Kirstjen Nielsen Enters New York Times Halfway House

If you kidnapped, caged and misplaced thousands of immigrant children and were still fired for not being "tough enough," the New York Times will help to rehabilitate you and maybe even salvage your moribund Deep State career.

But there's a catch. First, you must anonymously portray your former boss, President Donald Trump, as a Putin stooge and wimpy enabler and paranoid denier of an alleged continuing Russian attack on our Democracy. You must also declare yourself a loyal Russophobe in good standing in order keep the Russiagate fairy tale alive.

The Times will then portray you as a courageous public official who tried to sound the Russian alarm in the last harrowing months of your tenure, only to be silenced by Trump's gatekeepers. But undaunted, you then bravely went behind his back and formed a secret working group to valiantly defend our nation against Russian meddling. You had the guts to direct the full strength of the World's Only Remaining Superpower against a Russian troll farm which had spent $100,000 to place the cheesy Facebook ads which miraculously swung the 2016 election away from Hillary Clinton. The estimated $5 billion worth of free advertising for broadcasts of Trump's campaign rallies by United States cable TV outlets pales in comparison.

In exchange for this "whistle-blowing," the Times will never once, in its "breaking news" article, mention your grisly recent past as the Homeland Security secretary who willingly followed Trump's orders and ripped thousands of migrant children right out of their parents' arms at the border. The newspaper will never mention that outraged liberals have urged corporations and media outlets never, ever to give Kirstjen Nielsen another job or another platform - not only because she imprisoned kids, but because she did such a lousy job keeping track of the kids she deported or transferred, and that their whereabouts still are unknown and many will probably be lost forever.

It was only a few short weeks ago that Times itself had joined full-throatedly in the anti-Nielsen chorus. "Her role in terrorizing children should make her a permanent pariah," wrote columnist Michelle Goldberg.

But with their Russiagate narrative now in tatters, it might be in the best interests of the lucrative franchise investors to forgive and forget in a huge hurry. The Times will even allow you, Kirstjen Nielson, to modestly both protect and aggrandize yourself by sourcing you only as "a former top administration official." And five of its big-name reporters will speak to another four anonymous current officials to lend further alleged credence to the yarn.

As blatant propaganda goes, the piece is a classic of the genre. It is so off-the-wall, in fact, that as of this writing it was not even prominently featured, as most of these "scoops" are, at the top of the digital homepage. Maybe it's because even the editors were mildly nauseated by the globs of whipped cream on the top of the confection. The prose is so breathless, it leaves you dizzy.

An example:

Ms. Nielsen left the Department of Homeland Security early this month after a tumultuous 16-month tenure and tensions with the White House. Officials said she had become increasingly concerned about Russia’s continued activity in the United States during and after the 2018 midterm elections — ranging from its search for new techniques to divide Americans using social media, to experiments by hackers, to rerouting internet traffic and infiltrating power grids.

The Times does not mention that the Washington Post report of a Russian attempt to hack the Vermont power grid was almost immediately retracted, because it wasn't true.

After allegedly being ordered by Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney never to discuss Russian malfeasance in Trump's presence, lest he erupt in paranoid rage, Nielsen dished to the Times (anonymously) that she agonized about how Russians were gathering for the big attack and how she was rendered powerless to do anything about it. She seemingly forgot all about the kids she was snatching and caging at the time - as has the Times in its rehab of a puff piece. It's like the child abuse never even happened. 

The only thing we have to fear is not a near-fascist form of government within our own borders and the worst wealth inequality in recent history, but that "Russians" are sowing dissent and threatening our free and fair elections. If it weren't for those damned Russians, people would still believe in the American Dream. Because plucky patriotic child kidnapper Kirstjen Nielsen was thwarted in her efforts, the Times continues,

the issue did not gain the urgency or widespread attention that a president can command. And it meant that many Americans remain unaware of the latest versions of Russian interference.

As Robert Mueller III himself acknowledged in his report on Russian meddling, just because he could not provide evidence of terrible things does not mean that the evidence does not exist, somewhere out there.  In other words, just because you can't prove a negative doesn't mean the allegations can't keep shambling along like a zombie that refuses to completely die.

While American intelligence agencies have warned of the dangers of new influence campaigns penetrating the 2020 elections, Mr. Trump and those closest to him have maintained that the effects of Russia’s interference in 2016 was overblown.
“You look at what Russia did — you know, buying some Facebook ads to try to sow dissent and do it — and it’s a terrible thing,” Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said on Tuesday during an interview at the Time 100 Summit in New York.
“But I think the investigations, and all of the speculation that’s happened for the last two years, has had a much harsher impact on our democracy than a couple of Facebook ads,” he said.

When a corporate media outlet like the Times wants to bury the truth, they go to some of the most mistrusted public figures in America to elicit the truthful quotes they wish to debunk. So rather than turn to respected journalists like Aaron Mate, Stephen Cohen, Chris Hedges, Glenn Greenwald and other so-called "Russoskeptics" for insight, they go to Jared Kushner of all people.. People hate this career grifter and slumlord so much that even when he does speak the truth - that the Russiagate propaganda franchise is far more dangerous, given the nuclear powers involved, than any alleged "meddling" - that they will discount anything he says out of hand.

Although Barack Obama also faces renewed criticism for not taking Russian meddling seriously enough, the Times also tries to rehabilitate his reputation by going to some of his former national security advisers for confirmation that Trump is even worse - despite his recent warning to Putin to get out of "his" Venezuela, and his administration's increased verbal threats and economic sanctions against Russia.

It's almost as if the Times and other investors in the Russiagate franchise want Trump to be re-elected, or at least are unwittingly handing him re-election. It seems that they'll say anything to divert a restive population's attention from the country's leftward bent and overwhelming voter enthusiasm for progressive policy proposals like Medicare For All and debt-free higher education.

The first Cold War, beginning in the 50s, set the stage for reversal of FDR's "socialist" New Deal by instilling fear of socialist Russia in people. Perhaps Cold War 2.0 can recapture the magic and complete the job. 

Ask not what your country is doing to others. Ask what others are doing to your country... even though it really isn't "your" country, and democracy is pretty much limited to allowing the news and entertainment consumers of America to vote every two and four years.

As for Kirstjen Nielsen, despite what scolding liberal pundits wrote about her mere weeks ago, look for her to show up on MSNBC or CNN as a regular paid national security contributor and Russia expert any day now. She has taken that all-important first step in her rehabilitation crusade by being an anonymous source for the #Resistance in the pages of the Times. If George W. Bush can be resurrected as a beloved elder statesman by the liberal class despite his epic war crimes, then child-snatcher Nielsen should graduate to corporate forgiveness respectability in record time.

Take a look at the top-rated reader comments on the article. It did its job and evoked the requisite sympathy for Nielsen. She is halfway home in her journey toward forgiveness. The public consent has been duly manufactured.

If Gina Haspel could torture people and destroy video of the torture sessions and still be confirmed by the Senate to head the CIA, who's to say that Nielsen also can't reinvent herself and advance in her own career? After all, if people like John Brennan and James Clapper can parlay their own crimes into talking-head gigs on cable TV, the sky is the absolute limit.

It was Barack Obama himself who famously urged us to "look forward, not back" as he refused to prosecute the "patriots who tortured some folks."

How quickly the bad things that American leaders do slide down the Orwellian memory hole. Maybe Nielsen, her image transformed with the help of the corporate media, can put the nightmare behind her even as thousands of her asylum-seeking victims will never be able to.