When I search for the phrase “here’s what we know,” Google returns 9.4 million results. A depressing proportion of those results are the headlines or ledes of news stories about then-current events. For example (I’m writing this on July 8, 2016), “Here’s What We Know About Confirmed Dallas Shooter Micah Xavier Johnson.”

Too often, “what we know” turns out to be “what someone told our reporter,” or “what we heard at a press conference,” or “what we read in a press release.” And “what we know” (again too) often turns out not to have  been true at all and to instead have just been “what we thought we knew at the time, and now what you will go on thinking because you don’t have time to keep up forever with our changing versions of every story.”

For example, I suspect that if I asked fifty random people on the street what kind of gun Omar Mateen used in his June 2016 attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a majority  who thought they knew would think they knew that the gun was an AR-15. After all, major newspapers “knew” that’s what it was for the better part of a day … until they found out it was actually a Sig Sauer MCX.

Or to reach a bit further back in history, in 1898 US newspapers told Americans with solemn assurance that the USS Maine had been destroyed in Havana Harbor by a mine. Many people still consider that confirmed fact, and it made a great excuse for the Spanish-American War. But to this day, we still don’t know what actually happened to the Maine.

The idea behind use of the phrase “here’s what we know” is to convey the message “here are some facts you can take to the bank.”  But lately I’ve begun reading it as “we are hubris, hear us roar.”

Socrates, the father of philosophy, is quoted by his disciple Plato thusly: “I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do.”

I’d love to see that motto inscribed over the entrance of every journalism school in America, as a caution against reporting rumor as fact, against treating speculation as evidence, and against putting being first ahead of getting it right.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Note to Media: Less Maine, More Socrates, Please,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 07/08/16
• “When responding to tragedies, less Maine, more Socrates,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pawtucket, Rhode Island Times, 07/09/16
• “When responding to tragedies, less Maine, more Socrates,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Woonsocket, Rhode Island Call, 07/09/16
• “Note to Media: Less Maine, More Socrates, Please,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 07/09/16
• “Note to media: Less Maine, more Socrates, please,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Sonoran News [Arizona], 07/20/16

In his July 5 press briefing, FBI director James Comey spoke 2,341 words explaining his decision not to recommend criminal charges over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to transmit, receive and store classified information during her tenure as US Secretary of State. He could have named that tune in four words:

“Because she’s Hillary Clinton.”

Comey left no doubt whatsoever that Clinton and her staff broke the law: “[T]here is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. … any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”

“But that doesn’t matter, because she’s Hillary Clinton.”

18 U.S. Code § 1924 provides for a sentence of up to one year in prison for “Whoever, being an officer … of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location …”

“No biggie. After all, she’s Hillary Clinton.”

18 US Code § 793 provides for a sentence of up to ten years in prison for “Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of [classified information] … through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust …”

“But hey, you know, she’s Hillary Clinton.”

When she became Secretary of State, Clinton signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement laying out the penalties for mishandling classified information. She claims she doesn’t remember signing it.

“Unlike mere mortals, Madame Secretary Clinton mustn’t be held to commitments she doesn’t happen to remember making.”

“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information,” said Comey, “our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

“Because she’s Hillary Clinton.”

“To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences.”

“Unless she happens to be Hillary Clinton.”

“Silly proles … laws are for the little people.”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Hillary Clinton: More Equal Under the Law than Others,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 07/07/16
• “Hillary Clinton: More Equal Under the Law Than Others,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Antiwar.com, 07/07/16
• “Hillary Clinton: More Equal Under the Law Than Others,” Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 07/07/16
• “Hillary Clinton: More Equal Under the Law Than Others,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 07/08/16
• “Hillary Clinton: More Equal Under the Law Than Others,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Key West: The Newspaper [Florida], 07/08/16
• “Hillary Clinton: More equal under the law than others,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Newberry, South Carolina Observer, 07/08/16
• “Hillary Clinton: More equal under the law than others,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pahrump Valley, Nevada Times, 07/13/16
• “Hillary Clinton: More equal under the law than others,” Fayette, West Virginia Tribune, 07/21/16

Before Charles Krauthammer became a political columnist capable of simultaneously endearing and enraging all comers, left and right, he studied medicine at Harvard,  practiced psychiatry at Massachusetts General, and directed psychiatric research planning in the Carter administration. For that reason I hesitate to assume that he was joking, when, in a late 2003 column,  he coined the term “Bush Derangement Syndrome”: “[T]he acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency — nay — the very existence of George W. Bush.”

Memory turns tricky as one ages, but I don’t think there’s anything especially new or novel about the phenomenon Krauthammer describes.

LBJ probably had JFK killed, right? And Nixon, we all know about HIM. Carter was a little too bland and hapless to arouse Derangement Syndrome, but he seems like an exception, not the rule.

I was only 16 when Ronald Reagan began his second term, but as I recall Iran-Contra and such set quite a few people  melting …  or maybe it was  trickling … down.

Mutterings about Bush the Elder were somewhat more muted, but I had little trouble suspending disbelief while reading Larry Beinhart’s excellent novel American Hero — upon which the hit film Wag The Dog was (to my mind too loosely) based, and which treated the first Gulf War as Lee Atwater’s masterpiece combo of  feature film and re-election commercial.

And the Clintons. Oh, the Clintons. Everything either of them ever did was crooked, everyone they ever met who later died  (which was almost everyone) was killed by them or for them, and they ran (together!) the most corrupt, dishonest, left-wing administration in history (until Barack Obama’s).

To my mind 1993-2001 is the period during which [insert name here] Derangement Syndrome metastasized from a persistent but flu-like malady into the (unfortunately not mercifully fatal) equivalent of Ebola — acute at the time, chronic ever since. Poor George W. Bush. Poor Barack Obama.

And there’s no end in sight. Even having (thankfully) set aside such questions as “is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer, and was his dad Lee Harvey Oswald’s sidekick?” I don’t see any future in which the next president of the United States doesn’t call forth the same emotional reactions and the same wild theories as the last three.

Is the problem them, or is it us? Well, of course it’s both, but how much of which? On reflection, I have to come down on the side of it being mostly us.

We expect too much from, give too much credit to, and place too much blame on, presidents and other politicians.

Yes, they encourage it. Politics is pretty much one part each circus, tent revival service and multi-level marketing pitch.

But we’re the ones who buy the ticket. We’re the ones who take the ride. We’re the ones who won’t change the channel. We’re addicted to the drama.

America will become a saner place when we figure out how to let politics and politicians be less important to us than their nearest relative, professional wrestling.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “No, It’s Not Just You. Politics Really Does Drive People Nuts.” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 07/05/16
• “No, It’s Not Just You. Politics Really Does Drive People Nuts.” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 07/05/16
• “No, it’s not just you. Politics really does drive people nuts,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pahrump Valley, Nevada Times, 07/06/16
• “No, It’s Not Just You. Politics Really Does Drive People Nuts,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Muscatine, Iowa Journal, 07/06/16
• “No, It’s Not Just You. Politics Really Does Drive People Nuts,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Davenport, Iowa Quad-City Times, 07/06/16
• “Not, it’s not just you. Politics really does drive people nuts.” by Thomas L. Knapp, Stanwood/Camano, Washington News, 07/15/16