Seymour Hersh: American useful idiot

That's the TL/DR, as I see it, from John Helmer's second piece in reaction to Seymour Hersh's fantasy about the Nord Stream pipeline destruction. The first, via Jeff St. Clair, is included in my original main take on Sy.

This piece is based on a video podcast interview Hersh did in Germany.

It starts with good old conspiracy thinking of the JFK type: The CIA is trying to sabotage Biden's re-election. He then says this was done, according to CIA sources (natch) because Biden was cold-shouldering Germany. Good thing Norway cares???

Helmer then says that, other than correcting his PFIAB mistake to PIAB, Sy repeats mistakes from the original Substack in this interview and goes on to create new ones, including not understanding, or mischaracterizing, the PIAB's remit. His description of the Old Executive Office Building, as I'm a history buff and have been to DC, sounds laughable. It also sounds like this Fabian Scheidler is someone to look at. He's written for Jacobin, among other things. Actually, he's written one thing for it: about Sy's Nord Stream and appears to be, essentially, a transcript of the interview video that Helmer has in his post. Otherwise, he's interviewed Amy Goodman, Richard D. Wolff, et al. In other words, Hersh could rely on his credibility with him.

Helmer then pours it on, noting that Hersh pronounced "Maidan" like "maiden," thus showing his ignorance of larger issues. Besides those errors, Helmer said Hersh made yet more when talking with Consortium News (natch, which surely has been eating this up) just a few hours later.

There's also the issue, as Helmer noted in his first piece, that Hersh hasn't done any reporting on Russia since 1990. In other words, not since the fall of the USSR.

By the end of this new piece by Helmer, you get the idea that Hersh is confused enough to not be ax-grinding, as I pondered a few days ago, but to be manipulated by real ax-grinders.

Also, besides grifting for dollars, I wonder if he's grifting for a second round of the infamous, misattributed, 15 minutes of fame. But, if 20 percent of his 100K subscribers are paid ones, at the annual rate, that's 100 large a year, less Substack fees, etc. Not a gold mine, but not bad at any rate. 

And, I clearly underestimated! As of April 1, Helmer, at the end of this piece, estimates Sy has already NETTED $200-$500K.