T.A. Frank, at Vanity Fair, analyses, and sadly dismisses, the Jess Sessions-lied-about-Russian-contacts meme that the MSM has turned into this week’s feeding frenzy. He is actually worried that this kind of crying-Wolf by the establishment media is turning them into laughing-stocks and lowering their credibility to the point of zero.

As things clear up, we may be seeing a collapsing soufflé. And as with so many soufflés served up by the press in recent months, it emerged from the oven to oohs and ahs—this time, with me among the oohers and ahers—only to sink, first slowly, then quickly. Next, it will go into the trash, and we’ll bake another. It’s tiring. It’s boring. And above all it’s supremely damaging to the press. If you want people to believe you, then develop a reputation for believability. Might work better than just blaming your loss of credibility on Trump.

That leaves the question, once more, of whether Russia is a mastermind pulling Trumpian strings. It’s a crazy world, and anything’s possible. But the power of confirmation bias is immense. How many books and articles came out during the Obama years suggesting the president was secretly pushing for Sharia law, violating espionage law, trying to destroy Israel, or surrendering to Russia by whispering about post-election “flexibility” to Dmitri Medvedev (hats off to Breitbart for promoting that last claim)? Lots. If you wanted to believe Obama was a Muslim who was trying to subvert the nation from within, you could find what you needed to find.

So if you’ve determined that Trump is the Siberian candidate, you’ll find what you need to find. And this time high-ranking government officials are trying to help you. As the Post story was breaking, The New York Times reported that Obama White House officials “scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election” and that intelligence officials rushed “to process as much raw intelligence as possible into analyses, and to keep the reports at a relatively low classification level to ensure as wide a readership as possible across the government.” This ensures the leaks keep coming and that the list of suspects remains infinite.