONSTITUTION had in mind that people in Congress were to be of the public. To be a broad spectrum of people from business owners to farmers, serve a few years and then go back to what they were doing before SERVING. They did not see what we have become today, nor did they intend for “serving” in Congress to be held for life and there are a few who have done just that! They came in poor and young then left office or died in office multimillionaires!
    I was just very young but remember when Prayer and God was taken out of schools and I truly believe this has had a profound effect on society as a whole. We stepped away from our foundation and the truths that made this Nation great.
    Clearly remember the Nixon scandal when it happened and what happened because of it. I did like Nixon and grateful he did get us out of Vietnam. People tend to forget or dismiss the good he did and he was forever branded by Watergate. I can think of two presidents who were worse than President Nixon and never have received what they deserved, but will in the end. These two presidents were clearly lead by their lust for power and love of the almighty dollar, yet what they have done has had a profound effect upon the citizens of this once Great Nation. We are feeling it now more than we ever have. I will leave you with this: What done in darkness, WILL come to light and the LOVE of money and power is the root of all evil. Giant steps away from what our Framers imagined!

  6. Paul i luna says:

    I think the democrats and fbi are so crooked ,they are scares that Trump will expose them. I i think the republicans should be ivestigating wher Obama was born. With some reward for information they might also find someone with some facts about wrong doing in the Georgia election

  7. Darrell Durham says:

    This election is the most important in years. If the Democrats succeed in placing another body in the White House, free and fair elections are history. With everything you just laid out it will be impossible for Biden to win a FAIR election. Only democrats are allowed to point out irregularities in the vote. Republicans are simply deniers and conspiracy theorists. Regardless of what you believe occured in the last election for president, enough wasn’t right to at least question the results. The blatant attempts to prevent the voters choice in the next one can’t be denied. Trump MUST be our next president.

  8. Charles Taylor "CT" says:

    Paul, you have written some great ones, but in my opinion, this is your best.

  9. Richard Anderson says:

    Important and timely remarks here below at link by Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas.

    https://rumble.com/v3ekut3-mike-huckabee-why-2024-might-be-the-last-election-decided-by-ballots.html

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