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Mammoth Springs

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Impeachment dies another death.



A lot of people are transfixed on today's Mueller hearings. Not me. Nothing is going to change. He could have pictures of Trump tromboning Putin in his Volga dachau and it wouldn't bother the faithful one bit. People's minds are long past changing and no facts or explanations are going to get in the way at this point. Sick of people from either side, screaming, proclaiming victory.

I decided to check out National Review, one of the better and more sober conservative publications I read on a regular basis and read a spot on article regarding today's hearing, Today, Impeachment died another death, by David French.
...In fact, even the Democratic hope of highlighting damaging elements of the Mueller report for a public that likely hadn’t even read a page was frustrated and interrupted by Republicans who used their time to attack the credibility of the investigation itself. Each side emerged with more red meat for the base. Neither side discovered truly meaningful new facts.
The simple truth is that by the time the Mueller report emerged, enough Americans had already absorbed and evaluated each new damaging revelation about Trump’s misconduct or his team’s Russian contacts. Each new indictment and each new revelation represented only a marginal new addition to the argument against Trump. Even if collectively the contacts paint a damaging portrait, the slow, steady pace of charges and reports worked more to harden hearts against Trump than to change minds.
And, make no mistake, impeachment requires changed minds. It requires changing Democratic minds about the political wisdom of attempting to remove Trump, and changing Republican minds about the wisdom of defending him. Politically, impeachment requires a bombshell. It requires a “moment.” It needs its own Nixon tapes or Lewinsky dress. Instead, America got a legal brief Wednesday. And no one reads legal briefs.
I say this not to argue that this is the way things should be. I’m on record saying that Mueller’s findings should shock our conscience. Campaign officials and allies had repeated contacts with Russians or Russian operatives during the course of the campaign and lied about those contacts. Indeed, the report reveals a staggering, mind-numbing number of lies — to the point where no American can trust a single word that comes from this president or this White House absent compelling substantiating evidence.
Can't say it makes me feel any better but I think he is correct on all counts.  And this is a conservative publication. More damning to me than the failure to impeach is to grasp what future Americans will now deem to be acceptable behavior and levels of dishonesty from its elected leaders. Hell of a way to run a country.


Mr. Natural - Robert Crumb

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. First Mona Charen, now David French. No Holy Grail in the Mueller Report, as promised, so certainly Orange Man bad on the word of these two. Even those as confused as poor old Bob Mueller was yesterday still aren't going to be confused as to David French's intent - he's in the same boat as those lying idiots who tried to frame Trump and were so utterly destroyed by that display on The Hill yesterday. No collusion, no obstruction, no matter how much you lie and no matter how thick your skull is.

Blue Heron said...

frame trump? that is rich. "Russian's if you are out there, please send me Hillary's emails. I love wickileaks."

Jon Harwood said...

Well the national tug "o" war goes on. With the Great National Hero on one side and the Great National Hangover on the other. Nothing but BS on the calender until November when we pick up the rope again and give 'er a heave.