By Larry Elder
After four years of attacking President Donald Trump as illegitimate, fascist, Nazi, tyrant, dictator, racist, anti-Semitic, Russian stooge, traitor, grifter, “xenophobe, sexist, homophobe, ignorant, fat, and lazy” former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive president-elect, now says, “Let’s heal.”
In his “victory speech,” Biden said: “And to those who voted for President [Donald] Trump, I understand your disappointment tonight. I’ve lost a couple of elections myself. But now, let’s give each other a chance. It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric. To lower the temperature. To see each other again. To listen to each other again. To make progress, we must stop treating our opponents as our enemy. We are not enemies. We are Americans. The Bible tells us that to everything there is a season—a time to build, a time to reap, a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is the time to heal in America.”
Well, that’s lovely. But please forgive Trump supporters for not being in a mood to “heal.” How bogus was the Trump-Russia collusion investigation that consumed most of the Trump presidency? Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris bothered to mention it during the campaign. Ditto for President Trump’s impeachment. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and former FBI Director James Comey now admit that, knowing then what they know now, they would not have signed off on FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act ] warrants that were crucial to the investigation.
National Review wrote:
Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified to Congress that he would not have signed off on a FISA warrant renewal to spy on former Trump campaign associate Carter Page had he been aware then of the unreliability of the underlying evidence.
“If you knew then what you know now, would you have signed the application?” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham asked Rosenstein during his testimony.
“No, I would not,” Rosenstein replied.
Similarly, Comey admits he would not have signed off on the Carter Page FISA applications if he knew then what he knows now. “No, I would want a much more complete understanding of what we were doing,” said Comey.
The New York Post wrote:
[Sen. Lindsey] Graham also unloaded on (former FBI Deputy-turned-Acting Director Andrew) McCabe for signing off on a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, which an ex-FBI lawyer has since pleaded guilty to falsifying documents in order to obtain.“If you knew then what you know now would you have signed the warrant application in June of 2017 against Carter Page?” Graham asked. ‘No, sir,’ responded McCabe.
“Who is responsible for ruining Mr. Carter Page’s life?” Graham asked, saying the warrant was “completely devoid of the truth.”
“I think that we are all responsible for the work that went into that FISA,” the ex-director said.
Republicans and Democrats acknowledge the [minimal] 2016 Russian election interference, but 78% of Democrats, according to an August 2018 Gallup poll, believe that “Russians interfered in the 2016 campaign and that it changed the outcome of the election.” Never mind that Jeh Johnson, President Barack Obama’s secretary of Homeland Security, in his 2017 prepared testimony before Congress, said: “On Election Day, DHS assembled a crisis-response team to rapidly address any reported cyber intrusions into the election process. To my current knowledge, the Russian government did not through any cyber intrusion alter ballots, ballot counts or reporting of election results.”
Whatever Russia, China or Iran did to meddle with our elections pales in comparison to the impact of our biased, bigoted, Republican-hating, class-warfare waging, secular, “health care is a right,” “there’s no such thing as illegal people, only ‘undocumented’,” Donald Trump-hating media. Let’s compare the impact of Russian, Chinese or Iranian election interference with the election interference of the American media.
In his book Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind, Prof. Tim Groseclose, economics and political science professor, attempts to quantify the impact of our left-wing media. How do our overwhelmingly liberal media affect how Americans think and vote? Groseclose wrote in 2011:
For the past several years, I have researched this question, trying to solve the following thought experiment: What if media bias were suddenly to disappear? In such a world, how would America look and act politically? The answer is, approximately like Texas. (Note: This year, President Trump handily won that state.)
More specifically, if media bias were to disappear, according to the analysis, then America would think and vote like any region that voted around 56-43% for Republican John McCain in 2008. Besides Texas, such regions include Kansas, North Dakota, Kentucky, Salt Lake County, Utah, and Orange County, Calif.
Dean Baquet, executive editor of The New York Times, once admitted, “The left, as a rule, does not want to hear thoughtful disagreement.” Given this mentality, liberals, Democrats, and the media find President Trump absolutely, positively insufferable. This raises a question, Mr. Biden: “Which side needs to heal”?
Larry Elder is an American libertarian talk radio host, author, and attorney who hosts “The Larry Elder Show.” He is also a columnist with Creators Syndicate. He can be reached via Instagram at instagram.com/larryeldershow/ and can be found on Twitter at @larryelder. See also www.LarryElder.com.
