https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/954739322388930562
Not enough facepalms in the world. I don’t know what’s worse: that after a US Senator was informed he was personally helping spread Russian propaganda, the Senator’s first instinct was to pretend he wasn’t just personally implicated and yell “Fake News!” at the media, or that, for his followers, that’s probably a good enough reaction.
Favorite Twitter response to his suggestion that “the Press” in particular needs to work to avoid spreading so much Russian propaganda on Twitter:
Funny. Most people only use one “s” when abbreviating “president.”
I don’t see any allegation of “Fake News!” here.
“All of us need to step up to meet this challenge, especially the Press”
Emphasis mine. So he’s saying the press are more susceptible to Fake News than others, even when the evidence was just handed to him about who needs to take the most care.
We should keep in mind what counts here as “personally helping spread Russian propaganda”: something as small as liking a tweet that might have been put forward by a Russian agent. I don’t attribute lots of blame to a person who likes a tweet, worse retweets it, or horror-of-horrors follows the account that says stuff that sounds good.
Might have been put forward by a Russian agent? Might? Hm. Liking and following add legitimacy, especially when you’re a public figure who supposedly knows enough to distinguish facts from propaganda.
I think these kinds of attempts by foreign powers are feeble.
It doesn’t matter if they can’t fool people who know their ass from their elbow (on the left and right), it matters that they can apparently fool certain Senators and Presidents with ease.