John Diaz: When the commentary frenzy gets ahead of the news
One of the perils of this age of instant information is how snippets of news become accepted as fact — and fodder for pontification on their portent or significance — before they are confirmed. Last week provided some prime examples.
The most pronounced case of speculate-now-ask-questions-later involved the claim by Christopher Ruddy, a friend of President Trump, that the president was thinking about “terminating” Robert Mueller, the former FBI chief recently appointed to oversee the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Ruddy’s comments had enough basis in plausibility to be taken seriously. After all, some of Trump’s surrogates had made no secret of their — and presumably his — discomfort with Mueller. They cited everything from the special counsel’s closeness with James Comey, the FBI director fired by Trump, to the campaign contributions to Democrats by investigators Mueller had hired.
Still, there was caused to be skeptical of Ruddy’s little blockbuster. He conceded that he had not spoken directly with the president about the issue. And he acknowledged a motive: to keep his pal, the president, from doing something really stupid. Was he speculating out loud or offering a trial balloon on someone’s behalf ?
Either way, the frenzy was on. Few waited for the White House denial to weigh in.
“We should be outraged if there’s any signal that the president would make an attempt to fire Bob Mueller from his efforts to do the independent investigation he was tasked to do,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra told the Sacramento Bee. “It would be too reminiscent of Watergate ... and it would truly signal that Donald Trump is going to do everything that he can do to avoid transparency.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, the Burbank Democrat whose national profile has risen through his calm-spoken but take-noprisoners approach to the Russian probe, warned Trump, “Don’t waste our time” by trying to suppress the investigation by firing Mueller.
“Congress would immediately reestablish independent counsel and appoint Bob Mueller,” said Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
By late Tuesday, the White House felt compelled to knock down the report. “While the president has every right” to fire the special counsel, said spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, “he has no intention to do so.”
Case closed? With the volatile Trump, no issue is ever quite closed, especially after a subsequent report by the Washington Post — which has been doing a superb job in tracking developments of the evolving scandal — that Mueller has expanded the investigation to possible obstruction of justice by the president.
Full disclosure: Ruddy’s comments inspired a debate within our editorial board on whether we should express an opinion on the implications of Trump’s possible firing of Mueller. My view was that we should wait for something more substantive than the words of a friend who may know what he is talking about — or may just be seizing his 15 minutes of fame on national television.
Even flimsier were the reports rocketing on social media shortly after the Warriors won the NBA championship Monday that the team had voted unanimously to boycott the traditional White House ceremony with President Trump. The rumor gained credence when Josh Brown, a contributor to CNBC, cited “reports” that Golden State had made its decision.
Twitter, and sports-talk radio, went wild.
Yet, there was no concrete evidence to support the story, and anyone who was watching the televised celebration of the goggle-equipped players giving Champagne showers to one another would have doubted they had taken time between swigs to conduct a deep philosophical discussion about visiting the 45th president.
Question one was whether they would even get an invitation. The notoriously thin-skinned and media-obsessed president no doubt has seen the comments of Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, superstar guard Stephen Curry and others in the organization who have expressed disgust at what they regard as Trump’s racism and otherwise offensive tone and policies.
There were plenty of strong opinions on each side of the issue.
Yet, again, no invitation. How can you decline an event you never were asked to attend?
Such is the state of politics and life in the speed of Twitter.
In February, a Twitter account parodying former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn tweeted that it was “unfair that I have been made the sole scapegoat for what happened.”
Before the tweet was properly vetted, the trap was set, and elected officials plunged for the bait. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Elijah Cummings had a news conference demanding public hearings and White House accountability. “I believe the inference to be drawn from his statement is that other people had blame that should be shared in all this,” Pelosi said.
Ultimately, the tweet was recognized as fake, but only after drawing in two prominent members of Congress — and the New York Times.
The real inference to be drawn from all three episodes is that it sometimes pays to wait before painting oneself into a position that might look premature, if not silly, as facts emerge.