Bongino Brings Up Inconvenient Fact Left Out of Cartoon Version of Mueller Report
I’m surprised anyone bothered to read Insider’s illustrated version of the Mueller Report, given how dripping with contempt the title for it was: “We hired the author of ‘Black Hawk Down’ and an illustrator from ‘Archer’ to adapt the Mueller report so you’ll actually read it.”
Yes, apparently Insider is convinced its readers won’t read — or at least won’t read anything important, which may indicate to you what they think about their own output. Instead, they believe the only way to get their readers to consume important information is to have it condensed with a heavy leftist slant and some pretty pictures tacked on. This is the Mueller report adumbrated for people who (spoiler alert) didn’t get far enough to discover that the protagonist ends up eating both the green eggs and the ham.
At least it wasn’t in rhyme form, although that might have made the 78,206th summation of the Mueller report that I’ve read (really, I’ve counted) more palatable. In fact, there aren’t too many illustrations, either. The few drawings that were in there — which mostly seem to feature the president as an orange-hued version of The Kingpin from the Marvel universe — basically serve as a gimmick to draw attention to a story that happened 1,106 news cycles ago. (Again, I’ve counted.)
And attention it did doth draw, regrettably. CNN’s Brianna Keilar called the cartoon “an entertaining way that you can catch up” on a report that’s months old, saying that it’s “supposed to read like a thriller.”
The network for low-information citizens (and those of us stuck in airports) is giving airtime to a version of the Mueller report specifically designed for low-information citizens. Real recognize real, as the kids like to say. (Or said about 10 years ago.)
However, as conservative pundit and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino pointed out on Fox News, there was something missing from the “thriller” version of the report.
Bongino was asked by host Tucker Carlson whether or not he’d read Insider’s comic book/James Patterson-ization of the report on Wednesday’s show.
“No, because I don’t want to lose neurons and about 20 IQ points by reading this kind of imbecility,” he said.
“What if they include the Peter Strzok texts, where he tells his girlfriend I don’t think there’s any there there? … Call me, text me, I’d love to know.”
“I suspect it’s not,” Carlson responded.
Another spoiler alert: It’s not.
But then, while you can fault the people behind “We hired the author of ‘Black Hawk Down’ and an illustrator from ‘Archer’ to adapt the Mueller report so you’ll actually read it” for many things (like, for instance, this sub-E.L. James sentence: “Enclosed in the beige, air-controlled hum of Air Force One on the way back to Washington, the brain trust went to work”), you can’t fault them for leaving Strzok or Page out. Mueller did the same thing.
As columnist Frank Miele pointed out in an April piece for RealClearPolitics, Mueller “quotes the president’s Aug. 24, 2018, tweet asking Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate FBI Director James Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI agent Peter Strzok, Justice Department lawyer Lisa Page, DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and Christopher Steele and ‘his phony and corrupt Dossier.'”
That’s important because, as Miele notes, “President Trump’s tweet is the only mention in the report of Ohr, whose wife worked for Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier. It is the only mention of Strzok. It is the only mention of Page. Considering their central role in framing the president, that is the equivalent of the Warren Report somehow relegating Lee Harvey Oswald to a single footnote.”
At least Attorney General William Barr has ordered an investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation and other subjects surrounding the 2016 election, an investigation which will no doubt include a closer look at Strzok, Page, Ohr, Steele and the rest of the retinue.
When and if a report is issued, I doubt Insider will commission the guy who wrote “Black Hawk Down” to summarize it for a quick buck. Nor will there be a few desultory illustrations by the person behind “Archer,” an animated show beloved among avid consumers of Snoop Dogg’s favorite species of flora.
Then again, that’s probably for the best. Look what they came up with the first time around, after all.
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