The Magical Art Of Misdirection

As usual, watching the Tweeter-In-Chief is quite hilarious. His latest blast from last night has well and truly set the media’s hair on fire.

Now, you have to understand something about the President’s tweets, famously expressed by Salena Zito: The media took Trump literally but not seriously, and his supporters took him seriously but not literally. In this case, when he says “Obama” he means “the Obama Administration”, he’s used that shorthand lots of times.

This lack of understanding of Trump TweetSpeak led Comrade Obama to issue an appropriately lawyerly denial, since he is a lawyer. Well, actually, he had his spokesdude issue a denial, he’s far too busy with really really important stuff to actually talk to people himself. Apparently Comrade Obama believes that all people are equal, but some are more equal than others. In any case, from the NY Post:

A spokesman for former President Barack Obama today denied that Obama ordered wiretaps at Trump Tower.

“A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” an Obama spokesman said.

“As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen,” the statement said.

As with everything a lawyer says, you have to look at what he did NOT say. He did NOT say, for example,

“My Administration did NOT wiretap Trump Tower”.

That alone tells me that they possibly did wiretap Trump Tower. And as discussed below, un-named “sources” say that indeed a FISA warrant was applied for, turned down, re-applied for, and eventually granted to wiretap a server in Trump Tower.

Nor did His Imperial Ex-President’s Royal Spokesmodel say, for example;

As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever suggested or implied surveillance on any U.S. citizen

With Obama’s disclaimer having enough holes to drive a semi truck through, and Obama saying he never ever directly ordered it, this quote from King Hank the Second comes to mind …

Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?

We also have to remember the context for this pure-as-the-driven-snow disclaimer from Comrade Obama.

Bear in mind that this is the same Obama Administration that used the intelligence agencies to secretly spy on Associated Press reporters, bugging their phones and hacking their computers.

And this is the same Obama Administration that used the IRS to attack the Tea Party.

There’s more. This is the same Obama Administration whose CIA Director had to apologize to Congress for spying on our own elected officials!

Also, remember that the FBI wanted to investigate the Clinton Foundation … but they were shut down by the Obama Justice Department …

And this is the same Obama Administration that recorded Mike Flynn of the Trump transition team instead of withdrawing from the wiretap as required when an American citizen was on the line. (In the event, the wiretap disclosed absolutely nothing untoward, but he should not have been wiretapped.)

Next, the usual “un-named sources” said back in November said that there was a FISA warrant application to wiretap Trump’s campaign:

Two separate sources with links to the counter-intelligence community have confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI sought, and was granted, a FISA court warrant in October, giving counter-intelligence permission to examine the activities of ‘U.S. persons’ in Donald Trump’s campaign with ties to Russia.

Contrary to earlier reporting in the New York Times, which cited FBI sources as saying that the agency did not believe that the private server in Donald Trump’s Trump Tower which was connected to a Russian bank had any nefarious purpose, the FBI’s counter-intelligence arm, sources say, re-drew an earlier FISA court request around possible financial and banking offenses related to the server. The first request, which, sources say, named Trump, was denied back in June, but the second was drawn more narrowly and was granted in October after evidence was presented of a server, possibly related to the Trump campaign, and its alleged links to two banks; SVB Bank and Russia’s Alfa Bank. While the Times story speaks of metadata, sources suggest that a FISA warrant was granted to look at the full content of emails and other related documents that may concern US persons.

And this all seems to have been precipitated by a recent Mark Levine investigation reported here.

Given all of that, it is certainly reasonable to think that the Obama Administration could have used the intelligence apparatus to spy on Donald Trump and his campaign. After all that skullduggery, it’s no stretch at all to think they spied on Trump.

Now, to date is there any actual evidence to back up the President’s tweet? ABSOLUTELY NONE. And that is driving the media over the edge. And therein lies the beauty of his tweet.

For months, the Democratic-media complex has been hounding first Candidate Trump and now President Trump over claimed connections to Russia. To date, despite extensive investigation by the FBI, the CIA, and every media organization in DC, there has been NOT ONE SCRAP OF EVIDENCE OF ACTUAL WRONGDOING WITH RUSSIA BY THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN. Nothing. Zip. Zero. The media and the Democrats have been making accusations of treason over and over while operating in a completely evidence-free zone.

Now President Trump has done the same, accused without evidence. And just listen to people in the Democratic-media complex screaming, it’s non-stop. Carrying the story forwards we find this:

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Sunday in a statement that reports “concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are very troubling.”

“President Donald J. Trump is requesting that as part of their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016,” Spicer said.

So why did I find all of this hilarious?

Here’s the key to understanding the Tweeter-In-Chief. It’s bozo simple.

Pay absolutely no attention to his words.

Seriously! His words are MEANINGLESS. People still don’t get it. Once you get stuck in his words you’ll be lost forever.

Let me see if I can explain it as an allegory. Here’s the best I can come up with.

Trump uses Twitter like a stick with words written on it. Think about a man using that stick to poke a bear. The stick keeps the man away from the bear, but he can still poke the bear with his stick. So he pokes and prods and pushes the bear with the stick.

Now, what is happening is that the media is reporting the story of the man poking the bear with the stick, as they should. But in response to what they see, they are running around screaming “LOOK AT THE WORDS WRITTEN ON THE STICK! DISSECT AND DISCUSS EACH WORD! IS THIS WORD RIGHT? IS THERE EVIDENCE FOR THAT WORD?”

Me, I ignore his words. Instead, I look at what is important … the key question has nothing to do with what is written on the stick.

The key question to ask, the only thing worth looking at, is what does the bear do when it is poked?

That’s what you need to consider. Not what the President said. Look away from that entirely, stand back, look around, and consider instead what the various people who are the targets of his tweet did.

And in this case, in addition to spontaneous tonsorial combustion in the media, here’s what his Tweet has already occasioned. From here we have:

Although many Republicans were caught unawares by President Trump’s unproven claim that the Obama White House ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower, Rep. Devin Nunes has promised to look into it.

Nunes (R-Tulare), who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said the probe of the president’s allegation would be wrapped into an existing investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential campaign.

… and from here …

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton expressed Sunday that President Trump’s accusation that the Obama administration wiretapped Trump’s presidential campaign is certain to be included in the Senate Intelligence committee’s ongoing probe into Russia’s possible efforts to “undermine the U.S. political system.”

So now, we no longer have both the Senate and the House Intelligence Committees investigating evidence-free accusations of collusion with the Russians.

Instead, both of those Committees are now investigating the actions of both the Obama and the Trump Administrations! How good is that? They can chase their tails round and round forever.

And for verification of this interpretation of events?

A few minutes ago, the White House through Sean Spicer just announced that they would make absolutely no further announcements on this matter until the House and Senate investigations are completed ….

Game, set, and match. Nothing left to see here, folks, although the media will grind on it for days. He’s already won and moved on.

w.

POR FAVOR: When you comment please QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE DISCUSSING, so we can all understand your subject.