The NY Times channels Joe McCarthy

Innuendo, guilt-by-association smears, loaded questions -- all the time honored elements of a good, old-fashioned American witch-hunt are back ... and in this Friday's lead editorial in the New York Times!

The  guiding spirit

Since the beginning of the year, the liberal media has been partying like its 1954, with a full fledged anti-Russia hysteria worthy of tail-gunner Joe himself.

The editorial is full of damning accusations: Did you know that Trump held the Miss Universe contest in Russia? Yes, he did! And worse ... "Mr. Trump met more than a dozen of the country’s most prominent oligarchs while he was there." What an outrage!

And then there's Michael Flynn. The retired lieutenant general is accused of giving a paid speech for Russian government backed media outlet RT. And worse ...  "On the same trip, he sat next to President Vladimir Putin at an RT gala."

Businessman Carter Page, "a foreign policy adviser" the Times says, although in fact he holds no such government position, "gave a pro-Russia speech in Moscow in July 2016." And worse ... "Page was once employed by Merrill Lynch’s Moscow office, where he worked with Gazprom, a government-owned energy giant."

This is the evidence marshaled by a New York Times editorial before delivering the sockdolager: "the known facts suggest an unusually extensive network of relationships with a major foreign power."

And thus, "Anyone who cares about the credibility of the American electoral process should want a thorough investigation of whether and how Russia interfered in the election and through whom."

Which begs the question: Wall Street is much more important than mere elections, shouldn't we be investigating instead whether and how the Kremlin gamed the Dow Jones?

And what about Russian ties to fluoride?

The Times even tries the old trick of admitting it is all bullshit to discount the objection that it is all bullshit: "Mr. Trump and his associates can cry themselves hoarse that there is neither smoke nor fire here."

But of course, there is lots of smoke here: the smoke the editors of the New York Times are trying to blow up our ass.