By and large, the media is blowing it on their coverage of Iran.
Every report about these ongoing Israel and U.S. strikes on Iran should clearly state the reason for this reckless war.
Oh, after the Israel and U.S. strikes on Iran on Saturday, we’ve been getting lots of background on the competing factions in Iran, bits and pieces about the casualties along with dramatic explosion footage, as well as thoughtful commentaries on the illegality of the presidential actions.
We’ve received the constant regurgitations of the administration’s sketchy, vague and shifting justifications for this grand military action. The first was the urgent need to “obliterate” the country’s nuclear facilities that Trump previously claimed they obliterated this summer.
Then, after it was clear Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed during strikes, Trump talked about regime change, urging the people of Iran to rise up and take back their country (echoes of January 6 there?).
But again, what are the reasons for this attack?
The MAGAs who believe Trump is a genius see courage and three-dimensional chess at work here. Finally, a president who has the guts to face down Iran can solve a problem that none of the diplomacy-first presidents could.
I see a little man backed into a corner doing what he does best: Distraction.
Hey, that idea sounds familiar.
Oh, yeah. That famous pedophile and soothsayer Jeffrey Epstein predicted something like this back in 2018.
According to reports in the Epstein Files, the convicted sex offender warned that a pressured Trump might resort to bombing Iran as a diversion from other scandals.
“I always urge people not to corner a rat,” Epstein said. “They become extremely dangerous and unpredictable.”
Before the attack, two related Trump stories continued to dominate the national news cycles.
One was the Epstein Files. As the Justice Department lackeys drag their feet, it’s clear that they’ve been trying to protect powerful people, including Trump, from exposure. In fact, just last week, a House Oversight Committee revealed that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with a woman who accused Trump of raping her when she was 13 years old.
The Epstein Files controversy added fuel to the dumpster fire of Trump’s approval ratings, which hovered around 37-39 % before the new war.
On one level, Trump’s cornered-rat approach worked. The Epstein Files disappeared from their spot above the fold, as they say in media land.
With the notable exceptions of The Atlantic and historian Heather Cox Richardson, the media fell for this distraction.
But the scandal won’t go away.
In fact, the war may eventually sink Trump’s approval rating even further. According to new polls, only one in four Americans approves of the attacks on Iran. In fact, one in four Republicans believe Trump is too willing to use military force, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
What did Trump plan for after the attacks?
Well, in the U.S.’s previous Middle Eastern military adventures, there was a basic ‘we break it, we fix it’ rule, which hasn’t gone well.
Trump instead was trying ‘we break it, you fix it,’ encouraging the masses of protesters to topple the current regime. But then he undercut any uprising by suggesting he would negotiate with the remains of the current regime. The only thing that the U.S. and Israel have assuredly brought to Iran are death and chaos.
Some of Trump’s core MAGA crowd (even the Always Trumper Tucker Carlson) have criticized the Iranian attacks as a betrayal of Trump’s campaign promises to get us out of foolish foreign conflicts and keep “America first.”
But nobody should be surprised. It’s like I wrote in a previous column, Trump has no values. He doesn’t actually believe in anything. Life is purely transactional. It’s all about what helps him most or best mitigates his own personal harm at this very moment.
I have no doubt that the women who say they were brutalized by Trump were telling the truth. I have no doubt that when Trump bragged that women let him sexually assault them because he’s famous, that he was admitting to criminal acts. I have no doubt that he and his family spend their days selling out American interests to line their own pockets. These things are documented.
Our country’s founders set up brilliant checks and balances to maintain this democratic experiment.
But they didn’t count on Trump, a psychopath with cultish followers in every branch of government. Trump has gathered, wielded, and abused his power more than any previous American president.
Into this man’s hand, we’ve given nuclear codes.
How cornered does this rat need to be before he uses them?
The Epstein Files is a regular Bulletin column featuring Warren Epstein’s take on politics, food, the arts and whatever else is on his mind. There will always be one mention of President Donald Trump as a confirmation that yes, Trump is in The Epstein Files. As Bulletin board chair, Epstein does not accept pay for his writing here.
