This is the single most important story in the last eight years. It involves the utterly absurd and bizarre way in which American foreign policy is made, and the absence to an infinite degree of the media as a check on government. It explains better than anything I have read why the Western world is finished and done. If you are not on top of this story, you have no serious conception about how deranged the world in which you live actually is.

I have discussed it already – The Obama White House counted on the ignorance and stupidity of the media – but my impression from the lack of interest and the comments is that no one thinks of this as anything very much at all and I don’t just mean here but everywhere. Perhaps there is a weariness in dealing with Obama and his lying that everyone just says, so what else is new? For me, however, this is one of the most clarifying stories I have ever read since what it says is that there is literally nothing that a party of the left can do that will cause outrage. Literally nothing at all. And the blame here cannot be landed on the left, but on the right, who has no idea how to fight and so far as the party administrations on the right are concerned, are of zero use at all. If anyone can read this and then worry about Donald Trump, they are too hopelessly gone. We will deserve what we get if the one lifeline we are finally thrown is rejected. All of the following are different takes on this same story.

Richard Fernandez: The Men Who Would Be King

Thomas Ricks: A stunning profile of Ben Rhodes, the asshole who is the president’s foreign policy guru

John Podhoretz: White House admits it played us for fools to sell Iran deal

Ace of Spades: Obama’s Foreign Policy (Disaster) Czar Ben Rhodes: Reporters In DC Know Absolutely Nothing. It’s Embarrassingly Easy to Spin Them, Since They Have Zero Knowledge Base

Lee Smith: Obama’s Foreign Policy Guru Boasts of How the Administration Lied to Sell the Iran Deal

The Daily Mail: White House BRAGS about how it tricked reporters into cheerleading for Obama’s Iran nuclear deal by creating a media ‘echo chamber’

Alex Griswold: Obama Advisor Openly Brags About Lying to Public, Media Yawns

Claudia Rosette: Meet the Flimflam Man Behind Obama’s Foreign Policy ‘Narrative’

Eli Lake: Obama’s Foreign Policy Guru Is the ‘Blob’ He Hates

David Gerstman:Grand Deception: How Obama and Ben Rhodes Lied Us Into the Iran nuke deal

David Rutz: Seven Takeaways from the NY Times Profile of Failed Novelist Ben Rhodes

Paul Fahri: Obama official says he pushed a ‘narrative’ to media to sell the Iran nuclear deal

Scott Johnson: The runt of Rhodes

Clarice Feldman: An Epiphany on the Road to Tehran

Jed Babbin: The Eight-Year Amateur Hour

New York Daily News: Obama’s Iran scam: The President hard sale of the nuclear deal with the mullahs was chock full of spin and half-truths

Washington Examiner: How Obama plays his adoring fans in the press

Fred Flietz: Ben Rhodes: The Sycophantic Political Operative Shaping Obama’s Foreign Policy

Nicole Duran: Obama blasts Trump: ‘This is not entertainment’ or a ‘reality show’

Ed Driscoll: BEN RHODES SAYS OTHERWISE. Obama hammers Trump: Presidential Race ‘not a reality show’

Aaron Klein: 7 Shocking Revelations in NY Times’ Profile of Obama’s Foreign Policy Guru

Aaron Klein: NY Times: White House Used ‘Often Misleading Or False’ Narrative To Sell Iran Deal To ‘Clueless’ Reporters

Allahpundit: Ben Rhodes’s brother, the day after Benghazi: The government thinks this could be a coordinated attack, not a video protest

John Podhoretz: “Meet the Press” panel doesn’t discuss Obama @morningmoneyben House gloating about scamming America on Iran and insulting WH reporters

Aaron McLean: Ben Rhodes, Liar

Lee Smith: The Ben Rhodes Blow-up

Daniel Drezner: My extremely lukewarm take on Ben Rhodes

Carlos Lozada: Why the Ben Rhodes profile in the New York Times Magazine is just gross

Clifford May: Obama’s ‘boy wonder’

Scott Johnson: The Goldberg Variations

Patrick L. Smith: Did the New York Times just accidentally tell the truth about the Obama administration?

John R. Schindler: As Boyish Ben Rhodes Drops Truth Bombs, Obama’s Media Mask Crumbles

The Diplomad: On the Iran Deal: Guess What?

Michael Totten: Washington’s Idiotic Echo Chamber

The Observer: Deception on—Not Just in—Iran

What I cannot fathom is why this is not the single most debated issue on the conservative right side of politics. There are thirty-five stories that I have collected to go with my own which are listed in the order in which they were found. Everyone sees how sensationally incredible this is, but no matter how much tinder there is, it is obviously not possible to generate genuine heat about any issue since it will never enter in any way into the mainstream media and therefore into popular consciousness. This is the world we are in. And this is the problem we are facing on the right if we cannot find a means to break through and have a scandal of such dimension recognised for what it is. You really do have to appreciate that Rhodes could say without any concern that he, a failed novelist, is the single most important influence on Obama’s foreign policy and have it confirmed by others in the White House. And I regret to say that even those among us who read these blogs don’t see this as the absolute beyond the pale scandal it is because they didn’t read it on a front page or see it repeated on the news for three nights in a row.