That adrenaline rush we’re experiencing with each revelation in the Trump-Ukraine scandal is conjuring up old feelings of euphoria from our days as Watergate-obsessed teenagers. The uncovering of that scandal inspired a generation to go into journalism. The uncovering of this one could do the same.
A three-year long fever is breaking in Washington; you can hear the triumphant movie music rising in intensity at the Capital and through the newsrooms of America’s great media organizations. The forces of decency, so long on the ropes in Donald Trump’s America, are finally ascending.
Nothing announced that the worm was turning as well as the disarray in the conservative media. Normally a fortress of support, the president’s favorite tabloids, broadsheets and cable stations became nests of confusion and recrimination as the concerning headlines streamed in.
The House of Murdoch in particular seemed thrown off stride.
Fox News celebrities were turning on one another. Judge Andrew Napolitano said the president had
effectively confessed to a crime
when he admitted he asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. That led Tucker Carlson to bring on attorney Joe diGenova to call Napolitano “a fool,” which led Shepard Smith to call diGenova (or was it Carlson?) “repugnant.”
Sean Hannity, who will ultimately be the last man standing for Trump,
pronounced
the world “less safe and secure" because of the investigations into his friend. But Steve Doocy of Fox & Friends stumbled off the reservation for a few moments to say it would be
“really off-the-rails wrong”
if the president offered a quid pro quo deal with the Ukrainian government.
The New York Post
tried to hold the Trump party line as best it could. But its heart clearly wasn’t in it. “Impeaching to the Choir,” read the confusing cover headline, which tried to mock the impeachment effort because House committees were already doing the job (
really?
). Michael Goodwin
attacked
Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats. He came back
yesterday
saying Pelosi had "plunged the country into a nightmare."
Commendably,
The Wall Street Journal
wasn’t having it. "No President should invite a foreigner to investigate a domestic opponent, especially a President whose opponents sought foreign dirt to defeat him in 2016,"
scolded
the Journal
editorial board
Wednesday.
Nearby was an op-ed that went even further. "It appears that Mr. Trump has grossly abused the powers of his office and distorted American foreign policy in pursuit of personal political gain," wrote Brookings Institution senior fellow William A. Galston in his
Journal opinion piece
.
What's rich is that
Journal
news reporting has
helped lead
on the Ukraine story. Props to Murdoch for allowing them to do their jobs, even as his other newsrooms were lost at sea on this story.
