Fake news before Donald Trump

Remember Saddam's weapons of mass destruction?

Of course you do. And when the mass media in our vaunted democracies climb aboard a patently false and deliberately promoted narrative, bad shit happens. The fact that the bad shit mostly happens somewhere else just helps us downplay the consequences.

Simon Houpt has an interview with former Guardian ed in chief Alan Rusbridger in yesterday's Globe. The article oozes gravitas.  We've got one journalist interviewing another, and both are convinced that it is primarily their profession that stands between the light of civilization and the darkness lurking just out of view... that darkness in which democracy shall surely perish.

In the hysteria leading up to the Iraq war the Guardian was just as guilty as everyone else in the newsbiz big leagues of pushing the war agenda being promoted by London and Washington. To Rusbridger's credit, they were one of the first major brands to climb down from that, apologizing as early as 2004 for having mislead their readership.

Houpt interviewed Rusbridger for this article on November 29. Two days prior, Rusbridger's former paper had a notable scoop on view, and quite a salacious one at that. According to the Guardian, disgraced former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret meetings with Julian Assange right there in the Ecuadorian embassy in early 2016!

And what a scoop that would be! The disgraced Trump underling and the evil Assange huddling up together, plotting god knows what!?

If there were the slightest chance that this story had anything to it other than wishful thinking, we would have heard a lot more about it, but it's kind of drifted away, hasn't it? The Ecuadorian embassy is probably the most heavily surveilled piece of real estate on earth. There would be evidence galore.

Alas, the story seems to be nothing more or less than fake news.

If the people in charge of our reputable news outlets are seriously concerned that Donald Trump is undermining their credibility with his constant cries of "fake news," their first order of business should be to make sure they're not promulgating fake news.

Toronto hasn't figured out that Frum and Bannon live on the same side of the tracks

There's quite a few well-meaning liberals in Toronto soiling their undergarments at the prospect of the vile Steve Bannon beshitting their fair town. Today the Sunday Star had an opinion piece by Amira Elghawaby and the indefatigable Bernie Farber, who are aghast that Bannon is coming to The Munk Debates to take on David "Axis of Evil" Frum.

That's bound to be as fake a "debate" as any in history, but both these guys are seasoned media veterans who know how to put on a show. Frum long ago abandoned the Canadian liberalism that he imbibed with his mother's milk, to embrace the siren of American Exceptionalism. He's a hard-right, free-market, America first, (right after Israel) kind of Republican.

Bannon is a Navy veteran who joined Goldman Sachs after an honourable discharge. He worked his way up the corporate ladder, and walked away as a Vice President of Goldman Sachs.

He was rich. He was bored.

Rich and bored... a toxic combo if ever there was one. Some guys handle it OK. They spend their time boinking bimbos, snorting pharmaceutical-grade coke, buying sports teams, and commissioning super-yachts. It keeps them busy and the general public is relatively unscathed.

Other guys, unfortunately, think they need a different kind of hobby. Politics.

These are the guys who crave the spotlight, and Big Media certainly has provided Bannon with plenty attention. Here's a backgrounder on Bannon in Forbes. The guy owns a slice of the residuals from the Seinfeld show, for fuck's sakes!

All this press he gets is just free advertising for his political consultancy. He's another Podesta or Manafort. He's a hustler flogging a product. Isn't that what made America great?

Steve Bannon is every bit as much a devotee of American Exceptionalism as is David Frum.

They just have different marketing strategies.