It’s become obvious and commonplace: when Democrats do something for which they can be heartily criticized, instead of criticizing them the MSM attacks and pounces and seizes on the Republican reaction and characterizes it in aggressive and somewhat sinister terms such as the aforementioned attacking and pouncing and seizing, as well as warring.
Call it MSM jujitsu (in the sense of using an opponent’s force against themselves). I don’t know how successful it is—I’m not their intended audience—but they certainly must think it’s successful because it’s standard operating procedure for the MSM.
And so we have this:
“TRUMP’S ALL-OUT WAR AGAINST HOUSE PROBES”
That’s the headline of a Washington Post story (print edition) about the clash between the White House and House Democrats over the latters’ investigations of the former. The article notes that President Trump “is blocking more than 20 separate Democratic inquiries.” According to the Post, this “amount[s] to what many experts call the most expansive White House obstruction effort in decades.”
Let us pause here for a moment to reflect on how verbally clever that is. In using the word “obstruction” in its vernacular colloquial sense, the Post inserts an echo of one of its pet projects, the idea that Trump was guilty of the crime of obstructing justice a la the insinuations of the Mueller Report.
Moreover, the Post has the big picture backwards. It is House Democrats, having launched more than 20 separate investigations of the president, including many relating to his personal and business affairs (and those of family members), who are waging “all-out war” against Trump. They are engaged in the most expansive harassment campaign against a president in decades, and probably ever.
It’s natural — a matter of simple math — that the more investigations the House launches against a president, the more instances of resistance it will encounter. That’s especially true when House committees insist on unreasonable conditions like refusing to let witnesses bring White House lawyers with them.
Whether the accused is some random Republican, Donald Trump, or Judge Kavanaugh in justified outrage against the flimsiness of the potentially destructive charges against him, the person on the right who uses lawful means to launch understandable defenses of him/herself, and shows justifiable anger at what’s being done by those out to destroy him/her, will be characterized by the press as being the aggressor and wrongdoer.