The Clown Show
I argue every day about who are the bigger clowns in Washington. All my readers know I have strong views on the happenings on Capitol Hill. Too many people these days default to the notion that bad behavior is matched by the antics of the opposite side. In fact, it seems to be used as a response to, if not a rationalization for, the bad behavior altogether. This is simply not the case and while I don’t pretend to know all the antics that have occurred in the past, there are certain things I do know:
1. I know that it’s been seven years since Benghazi and despite months of hearings and endless castigation from Republicans and three years of a Republican administration guiding the State Department, the Department of Justice and one or both houses of Congress, no one can find any chargeable offense against Hilary Clinton. They can hate her, but they can’t seem to charge her.
2. I know that after three years of post-election investigations about Hilary Clinton’s email server methods, the powers that be have determined that nothing about her actions breached national security or rose to a chargeable offense. But the Trump crowd still want to chant, “Lock her up.” If you can’t prove it, shout it.
3. I know that The Special Counsel (Robert Mueller) determined that the 2016 election was biased in Trump’s favor by Russia, despite continued denial of such by Trump. He also raised many red flags about his conspiring with Russia even though it didn’t rise to a chargeable offense. He also outlined a strong obstruction case against Trump but was forced to admit that DOJ guidelines forbid the indictment of a sitting president even though there is significant post-office-term risk of indictment. But wait, the DOJ has just opened a criminal investigation into the origins of that investigation against Russia, so it looks like someone will try to lock somebody up rather than admit to the reality of the 2016 election.
4. I know that the independent Inspector General of the DOJ determined that there was substance to a whistleblower complaint duly filed and attempted to be quashed by the Attorney General, a clearly and generally acknowledged protector and apologist of President Trump. The evidence is mounting of a clear bribery and conspiracy act by the president, grossly abusing his power in a way our forefathers intended to define abuse of power. But Republicans want to not focus on substance, but rather on the form of the investigation process, a process defined and established by Republicans themselves as recently as 2015.
5. I know that the Foreign Service (State Department and Intelligence Communities) have collectively and consistently pushed back against bad behavior by Trump and his political appointees. Trump has called out one of our most valuable institutions as a “deep state” and in so doing is slowly and steadily undermining capabilities that are critical to our national security. He denigrates anyone who is not 100% supportive of him and calls them schoolyard names like “human scum”. I guess all that’s left for us to do is to taunt, “I’m rubber and you’re glue, bounces off me and sticks to you….”
6. I know that Donald Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, used bribery, plain and simple, to attempt to get the government of Ukraine to do political harm to his 2020 political opponent (Joe Biden) and to fabricate a generally debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine may have created the semblance of Russian election interference. These were clear evidence of corrupt intent and conspiracy by both Trump and Giuliani. Last time I checked, Rudy wasn’t a duly sworn and empowered (and Congressionally vetted) government officer. He says the State Department told him to do it and Secretary of State says, no we didn’t. The Trump team is starting to turn on itself. By the way, Trump himself, in his call transcript of his call with President Zelensky of Ukraine, said Attorney General Barr was in the mix on the issue. Barr also said, no I wasn’t. I see clowns pointing fingers in all ways except to themselves.
7. Associates of Donald Trump, his long-time lawyer/fixer, Michael Cohen, his Campaign Manager, Paul Manafort, and his first National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, have all been convicted of federal crimes and are either in jail or headed there. Rudy is under investigation. Barr, Pompeo and even Pence are now complicit in the Ukraine mess. There is nothing a troupe of clowns likes better than having the kaka hit the proverbial fan.
8. And last, for the moment, I know the Republican shit show of storming the SCIF gates to disrupt the impeachment investigation with a clown-car-full of the worst Republican clowns (including Steven King and Matt Gaetz), claiming process infringement and pretending there are not 47 Republicans (24%) that are already allowed in those investigatory sessions and able to ask questions, is the biggest, most clownish act in a long time. The thing about clown cars is that they are always used by the Circus to distract the audience from the reality that the man behind the elephant is busy desperately trying to shovel the elephant kaka into some hidden place.
I will use the last of these examples (there are many more that I could bore you with but will defer on the grounds that it would strain incredulity to do so) to highlight what I mean by the relative clown show. While a troupe of some 50 or so Republican Congressmen were enlisted (by none other than President Trump himself who goaded them on…literally) to follow Matt Gaetz into the SCIF, this was a stunt that was attempted during the Benghazi hearings conducted by Trey Gowdy. One Congressman, Darrell Issa did try to barge in just as the storming of the SCIF occurred. When Trey Gowdy had him removed, he went willingly. But wait a minute, Darrell Issa wasn’t a Democrat, he was….wait for it….a Republiican.
So what I was going to say is that Democrats do the same thing as Republicans but they behave in a civil manner after they have made their point rather than leave twenty-five pizza boxes with discarded crust in a Secure Compartmented Information Facility, the inner sanctum of governmental security. But now all I can say is that almost every clown face I can identify in Congress belongs to a Republican. Don’t bother telling me that all politicians are the same. They aren’t. But all clowns are the same for sure, especially if they are part of an orchestrated clown show being orchestrated by the Clown-in-Chief.