It's bad enough for a law enforcement agency to be
biased. It's even worse for it to be biased and incompetent.
But the latter seems to be an apt characterization of our
Federal Bureau of Investigation in the wake of the killings in Parkland,
Florida, where, by their own admission, the organization overlooked warnings
about the killer that could have saved seventeen students and teachers from
mass murder.
This is no mere bureaucratic slip-up and the demand by Governor
Scott for the resignation of FBI Director Wray is understandable considering
the number of dead children in his state.
The incompetence, moreover, is not just restricted to
Parkland. It pervades an institution that—frequently blinded by the most rote
political correctness—interviewed and then released terrorists who ultimately
perpetrated horrific attacks from the Boston Marathon to the Orlando nightclub
massacre. (There are several more.)
Those, to be kind, oversights demonstrate aspects of bias
mixed with incompetence, but that lethal combination became yet more apparent
throughout the Russian collusion investigation.
For the last few weeks we have
been digesting the nauseating probability that the FBI used a dossier paid for
by the Clinton campaign and ginned up by an assembly of creepy political
hatchet men and women (Blumenthal, Shearer, Steele, two Ohrs, etc.) with input
from various "friends of the Kremlin" in order to spy on an American
citizen and, undoubtedly, Donald Trump, before and after he became president.
In other words, the FBI displayed the behavior of a
Banana Republic in its bias (well, it's a lot more than that, sadly ) at the
same time it demonstrated its incompetence by doing so in a manner that would
so easily—despite their myriad redactions—finally be uncovered.
Many have
stated they felt they could do this—play fast and loose—because Clinton's
victory was assured, but even that was no guarantee. Documents exist. Did they
think Tom Fitton and Judicial Watch would stop their FOIA requests? Eventually,
the truth gets known. Whether anyone does anything about it is another matter.
This "biased incompetence" has not gone
away.
It showed up again Friday in the supposedly momentous announcement by
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that 13 Russian nationals and three
Russian companies have been indicted for monkeying with our 2016 election via
social media. Two of them even came to the U.S. to do it.
Aiming to wreak
havoc with our system, they are alleged to have done everything from exploiting
minority groups (in the grand Soviet tradition) to instigating pro and
con Donald Trump demonstrations on the same day.
Disinformation, as most intelligence officials know, or
should, has been a hallmark of Russian intelligence since the czars.
(Remember The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?) These particular
Russkies began their disinformation campaign back in 2014, two
years before the election.
Wait... 2014?
Where was the FBI? Why did it take them so long to unmask
a fairly paltry one million dollar Internet campaign using the most old-style
Soviet front groups, although throwing them up online this time?
Could it be
because this all got started under Obama and he was the one who famously
excoriated Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential debates for daring to point
out that Russia was still a serious threat?
Obama (busy cozying up to and ultimately
enriching Iran) accused Mitt of being back in the eighties. The Cold War had
been over for twenty years. No wonder the FBI wasn't paying much attention to
Putin & Co.
Evidently it took the Trump-Russia gambit to get them off
their duffs to discover this giant espionage ring—this even though Rosenstein
admitted during his press conference it had no impact on the election and did
not involve a single willing U.S. citizen.
At certain levels, it seemed almost
like a practical joke.
Incompetence, indeed.
It's worth remembering that the FBI
has a history of missing out on Russian threats.
Back in 1940, Whittaker
Chambers also famously came forward to warn them about the Ware Group
of Soviet spies, including Alger Hiss, that had infiltrated the highest levels
of the U.S. government—something far more serious than we have today—but his
warnings were dismissed by the feds. Chambers was right, of course.
At least
the excuse at that point was that the FBI was more worried about the Nazis than
the communists.
Nowadays, the excuse seems to be Donald Trump.
No, our FBI is not the stuff of legend, if it ever was,
although, obviously, good, hard-working people work there.
But it doesn't seem
to be doing its job.
In fact, it seems to be doing the wrong job.
The bias and incompetence have infected each other to a degree that is indeed
lethal.
They are a bureaucratic organization gone rotten.
The solution isn't that complicated but it's painful.
Since the fish rots from the top, cut it off. All of it.
Roger
L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and
co-founder of PJ Media. His latest book is I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our
Republic, If It Hasn't Already.
