Squid Ink and Bullshit

It is annoyingly difficult to find a simple transcript of the phone call Barack Obama made last Friday which now has so much of the GOP up in arms.  I want to find it because the quotes I can find never mention Donald Trump by name, and really offer rather anodyne statements about electoral politics and the state of the union, which no one can describe as "good" right now.

Yahoo News reported it first, so let's start with them:

“The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama said in a web talk with members of the Obama Alumni Association.

“And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”

Okay, a "Politifact" check, Flynn wasn't charged with perjury.  Non-lawyers don't care about the difference, they know the crime was lying to someone Flynn shouldn't have lied to.  Close enough is good enough.  But the President is commenting on an action by the Attorney General, an action unprecedented in the history of this country.  You will look in vain for a direct or indirect criticism of Donald Trump there.  He doesn't even mention William Barr.  He attacks the policy, and it's a perfectly sound observation, and a concern that is shared by many.

“I always think it is in the best interest of the country if you don’t have the constant critiques from a previous administration. I would rather that they keep their comments to themselves.”

That's Sen. Jon Tester.  Sen. McConnell was just as incoherent (IMHO):

“I think President Obama should have kept his mouth shut. You know, we know he doesn’t like much (what) this administration is doing. That’s understandable. But I think it’s a little bit classless, frankly, to critique an administration that comes after you.”

Is Obama critiquing the entire Administration?  Or this unprecedented legal act?  I think this is a perfectly fair comment, and nothing at all like Trump's "constant critiques" of Obama.  Trump defines "classless."  Tester and McConnell's argument is to blame Obama for what Trump has been doing for 3 years.

So what else did he say?

 “So I am hoping that all of you feel the same sense of urgency that I do,” he said. “Whenever I campaign, I’ve always said, ‘Ah, this is the most important election.’ Especially obviously when I was on the ballot, that always feels like it's the most important election. This one — I’m not on the ballot — but I am pretty darn invested. We got to make this happen.”

OMG, a partisan comment urging people to vote for his party's candidates?  Where are my smelling salts?  I may have a fit of the vapors!  I seem to recall former Presidents attending the conventions of their parties in most of my lifetime.  Nobody ever thought that was "classless."  Then he went on to say:

“This election that’s coming up on every level is so important because what we’re going to be battling is not just a particular individual or a political party. What we’re fighting against is these long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided, and seeing others as an enemy — that has become a stronger impulse in American life. And by the way, we’re seeing that internationally as well. It’s part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty. It would have been bad even with the best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset — of ‘what’s in it for me’ and ‘to heck with everybody else’ — when that mindset is operationalized in our government.

“That’s why, I, by the way, am going to be spending as much time as necessary and campaigning as hard as I can for Joe Biden.”

A political campaign is always against "a particular individual or a political party."  Nobody expects a former President to never make an endorsement, or to stay out of the campaign for his party's candidate.  What he says after that first sentence is some generalities about the state of the nation and his vision of how things should be, which can be taken as campaign rhetoric meant to bolster the election of Joe Biden, Democrat.  If you want to take it as criticism of Donald Trump, I can't stop you.

But again, I defy you to find any mention of the sitting President's name in that, or even any indication that he and his policies are to blame for the current state of affairs.  Obama doesn't blame Donald Trump for the "liberate" protestors (I don't either; Trump just tried to get in front of that campaign, but not for long).  He doesn't blame Trump for deaths from the coronavirus, or for the collapsing economic situation.  He doesn't even blame Trump for the DOJ dismissal of charges against Michael Flynn, even though the connection is obvious.  It's hard to see what the Republicans have to complain about here, except that they just want some reason to complain.

That and, left with absolutely nothing, they turn to Trump's playbook and make shit up.

CNN: McConnell claims Obama didn't leave Trump a pandemic 'game plan.' Obama left a 69-page playbook.https://t.co/16TqVirknU pic.twitter.com/WYHlOth72r

— Valerie Jarrett (@ValerieJarrett) May 12, 2020