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The media was primed to castigate the Russians for "hacking," while taking a prime role in the deflection. It was a liminal event of historic significance, as we now know. The "Magnificent Diversion" worked like a charm and then it grew like Topsy.
Lawrence said he had "fire in the belly" on the morning of July 25 as the Democratic convention began and wrote what follows pretty much "in one long, furious exhale" within 12 hours of when the media started really pushing the "the Russians-did-it" narrative.
Below is a slightly shortened text of his article:
"Now wait a minute, all you upper-case 'D' Democrats. A flood light suddenly shines on your party apparatus, revealing its grossly corrupt machinations to fix the primary process and sink the Sanders campaign, and within a day you are on about the evil Russians having hacked into your computers to sabotage our elections ...
"Is this a joke? Are you kidding? Is nothing beneath your dignity? Is this how lowly you rate the intelligence of American voters? ...
"Clowns. Subversives. Do you know who you remind me of? I will tell you: Nixon, in his famously red-baiting campaign a disgusting episode ... during his first run for the Senate, in 1950. Your political tricks are as transparent and anti-democratic as his, it is perfectly fair to say.
"I confess to a heated reaction to events since last Friday [July 22] among the Democrats, specifically in the Democratic National Committee. I should briefly explain ...
"The Sanders people have long charged that the DNC has had its fingers on the scale, as one of them put it the other day, in favor of Hillary Clinton's nomination. The prints were everywhere many those of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who has repeatedly been accused of anti-Sanders bias. Schultz, do not forget, co-chaired Clinton's 2008 campaign against Barack Obama. That would be enough to disqualify her as the DNC's chair in any society that takes ethics seriously, but it is not enough in our great country. Chairwoman she has been for the past five years.
"Last Friday WikiLeaks published nearly 20,000 DNC email messages providing abundant proof that Sanders and his staff were right all along. The worst of these, involving senior DNC officers, proposed Nixon-esque smears having to do with everything from ineptitude within the Sanders campaign to Sanders as a Jew in name only and an atheist by conviction.
"Wasserman fell from grace on Monday. Other than this, Democrats from President Obama to Clinton and numerous others atop the party's power structure have had nothing to say, as in nothing, about this unforgivable breach.They have, rather, been full of praise for Wasserman Schultz. Brad Marshall, the D.N.C.'s chief financial officer, now tries to deny that his Jew-baiting remark referred to Sanders. Good luck, Brad: Bernie is the only Jew in the room.
"The caker came on Sunday, when Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager, appeared on ABC's 'This Week' and ... CNN's 'State of the Union' to assert that the D.N.C.'s mail was hacked 'by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.' He knows this knows it in a matter of 24 hours because 'experts' he will never name have told him so. ...
"What's disturbing to us is that experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, and other experts are now saying that Russians are releasing these emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.
"Is that what disturbs you, Robby? Interesting. Unsubstantiated hocus-pocus, not the implications of these events for the integrity of Democratic nominations and the American political process? The latter is the more pressing topic, Robby. You are far too long on anonymous experts for my taste, Robby. And what kind of expert, now that I think of it, is able to report to you as to the intentions of Russian hackers assuming for a sec that this concocted narrative has substance?
"Making lemonade out of a lemon, the Clinton campaign now goes for a twofer. Watch as it advances the Russians-did-it thesis on the basis of nothing, then shoots the messenger, then associates Trump with its own mess and, finally, gets to ignore the nature of its transgression (which any paying-attention person must consider grave).
"Preposterous, readers. Join me, please, in having absolutely none of it. There is no 'Russian actor' at the bottom of this swamp, to put my position bluntly. You will never, ever be offered persuasive evidence otherwise.
"Reluctantly, I credit the Clinton campaign and the DNC with reading American paranoia well enough such that they may make this junk stick. In a clear sign the entire crowd-control machine is up and running, The New York Times had a long, unprofessional piece about Russian culprits in its Monday editions. It followed Mook's lead faithfully: not one properly supported fact, not one identified 'expert,'and more conditional verbs than you've had hot dinners everything cast as 'could,' 'might,' 'appears,' 'would,' 'seems,' 'may.' Nothing, once again, as to the very serious implications of this affair for the American political process.
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