BUT OF COURSE: Glenn Simpson, Conspiracy Theorist, Finds a Place for the Jews in his Trump-Russia Fantasia.

In some sense, none of this should be surprising. Before he left the practice of journalism in 2009, Glenn Simpson was an investigative reporter. As every journalist knows, the investigative reporter is a special breed, valued because of his or her ability to see connections that are likely lost on others—often because there is no connection. What newspaper editors will never admit when they are scooping up prizes won by their ace investigative reporters, but every professional who has been around the block in the news business knows, is that nine of every 10 stories pitched by an investigative reporter are indelibly riddled with speculative lunacy. The one good lead needs to be carefully managed for months by at least one sub-editor before it ever reaches the desk of the top editor, whose publication, and professional reputation, requires excising every trace of madness before the story sees print. If you doubt this, here’s a sample of what a legendary Pulitzer Prize-winning ace investigative reporter like Seymour Hersh sounds like unplugged, i.e. pretty much like every other investigative reporter I have ever met.

So, what happens when there is no more editor, and the investigative reporter, Glenn Simpson, is managing the business? Even worse, what happens when the chief investigative theorist aka conspiracy enthusiast is handing out his fevered story ideas to other journalists—in fact, to the entirety of the Washington and New York press corps, for more than a year? We now know what happens — you wind up with a media that has replicated the sensibility of a conspiracy theorist.

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