Beware of Shiny Objects

The “discovery” of Donald Tr/mp’s 2005 tax return was too clean, too neat. With only  two pages of a standard 1040 form, we only know the approximate size of the iceberg. We still know nothing about its composition or how deep it goes.

It’s highly likely that it was leaked, and the idea smells like a Bannon-inspired move. Like much of what passes for “news” on the Breitbart site, it has the important headline — Trump Paid Taxes! Left-Wingers in Shock!— and little substance or depth. The automatons on the Right (and the Left is plagued with its own automatons too) will walk away from this knowing that another left-wing trope, that Tr/mp pays no taxes, is false. In our brave new world, that is all that’s needed to satisfy those unwashed masses who cannot be bothered with substance and detail.

Further, the likely leaker has shown that two venerable names in the “lamestream media,” namely, David Cay Johnston, who received the tax returns, and Rachel Maddow, who presented the findings, can be baited. As Maddow circles back to the Russia problem, more documents may mysteriously appear in brown envelopes in their mailboxes. Herein lies the danger. If they took the bait once, they will likely take it again. At some point a phony document will be slipped in. Bannon and his flying monkeys will swoop down and “prove” that the Left creates lies based on phony documents. The credibility of Maddow, and anyone else caught in this snare, will be destroyed. ¹ 

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