By Rich
Lowry
Wednesday,
January 03, 2018
Over the
holidays, Steve Bannon accused our Jack Fowler of coming to him to beg for
money. Since Bannon generates a trail of sleaze wherever he goes, it shouldn’t
be surprising that this is a flagrant lie.
Some
background: As everyone knows, Bannon proudly backed Roy Moore even after the
kooky Alabama Senate candidate was credibly accused by multiple women of
preying on them when they were teenagers. The propaganda apparatus of Breitbart kicked in to back Moore to the
hilt and try to discredit the accusers. This was a disgraceful effort by any
standard. Surely, even some of the writers and editors pumping out this tripe
knew Moore was guilty and knew what they were doing was shameful. We don’t have
to speculate about this, because, amazingly enough, the editor-in-chief of Breitbart, Alex Marlow, told CNN in an
interview that he thought Leigh Corfman, who said Moore fondled her when she
was 14 years old, had “a lot of credibility.”
Marlow
thus violated what I would think is the first rule of covering for an abuser of
teenage girls: Don’t admit that you’ve
been covering for an abuser of teenage girls. David French pointed this out
in a Corner post, which really bothered Marlow. Listen
to his aggrieved ramblings in this audio clip, where he says French lied
about him — even though David just quoted the CNN story and Marlow never truly
explains what’s wrong in that CNN story. It’s in the course of this
conversation that Bannon, in effect, tells Marlow, “Let me demonstrate the true
Breitbart way to you, kid,” and
attacks Jack Fowler for badgering him for money (and also attacks David
French’s wife — because, hey, this is Steve Bannon).
Of
course, Bannon was simply trying to come up with something malicious to say.
Jack and Bannon did meet in early 2016, a polite first-time meeting during a
period when the Right was riven by the extremely divisive GOP primary fight. At
no time did Jack ask for money or help identifying donors. This would have made
no sense, since Bannon and his minions were constantly attacking NR at the
time. Also, Jack is a person of integrity and would rather jump off a bridge
than have any association with Steve Bannon.
In the
above audio clip, Bannon portrays himself, as he always does, as the ultimate
Trump supporter. But let’s review the last year:
• Trump’s
White House almost sank early in 2017 from its own poisonous dysfunction, with
Steve Bannon’s self-serving campaigns against his colleagues playing an
outsized role.
• Bannon
got fired for leaking, the final straw coming when he called a left-wing
journalist at The American Prospect
out of the blue and undercut Trump’s North Korea policy.
• Since
Bannon is about Bannon, upon his departure he declared the Trump administration
“over,” when actually the administration was just beginning to get its footing
with General Kelly in charge and Bannon kicked to the curb.
• Bannon’s
contribution to the tax debate, which produced Trump’s foremost legislative
accomplishment, was to agitate for a top income-tax rate higher than even Obama
tried to impose. Trump disregarded this ill-conceived populist recommendation,
advocated a lower top rate near the end of the debate, and got it.
• Bannon
went off and declared war on every sitting Republican senator except Ted Cruz,
supposedly in the name of the Trump agenda. His first horse out of the gate was
Roy Moore, a catastrophically flawed candidate who managed to lose in Alabama,
dealing a blow to the Trump agenda that no one else could have managed.
• Bannon
campaigned for Moore with one of his other favorite candidates, Paul Nehlen,
yet another loathsome kook. Bannon has long believed that Nehlen should replace
Paul Ryan, but Bannon’s man Nehlen was exposed
as a rancid anti-Semite just as Bannon’s nemesis Ryan was succeeding in . .
. passing the Trump agenda.
There
are evil geniuses; then there are sleazy hacks who believe their own press.
Guess which one Steve Bannon is?
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