FPI / July 31, 2022

Corporate WATCH

Commentary by Joe Schaeffer

The usual ruling establishment theater production was rolled out in full force on July 22 as various big-box media figures, Democrats and Swamp Republican hanger-ons hailed a New York Post editorial declaring President Donald “Trump has proven himself unworthy to be this country’s chief executive again” due to Jan. 6 as a really big deal.

Rupert Murdoch owns The Post, along with The Wall Street Journal, which penned a similarly shrill editorial of its own on the same day, and of course, Fox News, the network that infamously called Arizona for Joe Biden on Election Night 2020 when there was zero hard-data justification whatsoever.

Disgusted former Fox viewers (except when Tucker Carlson is on) have long seen the writing on the wall at that network. Soggy establishment spin runs rampant at the so-called “conservative” news network. It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that one does not have to scratch very far beyond the surface to find the same shenanigans at The New York Post.

Kelly Jane Torrance is the paper’s op-ed editor. Torrance is best-known for laboring at rabid neocon Bill Kristol’s Weekly Standard before joining The Post. Torrance is as chummy as can be with a dominant media nexus that thoroughly despises Trump.

Torrance’s ties to Kristol’s orbit perhaps best explain why The Post still chooses to regularly run opinion pieces by National Review’s Stars of 2007 – Never Trump has-beens Jonah Goldberg and Kevin D. Williamson. If you intentionally sought to find two ostensibly "conservative" writers with less appeal on the right today, you would be hard-pressed to outdo that pair.

The idea that The Post’s July 22 editorial marked some kind of deeply notable “departure” for stout conservatives who have finally had enough of Trump and his America First movement is easily made laughable by a quick review of Bill Kristol’s protége’s published opinion.

Related: Are Murdoch’s media setting the stage for President Trump’s indictment?, July 27, 2022

Torrance echoed the lurid “disqualified” language that marked the Post editorial, and which is a hallmark of Never Trumpers such as Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), in an equally ribald op-ed for NBC News as Democrats attempted to impeach Trump for a second time over the events of Jan. 6. The byline was in itself curious.

“By Kelly Jane Torrance, member of the New York Post’s editorial board,” it read. The ham-fisted message behind it: pay attention, folks. This is a REAL conservative writing here. Yes, because as we all know, rock-ribbed rightists are platformed by NBC News all the time. The headline even suggested criticism of Democrats: “Trump faces impeachment again as Democrats make mockery of Constitution.” Torrance, however, was more focused on declaring the end of Donald Trump.

She wrote on Jan. 11, 2021:
 

President Donald Trump thought denying the outcome of November’s election might save his political career, but in fact, it almost certainly hastened its end. Two months of relentless talk of a “stolen election” didn’t simply make him look like a sore loser — they spurred his supporters to seize the Capitol last Wednesday, leading to five deaths. Any argument that these were patriots was put to rest by images of the mob grappling with police and carting off stolen property while reportedly smearing feces inside hallways.

America was aghast, not just at the act but that the president himself created the potential for this disaster. Trump had teased the idea of announcing a 2024 presidential run on Jan. 20, the day Joe Biden is inaugurated, but that’s now unlikely: Trump’s political career is over.

How about that? The op-ed editor at The New York Post’s editorial page has had it out for Trump for quite some time. There is absolutely nothing new about the ballyhooed July 22 editorial. Just how plugged in to the Swamp is Kelly Jane Torrance? In yet another op-ed for NBC, she flashed her credentials as a Ukrainian War zealot:
 

I know something about the tone of that last election [in Ukraine] because I was there as an official election observer with the International Republican Institute. The many Ukrainians I talked to in different parts of the country expressed hope that the United States would continue to help them in their fight against Russian aggression — but they didn’t see it as a sure thing.

The International Republican Institute is a neocon organization from head to toe. WorldTribune reported on IRI in 2019:
 

But perhaps nothing best captures the coziness of these elitist covens as much as Hillary [Clinton’s] global feminist ties to a leading Republican foreign policy organization long championed by deceased RINO John McCain. The International Republican Institute is not officially affiliated with the Republican Party but is overwhelmingly peopled with leading GOP establishment figures. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) is Chairman of its Board of Directors. Other board members include Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).

Among IRI’s “partners” is the Hillary-birthed Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. Furthermore, Hillary’s Vital Voices board member Ashley Davis is also on the Advisory Council for the Women’s Democracy Network, a branch operation of IRI.

An IRI press release touting Torrance’s role as an election observer in Ukraine shows the kind of company she keeps. Among the “ruling international order” apparatchiks the name Clifford May jumps out. May has long been regarded as one of the most rabid warmongers to be found in Washington. This is how much May loves war. He actually wrote an op-ed for The Washington Times in 2019 in defense of endless war. Here’s the lead paragraph:
 

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Plato made that incisive observation a rather long time ago. Yet a surprising number of politicians, journalists and think tank denizens continue to affix bumper stickers to their Priuses (if they’re on the left) and SUVs (if they’re on the right) demanding an end to “endless wars.”

The almost-certain return of Donald Trump as the leading presidential candidate for 2024 should prove to be as useful an exercise in uncovering the Uniparty establishment’s agents wherever they may be as 2016 was, if not more.

As the process unfolds, supposedly “conservative” big-box media outlets will not have to be exposed. They will clearly and transparently out themselves.

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