You're a criminal for not reporting it.
— Donald Trump
Historians will describe this as the week the American press rediscovered its cajones.
It refused, at long last, to dignify another piece of Kremlin-backed propaganda, in the process causing Trump to go ballistic.
The reason for refusing?
The story stinks. So much so, Facebook and Twitter both blocked it. Even Fox won't cover it.
It stinks because: (1) the story's principal character is a computer repairman and QAnon follower with a history of lying to the public; (2) the story's source is the Kremlin's own Rudy Giuliani; and (3) the one reporter in America vile enough to touch the story is a Trumpster and former Hannity producer, now working at the New York Post (fish-wrap for morons).
The story is so obviously Kremlin-backed, the FBI is birddogging it.
Today, an IT guy reports on Facebook that, on a hunch, he traced the serial numbers of Hunter Biden's laptops—if they are his laptops—and learned the machines were manufactured four days after the date on the "receipt" produced by the computer repairman (the repairman's alleged "proof" they belonged to Biden).
The story's pure poppycock, from Russia with love. Over 50 former senior intelligence officers have signed a joint letter warning it's so.
Historians will also pronounce this the week whataboutism wore out.
A Russian invention, whataboutism lets propagandists divert our attention from an inconvenient truth by equating it—falsely—with something else. The Soviets perfected the tactic during the Cold War.
Whataboutism is Trump's go-to ruse when faced with criticism:
Yes, 400,000 Americans will likely die from Covid-19 before year's end, but what about Hunter Biden's laptop?
The press is done with Trump's whataboutism.
And so is the American public.
POSTSCRIPT, OCTOBER 23: The Wall Street Journal asserts Hunter Biden’s former business partner—a sketchy investor in Chinese startups—has supplied the paper emails that "corroborate and expand on emails recently published by the New York Post, which says they come from a Hunter laptop.” Likely, reports NBC, a white-nationalist website named Revolver News is behind the effort to hornswaggle America. Meanwhile, deaths from Covid-19 in America as of today has reached 228,423.
POSTSCRIPT, OCTOBER 25: Politico reports Giuliani's "evidence" originated in the Kremlin, in all probability. The Atlantic muses that we're not supposed to understand the Hunter Biden's actions—but only fear them.
POSTSCRIPT, OCTOBER 27: The Hill reports that a White House lawyer pitched the story about Hunter Biden's laptop—without success—to the Wall Street Journal before Giuliani took it to the New York Post.
POSTSCRIPT, OCTOBER 27: The Hill reports that a White House lawyer pitched the story about Hunter Biden's laptop—without success—to the Wall Street Journal before Giuliani took it to the New York Post.
POSTSCRIPT, OCTOBER 29, 2020: Rudy Giuliani turned apoplectic on Fox Business yesterday when a host suggested the Hunter Biden laptop story originated in Eastern Europe. Fox News' Tucker Carlson also claimed he had “real, authentic and damning” documents proving Hunter Biden had committed crimes, but they had mysteriously disappeared. And NBC reported that a month before the purported discovery of Hunter Biden's laptop, right-wingers circulated a phony document asserting Biden was enmeshed in an elaborate conspiracy. The document is pure fiction and its alleged source a fake "intelligence firm" named Typhoon. Somebody's a windbag, for certain.
