What's Going on at the Weekly Standard

POSTED ON AUGUST 3, 2018 BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, FBI, MEDIA, RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

CONTRA THE DROSS OF DOSS (4)

The new issue of the Weekly Standard was published today. It carries no editorial explanation for the discrepancy between executive editor Fred Barnes’s excellent profile of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and the disgraceful cover story disparaging Nunes by one April Doss in the previous issue. I wrote at some length about that disgraceful cover story in part 3 of this series.

Although the new issue lacks an explanation for the discrepancy, Fred Barnes expands on his praise of Nunes in “Three leaders are better than one.” Here Fred praises Senators Grassley and Graham for supporting Nunes’s critique of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation, specifically including the FISA warrant applications on Carter Page.

According to Doss, there was nothing to see here. According to Fred, Nunes is a hero for exposing the FBI’s malefactions. Contra the dross of Doss, Fred declares that “Nunes and his memo [have been] vindicated.” I’m with Fred.

Fred also pays tribute to his journalistic colleagues who have faithfully reported and explained the FBI’s malefactions. Here is his conclusion naming them:

The five journalists are Byron York of the Washington Examiner, Mollie Hemingway of the Federalist, Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal, Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller, and [Andrew} McCarthy of National Review.

McCarthy wonders what the reaction would be if a Republican administration had used a “suspect agent” and a court to spy on the candidate of the other party. “It would be covered as the greatest political scandal of the century,” he says. I couldn’t have put it better.

Indeed. Now if Fred will only tell us what’s going on at the Standard!