Two Stories

Right now Washington is facing two scandals. What is really interesting is the level of coverage each story gets.

The first one involves possible spying by the Obama administration on the Trump campaign staff. Trump accused Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower. So far there is not a scintilla of evidence that it actually happened. However, there has been a breaching of the rules. If conversations by American citizens who are not under criminal investigation are intercepted, their names are hidden. We now know that Susan Rice had the names of Trump officials unmasked. Previously she said she knew nothing about it; now she says she did nothing wrong. Apparently the White House was gathering whatever intelligence it could on Trump officials before Obama left office. Far more serious was the leaking of classified data relating to a conversation by Michael Flynn. While the seriousness of White House actions is unclear, leaking is certainly a crime.

The second story involves collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russia. We do know there were some contacts but so far there has been absolutely no evidence that it actually happened.

What is interesting is the difference in coverage of the two stories. Until Rice was linked to the unmasking, there was very little coverage by the mainstream media. Meanwhile the second story has been in the headlines day after day. Reportser breathlessly announce it is about to break. It has been compared to Watergate and there has been talk of impeachment. A Democratic congressman said people will go to jail. All this with no evidence whatsoever.
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In these partisan times each party minimizes actions by their party while maximizing actions of the other. If someone committed a crime, they should be prosecuted. It doesn’t matter what party they belong to. Meanwhile, the press ought to have at least some factual basis for their stories.
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