Flashback: It's the late 1950's and early to mid 1960's
and Jim Webb portraying Sgt. Joe Friday on television's Dragnet
unassumingly interrogates a witness followed by the simple
declarative statement delivered in dry monotone 'just the facts,
ma'am'. Just the facts.
This was, of course, before Rush Limbaugh, Bill
O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and a host of other unsavory characters hijacked
the media. This was a time before the news became commercialized; a
time before News became Drama; a time before the age of Murrow,
Severied, and Cronkite gave way to theater.
Robert Mueller is of the old school. He is Joe Friday
called to testify today before two House committees, the Committee on
the Judiciary and the House Intelligence Committee.
The Democrats have been kicking the can down the road
for month now. First, it was held, that when his report came out, a
bombshell would be detonated. Now, the 'resistance' is holding its
collective breath hoping that when he testifies the end of our Age of
Disgustus will be at hand. This is worse than a miscalculation, it
is a sorry excuse for doing nothing.
Robert Mueller is Joe Friday and, as it turns out, a
tired, drawn and, at times, confused Joe Friday to boot. As Frank
Bruni writes in today's New York Times, Mueller's testimony
may be a bit too little and a bit too late. (1) But, observes Bruni,
that while his testimony (will) not be 'game-changing'...”anyone
rightly aghast at this presidency and righteously desperate to move
past it needs to recognize that Mueller's testimony probably isn't
even the beginning of the end.
“It should be. That's obvious from his report,
examined by most voters. It makes clear that while officials with the
Trump campaign didn't huddle with Vladimir Putin over vodka and
blinis to scrawl a to-do list –column A for the Kremlin, Column B
for Javanka—their attitude about help from Moscow was: Here's the
Trump Tower address! Use the far-right elevator in the lobby. Wait,
wait, you have emails ? Out with them, fast!
It's not digital theft. Merely glasnost for the age of Assange.”(2)
Alright, Disgustus didn't fire Mueller, but the litany
of his efforts to sandbag the investigation would be illuminating.
But Mueller is not illuminating. As Bruni so eloquently
puts it: “Mueller is neither vivid nor colorful. He takes pride
in that, and he twists his fingers into pretzels lest he put them on
the scale. He's so emphatically apolitical and nonpartisan that he
became inadvertently political and partisan. His report's arid
language, gummy syntax and thick riddles dulled its findings of awful
conduct. He gave Bill Barr room to spin and Trump the opening to
claim exoneration, which he has been doing for four months now.”
(3)
Bruni's characterization proved all-too-accurate.
Mueller's much ballyhooed testimony, if anything, produced a
collective yawn, as his hours of obfuscation and evasion, citing
department guidelines and the circumscribed nature of his inquiry;
his real-life testimony proving as convoluted and circumspect as his
written report. Mueller twisted himself into pretzels explaining
how the behavior of the president* as well as his henchmen represent
a clear and present danger but citing DOJ rules against indicting a
sitting president to justify the failure to declare anything but a
double negative: If we had found evidence that he wasn't guilty we
would have said so.
This kind of syntax is, for those seeking clarity,
maddening. Yes it is, in the age of political theater, too little.
Is it no also too late?
Bruni raises, quite rightly, the question of timing. It
has been four months since Mueller issued his report, three months
since Barr intentionally mischaracterized its findings. “That
drawn-out process means that many Americans have grown numb to it,
dismissed it as the latest front in a ceaseless war between
Republicans and Democrats, or both.” (4) Indeed, it shouldn't
have taken this long.
Finally, after a long day of drawn-out testimony the
Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, held a news conference and told
the nation that tRUMP must be held accountable, that he did indeed
break the law, alluding to multiple felonies regarding the
obstruction of justice. These are clearly impeachable offenses. But
the Speaker, like a general fighting the last war, walked up to the
line and then backed away, telling the assembled the the time was not
yet right to begin even an inquiry into whether the behaviors of this
bastard president* is sordid enough to warrant even an inquest into
whether or not they constitute impeachable offenses.
Pelosi thinks she is, through caution, defending her
House majority. In fact she is risking it. Failure to act will not
only set deplorable precedents as to future presidential conduct, but
will guarantee that Disgustus will declare victory, claiming—again
falsely—that no crimes were committed and, as proof, even his
enemies wouldn't charge him. This will help insure his re-election.
Also insuring his re-election will be the three to five percent of
the Democratic vote that will stay home reasoning, correctly, that
voting won't make a dime's worth of difference.
An' Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and laugh
Impeach and Imprison.
_______________
- Bruni, Frank. “Is Mueller Too Little, Too Late?” The New York Times. Wednesday, July 24, 2019. Page A27
- Ibid
- Ibid
- Ibid
No comments:
Post a Comment