(Oct. 19) On the Biden-laptop story, the script from the establishment media already is clear. It’s also deeply dishonest.
Until the election, the script calls for media outlets to ignore the continuing reports about the contents of the laptop, haughtily dismiss them, or label them as “widely discredited,” all without actually doing the work to see whether they are credible. Seizing on the fact that President Trump’s henchman Rudy Giuliani was central to the hard drive’s chain of custody, the media elites aver that such sketchy provenance automatically refutes the contents.
Yet as both history and simple logic attest, this assertion is spurious. For the simple logic, readers should consult former super-prosecutor Andy McCarthy, who writes (with my emphasis added) that “even if the information had been hacked, that would not make it inauthentic. The reason hacking is a serious offense that causes humiliation and wreaks financial and privacy havoc is because it exposes true information.”
Further, McCarthy writes (much more concisely than I did three times last week), “First and foremost in any authenticity examination is the item itself. Here, we have thousands of Biden photographs and videos that plainly appear to be real. The emails make contextual sense, and they fit what is known about Hunter Biden’s business activity.”…
As for history, the suspicion of provenance is often not dispositive. Consider that the most infamous case of espionage in U.S. history was produced by a heavy-set schlub from inside a hollowed-out pumpkin on his Maryland farm. Then, too, the media were aghast that the less-than-attractive Whittaker Chambers dared point the finger at the debonair, widely admired Alger Hiss. But Chambers and his pumpkin were proven right, whereas the Harvard Law-educated pillar-of-society Hiss ended up rightfully convicted of perjury….
[The rest of this column, with a bit of history, is at this link.]
