My radio colleague John Batchelor has pegged U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-NY) as “the Pathfinder.” The reason being that, as ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff has been most vocal and visible in trying to divine the truth behind the alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia—and, in a fortuitous confluence of circumstances for Schiff, find a path to taking Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat.
Whether the truth will out and the Pathfinder will oust Feinstein remains to be seen, as does any evidence the Pathfinder insinuates exists to prove the Trump-Putin collusion allegation.
Thanks to the tender mercies of his friends in the media elite, Schiff’s failure to produce any shred of evidence regarding collusion—let alone a crime—has not proven problematic for the Pathfinder. Obviously, the media elite dislikes the president and will brook no facts—or the absence thereof—from getting in the way of a good smearing. The Pathfinder facilitates this mutually advantageous, tawdry political theater by ascribing the “appearance” of the most insidious motivations and actions to President Trump and his campaign in relation to Putin’s Russia; then artfully dodging his lack of evidence with the limp two-step, “I’d love to tell you more, but it’s classified.”
And how the Left-wing applauds and approves! For the media elite, ratings, circulation and “clicks” soar; and the Pathfinder treks ever closer to his coveted senate seat. Yes, their off-Broadway/on-Beltway production of “Trump Done It (Whatever It Was)?” is the smash hit of the post-Obama season.
But what of the country’s sane center praying its president didn’t commit treason by colluding with a foreign power to attain his office? Yes, they realize that sometimes where there’s smoke there’s fire. But they also know that when dealing with the Left, oft times where there’s smoke there’s reefer.
Thus, fair minded citizens respectfully ask for evidence before impeaching a president for “high crimes and misdemeanors” and withhold their judgement of the Pathfinder and media elite’s anti-Trump production, despite the Pathfinder and the media elite’s self-bestowed rave reviews.
In sum, in terms of “Russia-gate”, the disconnect between the nonpartisan public and the Pathfinder and his media cohorts is this: the former don’t want to believe it; the latter need to believe it. Or as one character memorably put it in Werner Herzog’s “Incident at Loch Ness,” when asked if the monster was real: “They say show me the evidence. I say show me the non-evidence.”
Certain President Trump is a monster capable of monstrous deeds, for months Pathfinder Schiff has been parading across the media stage dolloping out his Russia-gate non-evidence to Democrats howling for more. Yet, one of the things nonpartisan Americans find off-putting about politics is how normal rules of reason are abrogated for political gain. Perhaps then, to accommodate their wish to find our own path the truth about Russia-gate, let us depoliticize the discourse in order to objectively assess the veracity of Pathfinder Schiff’s schtick.
But how? One can take a contested debate between two apolitical camps, such as scientists and cryptozoologists, and endeavor to settle it to one’s satisfaction. Thus, what if Pathfinder Schiff was alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin but, instead, was alleging the existence of the chupacabra—the bloodsucking critter alleged to feast upon livestock in the Americas? Hmm…
On the March 5, 2017 episode of “Meet the Press” came this statement from…
Former National Security Advisor James “The” Clapper: “We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say ‘our,’ that’s NSA, FBI, and CIA, with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had any reflection of the chupacabra. There was no evidence of the chupacabra included in our report.”
Moderator: “I understand, but does it exist?”
“The” Clapper: “Not to my knowledge.”
Now, you’re probably thinking that if a top federal bureaucrat assigned the task of determining the matter has found no evidence, then the chupacabra doesn’t exist. But you’re not trying to find a path to Sen. Feinstein’s senate seat by pandering to an aggrieved mob of Democrats and elite media celebrities.
Entering stage left trailing along in the “Meet the Press” footsteps of “The” Clapper, on March 19, 2017, thus opines…
Pathfinder Schiff: “I was surprised to see Director Clapper say that, because I don’t think you can make that claim categorically as he did. I would characterize it this way at the outset of the investigation. There is circumstantial evidence of a chupacabra. There is direct evidence, I think, of deception [by those denying the existence of the chupacabra].”
Hot on the chupacabra’s spiky tail, during the March 22 edition of “Meet the Press Daily,” Pathfinder Schiff remains adamant in the face of a less than skeptical moderator:
Moderator: “But you admit all there is a circumstantial case.”
Pathfinder Schiff: “Actually, no, Chuck, I can tell you that the case is more than that, and I can’t go into the particulars but there is more than circumstantial evidence [of the chupacabra] now.”
Moderator: “You have seen direct evidence of the chupacabra?”
Pathfinder Schiff: “I don’t want to go into specifics, but I will say there is evidence that is not circumstantial and is very much worthy of investigation.”
Still, in the face of all the Pathfinder’s proffered non-evidence, some obstinate citizens refused to accept the chupacabra exists and compelled a forceful response during “State of the Union” on April 2, 2017.
Pathfinder Schiff: “I don’t think we can say anything definitively at this point.”
For her part, during a May 3, 2017 interview with Wolf (Wolfman?) Blitzer, the Pathfinder’s other quarry, Sen. Feinstein, counted herself among the sane who had yet to seen any evidence of the chupacabra.
Blitzer: “Last time we spoke Senator, I asked you if you had actually seen evidence of the chupacabra, and you said to me, and I’m quoting you now, ‘Not at this time.’ Has anything changed since we spoke last?”
Feinstein: “Well, no it hasn’t.”
Following Feinstein’s lead, as is his wont, a backtracking Pathfinder Schiff switches horses in midstream—even if the chupacabra doesn’t exist, the Yeti (i.e., “obstruction”) does! From “This Week” on June 18, 2017:
Pathfinder Schiff: “I think there is evidence of the chupacabra, I can’t go into the particulars of our closed . . . but I also think there’s evidence of a Yeti. But in both cases I would say whether there is some evidence doesn’t mean there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Unwittingly, like a plethora of his Democratic comrades and the media elite, Pathfinder concedes he’s lost the scent along with his credibility. Just because I can’t prove there is a chupacabra and a Yeti doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Ergo, in the real world, the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia or the president’s attempts to “obstruct” justice. Sadly for them, Pathfinder Schiff, the Left and their colluders in the media elite have concocted a kitchen sink thriller with a villain—President Trump—and with no plot to pin on him. Russia-gate isn’t a scripted play as much a fundraising dinner theater of the absurd wherein the Democratic Party and the media elite’s Trump Derangement Syndrome is passed off as performance art.
Fortunately, for the future of our free republic (and dinner theater everywhere), the nonpartisan public isn’t buying tickets.
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