The media has become a sad, delusional embarrassment.
After Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt decided to break relations with Qatar, the media scrambled around for an anti-Trump angle to make sense of the whole thing. Then it got it.
US investigators believe Russian hackers breached Qatar’s state news agency and planted a fake news report that contributed to a crisis among the US’ closest Gulf allies, according to US officials briefed on the investigation.
That comes from CNN. Where journalism goes to die a miserable death.
In CNN's bizarre universe, all of this is going on because hackers planted a fake news story not too long ago. (The solution, watch CNN.) There's only one problem. Reality.
1. Egypt has an issue with Qatar over that time the ruling family staged a Muslim Brotherhood coup in their country. It's currently backing a coalition fighting the Brotherhood in Libya.
2. The UAE has been in conflict with Qatar's Brotherhood allies for a while now. And has taken the lead in giving them the boot.
3. The Saudis have been warning Qatar for a while now. And if they have decided that Qatar is too friendly with Iran, it isn't because of a website. Everyone in the region knows what everyone else is doing. And the Saudis are clearing the decks for action against Iran. That's part of what this is about. But Qatar's open affinity for really dangerous strains of Jihadis is getting to be too much. Everyone on this list is in bed with terrorists. But the sense is that the Qataris are starting fires that they can't put out.
But yes, it was a website hack.
Also apparently someone hacked the Congressional Research Service and inserted this in '09.
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Qatar’s current Interior Minister provided safe haven to 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed during the mid- 1990s, and press reports indicate other terrorists may have received financial support or safe haven in Qatar after September 11, 2001.
But the media now exists in an imaginary universe consisting entirely of conspiracies that explain why Hillary Clinton isn't president. All international developments must be rolled into the conspiracy.