We only have a few days left in 2024, and in the competition for dumbest post of 2024 The New Yorker submits this piece for consideration and it just might be the winner:
J. Edgar Hoover made the F.B.I. into a powerful but nonpartisan colossus. Kash Patel’s chief goal, by contrast, is to weaponize the Bureau to protect Donald Trump and wreak vengeance on his Administration’s enemies. https://t.co/cUkJ28esXh
— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) December 24, 2024
They're serious.
Which makes it even funnier.
Hoover, for all his many faults and abuses of power, was nevertheless an institution builder; he believed in the F.B.I.’s nonpartisan independence. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., he grew up imbued with the idea that career-long government service was one of life’s noblest aspirations. As a D.C. resident, Hoover could not vote, and though he was a staunch conservative, he never joined a political party. Patel’s chief goal, by contrast, is to weaponize the F.B.I. as a partisan force to protect Trump and wreak vengeance on his Administration’s enemies. If such naked politicization happens to undermine public faith in the F.B.I., so much the better. In Patel’s book 'Government Gangsters,' published last year, he describes the Bureau’s top officials—along with other 'Deep State' executives—as a group of 'spiteful mandarins' hell-bent on destroying the country in service of their 'uniformly left wing' desires. He warns, 'Democrats and the Deep State are on the same team.'
The idea that people who work at the F.B.I. are closet leftists conspiring to bring down the Republic has to be one of the more bizarre takes in a political moment with no shortage of them. But such is the state of our politics, in which self-proclaimed protectors of “law and order” attack the national-security establishment, while reluctant liberals defend its professionalism and autonomy. Hoover would agree with Patel that what happens at the F.B.I. matters. However, the similarities mostly end there. Hoover used to describe the Bureau as the 'one bulwark' against a hidden left-wing conspiracy that penetrated all corners of American life. In Patel’s world, the F.B.I. is the conspiracy.
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Everything the FBI has done in recent years gives Patel's argument weight. We've all seen it, and Byron York took critics of Patel's nomination to task, pointing out the ways the FBI engaged in partisan persecution.
But what's really the *chef's kiss* in all this is the Community Note.
Which uses The New Yorker's own reporting to contradict this article:
The New Yorker magazine has reported extensively on Hoover's ideological agenda and how "Hoover’s dirty-tricks campaign was designed to neutralize almost all forms of political dissent," even comparing him to Torquemada.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/01/20/opened-files
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/21/j-edgar-hoover-public-enemy-no-1
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/02/06/learning-from-hoover
Frame it and hang it in the Louvre.
Y’all really need some help.
— Nic Z (@z649278) December 26, 2024
Lots of help.
I can’t believe this is real
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 26, 2024
It's real and it's glorious in its ignorance of history.
J. Edgar Hoover treated the FBI as his own personal vendetta service lmao
— Jon 🔬 (@JonnyMicro) December 26, 2024
He sure did.
Im so glad the non-partisan FBI headed by J Edgar Hoover had the kindness to blackmail MLK Jr into suicide. I can only imagine what Kash Patel would actually do!! pic.twitter.com/yrM6JbWneS
— Carlos (@txiokatu) December 26, 2024
Just imagine.
J. Edgar was a cross dressing fruit who blackmailed people.
— CageyBee (@CageyBee33) December 26, 2024
I see why you fete him~ it’s basically your business model too.
Ouch.
But true.
New Yorker: "Make the FBI Hoover-Like Again"
— Razor (@hale_razor) December 26, 2024
Heck of a slogan.
TDS has led The New Yorker to rehabilitate and reinvent J. Edgar Hoover and his tenure leading the FBI. Amazing. https://t.co/iETIDC3rtM
— Boris Ryvkin (@BRyvkin) December 26, 2024
Absolutely amazing.
This is perhaps the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen these retards write. https://t.co/qMrTQ3OjJD
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) December 26, 2024
And they did it with a straight face.
There are still six days left this year. Someone, somewhere, is going to be all challenge accepted on writing something stupider. https://t.co/hQJ4QR1zFh
— alexandriabrown (@alexthechick) December 26, 2024
Oh, we wouldn't be surprised.
Yes, the FBI under Hoover was famously free of political influence, corruption, and abuse. https://t.co/con8bM5FZd
— Billy Gribbin (@BillyGribbin) December 26, 2024
It was as pure as the driven snow, really.
Yes, journalists and columnists are actually thus shameless and know their devout readers are actually retarded https://t.co/QSWx2E5MrI
— Jay Asliken 🕋☪️✈️ (@assliken) December 26, 2024
Thank goodness for Community Notes.
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