Thursday, November 14, 2019

Yes, But....


1)  The "hearsay" argument is going to wear off after 9 more witnesses (1 tomorrow, 8 next week) at least (maybe more after next week) testify to the same thing, just like the "fake whistleblower" argument is not reassuring anyone except the primetime hosts of FoxNews.  If everybody says the same thing from their own knowledge, does it really matter how first-hand their knowledge is?  People have been sent to long stints in jail on less.  The defense "but the hearsay!" eventually collapses under the weight of the testimony.

2)  Which connects to the next defense, the one Gym Jordan tried to point out.  Call it the "Is That All There Is?" defense.  Jordan went after Kent and Taylor as the "star witnesses" of the hearings, and if they don't have the entire story, what good are they?  But the entire story will be told by multiple witnesses.  How many times will Jordan accuse each witness of being the "star" whose testimony must be considered separate and apart from the other testimonies, and considered only as a piece, not as a part of a whole?  I'm not saying he won't make that argument; I'm just saying it won't wear well by this time next week.

3) The Deep State is coming to get you!  As David Corn characterized the statements of Devin Nunes from yesterday:

He claimed the impeachment process was itself a conspiracy mounted by the Democrats in a “cultlike” manner within a “star chamber” atmosphere. And going even further, Nunes denounced the FBI, “elements of the Justice Department,” and “now the State Department” for plotting against Trump. He was essentially accusing Taylor and Kent of joining the never-ending deep state scheme to destroy Trump. (At about the same moment, Trump sent out a fundraising email that claimed that Wednesday’s impeachment proceeding was a “Scam” and “a complete Fake Hearing (trial) to interview Never Trumpers.”

There's a reason few GOPers on the committee yielded back their time to Nunes, and preferred to give it up to Jordan.  Denouncing the State Department in toto, as well as the FBI and even the Justice Department, is a weakness not just because you sound like a crackpot, but because it's the argument for Trump sending Giuliani out to Ukraine to find dirt on Biden, rather than sending the FBI.  Of course, Trump couldn't send the FBI, because they wouldn't go (there's a new movie out, "The Report," which makes the FBI the hero of the Bush torture sessions.  The CIA did the torturing; the FBI eventually investigated it, producing a 7000 page report, all classified, on what was wrong with what the CIA was doing.  I'm read to lay down my prejudice against the FBI because of Hoover, well-earned though that suspicion of the agency is.).  But he also sent Giuliani because the "Deep State" wouldn't cooperate with Mad King Donald.  The more Nunes bring this up, the more the rest of us get to talk about it, and the more lunatic Giuliani's work seems.  It was, indeed, a hot mess.  Maybe we can talk about that....

4)  Expect this to become a recurring theme:

Lindsay Graham will insist we can't impeach a President because he is not trustworthy, honorable, or heroic; which is one HELLUVA defense which Donald Trump will undoubtedly want to wrap himself in.  Right?

5)  More John Ratcliffe will be a good thing; for Democrats.

John Ratcliffe, who was actually once in line to be named Director of National Intelligence said: “If they impeach President Trump for blackmail or extortion or making threats or demands, they have to call President Trump a liar to do it.”
Which provides valuable information, because it reminds us Ratcliffe was Trump's nominee for DNI, until it turned out Ratcliffe had padded (i.e., told lies on) his resume.  But that quote needs to be seen and heard to get the full flavor of Ratcliffe driving straight into the brick wall he thought he was erecting:

Of course he yielded back; he had to stop because he ran off the cliff and looked down to see no ground beneath him. But just before that, he made the statement Trump thought so exonerating:
The staring blankly didn't actually last all that long:
Taylor didn't answer because it wasn't his place to answer.  We can expect more such genius insights and interrogation from Ratcliffe in the days to come.  After all, he too is Our Man on Their Side.

6) In These Days, is this all pointless?

We still live in two alternate realities As Oliver Darcy notes: “Don’t expect viewers, listeners, and readers of right-wing media to walk away from Wednesday’s impeachment hearings with a different opinion of President Trump’s behavior. In fact, it’s possible they might be more convinced than ever that Trump did nothing wrong. Why? Because right-wing media has largely—and unsurprisingly—focused on the moments in the hearing favorable to its preferred narrative.”
I know it's the popular myth that never in the history of the country have we been so divided, but I remember the '60's vividly, and the country certainly felt split to me over Civil Rights and Vietnam and hippies and protesting college students and long hair on men, etc., etc., etc.  Nixon, let us recall, won re-election by the greatest electoral landslide in U.S. history.  He took every state except Massachusetts (McGovern didn't even carry the state which sent him to the Senate).  In 1974, when Nixon told the country in his State of the Union Address that 1 year of Watergate was enough, no small portion of the country agreed with him.  7 months later, the "smoking gun" tape came out with nothing more notable on it than Nixon asking for ways to use the FBI against his political enemies.  The interest in doing so was unlawful enough, after the public testimony of John Dean and so many other Nixon cronies and close staff, and Nixon was out shortly thereafter.  But I know people who went to their graves convinced Nixon was railroaded by the Press and the Democrats and probably the "Swamp," even if they didn't use that term.  Will the country unite and in one voice full of righteous indignation insist the Senate complete the Herculean task of cleansing the Augean stables of D.C. by ousting Trump, the first such removal in our nation's history?

Are you kidding?

This isn't a TeeVee mystery where the murderer confesses after the detective arrays all the evidence against him.  This is reality, and easily rebutted "weird" lines of argument, are as good as it gets.  Will  even that be enough to evict Trump by Senate vote?  Probably not; but we can at least say the system did it's best, and it might be inspiration to voters next November to stake a claim in action for that system, and vote the bums out.  It would certainly be less inspiring if the Democrats said "Fuck it, nothing's gonna move the needle, why bother?"
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1 comment:

  1. The Thought Criminal1:52 PM

    Nancy Pelosi's aside to Trump made me smile even more than Peter Welch's put down of Jim Jordan. I figure we should have fun because this isn't likely to turn out to be totally satisfying, that is unless the Republicans have a total meltdown a year from now.

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