So, here we are--it took a while--but it's happening. What does The Omnivore think?
1. Who Let Him Release It?
When The Omnivore heard they were releasing the "transcript" (it's not a transcript--a literal transcript would probably be word-salad and possibly much, much worse) he assumed that meant the media and Democrats had jumped the gun again. After all: release some info, get everyone hyped up, and then--if it's a partisan nothingburger?
Ha!
Even Nancy Pelosi committed to at some future point DEFINITELY COMMITTING to begin impeachment hearings. She did this, apparently, without seeing the full complaint or the transcript. The Omnivore thought: if this is 83-Dimensional Chess, she's screwed.
Then, the next day, we got it. And The Omnivore's thought was "What The Fuck?? Who let him release THIS??"
Now--you can say they had no choice--but that ain't true. They could have run interference for a lot longer. They didn't.
So--maybe the Whistleblower is, like, Hillary's nephew or something--someone so clearly partisan that they can be discredited? Or maybe the full report is self-discrediting despite the "transcript"?
Tonight Erick Erickson writes this:
Erickson is pretty much a Trump booster at this point. So--if this is "what it looks like" then . . . what the hell?
2. Was It Stupidity, Sabotage, or Something Else?
The idea that after artfully dodging the Mueller investigation (Barring the the Door, as it were) they just turn around and cough up a smoking gun seems . . . incredible. And yet, here we are.
The basic problem with the Trump-Russia deal was that we were waiting for a secret conspiracy. What we got was a public conspiracy: Trump was so Russia friendly that they didn't have to compromise him or make specific requests--they just boosted him and he was happy to take it.
In this case, though? We've got the secret conversation--the phone call where Trump answers a request for aid with requests for investigation (demands)--that is explosive and an abuse of power.
It has the ingredient that Trump-Russia was missing. It's easy enough to talk about and, unlike the first time, the Democrats control the House so they can manage the investigation.
So This-Time is (could be) different.
So--did someone inside Trump's circle set him up? Or did they really conclude that they could just release this and no one would care?
The Omnivore honestly doesn't know. If this was a set up, it would be a really poor one--after all, unless the entire inner circle was in on it, someone should have looked at this and said "Nope. Don't put that out. I don't care how bad it looks--this is worse."
On the other hand, there aren't any adults left in the White House--no savvy ones (Kushner's ideas about politics are almost 180-degrees wrong). It could be they thought a half-baked explanation (Ukrainian corruption!) was enough to justify the blood-splatters (delayed aid) and that lack of the actual Latin words "quid," "pro," and "quo" would be enough to spin the base.
If so, they were wrong--the media is, right now, reporting this as a cover-up and we haven't even started digging yet.
3. Whither Impeachment?
The argument against impeachment has always been that it was too dramatic--too extreme--and there was the Clinton-backlash thing. The Omnivore agreed with Nancy Pelosi holding off--and agrees with going ahead with it now (at least provisionally until the complaint is examined).
The problem is this: if the country is really going to turn on the Democrats for impeaching Trump over this then there's absolutely nothing the great mass of America wouldn't. This is a solid abuse of power, possibly a crime, and definitely the same sort of thing that a lot of people were upset about in 2016.
There's zero evidence that this will galvanize non-Trump voters to come over to Trump's side--to the contrary: most voters don't like him--even if they support his policies--and everyone is kind of afraid of what the actual 2020 election will be like.
A lot of the voting public may see this as a best-case scenario.
We don't know yet. But it looks like we'll get to find out.
This is what scares the me when I see otherwise “respectable” conservatives trying to downplay this or make it out to be “a big nothingburger”.
ReplyDeleteEither they know that this is insanely wrong and they’re willingly complicit because of partisan loyalty, or they don’t understand why this is wrong.
I don’t know what’s worse.
That’s where I fear we are right now.
The President does something that is utterly immoral, unethical, even illegal. And first he lies about it. Never happened! Fake news!
And then we find out: yeah, that’s exactly what happened.
And then he pivots: Well... okay, I mean, I never said that... but so what? So what if I did? It’s perfectly fine for me to do that!
And so-called “conservatives”, who talk about how important the rule of law is and how nobody should be above the law — those people — have the sheer nerve to go along with it.
So what if he paid off a porn star to keep quiet before the election?
So what if he revealed highly classified intelligence to a hostile foreign power without permission from the allies who gathered it?
So what if he fired the guy running the FBI because he refused to drop an investigation into whether the man he picked to be the National Security Adviser might be vulnerable to blackmail from a hostile foreign nation?
So what if he tried to fire the man investigating him for firing the first guy on multiple occasions only to be stopped because his staff refused to carry out the orders?
So what if he said on recorded television that he would accept dirt on a campaign rival from a foreign government?
So what if he ordered the name of the U.S.S. McCain covered up on a visit because he’s so damned petty?
So what if he ordered his administration to commit crimes with the promise that he would pardon them so he could get his wall built?
And now here we are: with conservatives defending his brazen attempt to extort a foreign government into digging up dirt on a campaign rival.
The absolute shamelessness, the brazenness, of the “party of personal responsibility” supposed to be the ones asserting that they’re the moral people? The hypocrisy of this is staggering.
The chutzpah of this is bonkers.
And here’s the problem. It’s not just Trump. If Trump is impeached today and the Senate does remove him from office — hypothetically speaking — all of that apparatus and privilege and attitude that the ends of “owning the libs” justify whatever means, the mentality that put him in place to begin with and enabled him is still there.
We can’t begin to heal as a nation until that is dealt with. And I honestly don’t know where to begin to mend that divide. I don’t know where to even begin a conversation with someone who thinks that using public office to extort damaging information about a political opponent is not wrong.
Trump once famously said that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose voters.
It may be one of the few times he was telling the truth.
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Yes--the absolute shamelessness is bonkers and they can't afford to acknowledge it.
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