{"id":341832,"date":"2017-12-31T14:12:46","date_gmt":"2017-12-31T13:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/prison-planet-com-this-is-what-happens-when-a-russiagate-skeptic-debates-a-professional-russiagater\/"},"modified":"2017-12-31T14:12:46","modified_gmt":"2017-12-31T13:12:46","slug":"prison-planet-com-this-is-what-happens-when-a-russiagate-skeptic-debates-a-professional-russiagater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/prison-planet-com-this-is-what-happens-when-a-russiagate-skeptic-debates-a-professional-russiagater\/","title":{"rendered":"Prison Planet.com \u00bb This Is What Happens When A Russiagate Skeptic Debates A Professional Russiagater"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Caitlin Johnstone<\/strong>
Medium.com<\/a>
December 29, 2017<\/p>\n

Have you ever wondered why mainstream media outlets, despite being so fond of dramatic panel debates on other hot-button issues, never have critics of the Russiagate narrative on to debate those who advance it? Well, in a recent\u00a0Real News<\/em>\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0we received an extremely clear answer to that question, and it was so epic it deserves its own article.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Real News<\/em>\u00a0host and producer Aaron Mat\u00e9 has recently emerged as one of the most articulate critics of the establishment Russia narrative and the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, and has\u00a0published in\u00a0The Nation<\/em><\/a>\u00a0some of the\u00a0clearest arguments<\/a>\u00a0against both that I\u2019ve yet seen. Luke Harding is a journalist for\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>\u00a0where he has\u00a0been writing prolifically<\/a>\u00a0in promotion of the Russiagate narrative, and is the author of\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0bestseller<\/a>\u00a0Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win.<\/em><\/p>\n

In theory, it would be hard to find two journalists more qualified to debate each side of this important issue. In practice, it was a one-sided thrashing that\u00a0<\/strong>The Intercept<\/strong><\/em>\u2019s Jeremy Scahill accurately described as \u201cbrutal\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The term\u00a0Gish gallop<\/a>, named after a Young Earth creationist who was notoriously fond of employing it, refers to a fallacious debate tactic in which a bunch of individually weak arguments are strung together in rapid-fire succession in order to create the illusion of a solid argument and overwhelm the opposition\u2019s ability to refute them all in the time allotted.<\/strong> Throughout the discussion the Gish gallop appeared to be the only tool that Luke Harding brought to the table, firing out a deluge of feeble and unsubstantiated arguments only to be stopped over and over again by Mat\u00e9 who kept pointing out when Harding was making a false or fallacious claim.<\/p>\n