In his latest New York Times column David Brooks is baffled:
In retrospect Whitewater seems overblown. And yet it has to be confessed that, at least so far, the Whitewater scandal was far more substantive than the Russia-collusion scandal now gripping Washington.
There may be a giant revelation still to come. But as the Trump-Russia story has evolved, it is striking how little evidence there is that any underlying crime occurred — that there was any actual collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and the Russians. Everything seems to be leaking out of this administration, but so far the leaks about actual collusion are meager.
There were some meetings between Trump officials and some Russians, but so far no more than you’d expect from a campaign that was publicly and proudly pro-Putin. And so far nothing we know of these meetings proves or even indicates collusion.
Let me remove his confusion. The purpose of the investigation is not to determine the facts behind the allegation of collusion between the Trump Administration and the Russian government. That’s already been accomplished and there wasn’t any.
No, the purpose of the investigation is to provide covering fire for the DNC. Let me explain. Shortly after Trump’s election, the Clinton campaign advanced the notion of collusion between Trump and the Russian government as an explanation for Hillary Clinton’s loss, a loss that could easily be explained by the candidate’s incompetence.
But Hillary Clinton was foisted on Democratic voters by the Democratic National Committee. A group of unreconstructed Clintonistas, put in place for just this purpose, conspired and put roadblocks against any other candidate. That was the truth revealed by the leak of their emails and it is the truth that is unforgiveable.
“No, the purpose of the investigation is to provide covering fire for the DNC.”
Yes, but it was always so. Absence of collusion, unless we have moved the standard to guilty until proven innocent, is not a recent finding. Did I get it wrong, or did you not support the notion of an investigation? I understand the irrationality of the Reynolds of the world. I didn’t understand your logic.
It was doomed to political witch hunt status and scope creep from the start; the staffing is currently nothing less than a public embarrassment. It’s a circus. When it’s over, what do we say to victims of purgery traps, to those needing to “get their reputations back” the American taxpayer and the electoral process.
The Russians have been meddling in our affairs for at least 65 years. Flag waiving arguments about electoral purity fall flat. (And didn’t we have a cape wearing President defending us, telling them to “knock it off?”) I’m no Trump fan, but he was elected in a, our, Constitutional process. We really should not succumb to the baser instincts of Democrats and never Trumpers. At this stage the very investigation seems a bigger threat to our election processes than anything else.
Speaking of stages, i need to go. I hear CNN and the Washington Post have erected a device that will determine if Trump will sink or float in water. Unnamed sources tell me it’s located on an airport tarmac. They said just look for Loretta Lynch………
Logic and reasonable deductions are not a strong suit of the Democrat party. They seem to fest, instead, on emotional innuendo, surrounded by lots of dramatic vitriol. And, such strategies seem very attractive to their culpable base, who is transfixed on their hatred of the current POTUS. It seems the only goal is to take hm down, not on merits, but simply on gobs of media opinions, distorted stories, and mockery of the administration.
In the meantime, the Dems in Congress are doing nothing (as they did under the Reid Senate) to intelligently oppose another party’s agenda. Rather, they are acting like crazed pre-schoolers ranting, obstructing, slow-walking everything, every nomination, in order to freeze out any changes , many of which would only help the people of this country.
I suspect that there will be no smoking gun. But there are going to be connections between Trump’s campaign and the DNC/voting hacks, and between Trump and questionable Russian money. In the end, Trump is going to look like a crook and the GOP is going to look like they were inclined to dabble with breaking into voting databases. Given that the GOP has spent decades drumming up fears of voting fraud to justify keeping poor black people from voting, I’m not sure why it’s surprising that they would be curious about other means to screw with an election. I’m positive it did not happen, simply because they’re idiots and it’s too hard. But come on.
And it’s true that the Clintons and their fans are not accepting any responsibility for the election. They lost with a weak candidate who ran a bad campaign. But it’s not like Trump voters are accepting any responsibility for anything. Or that Republicans are accepting responsibility for their actions. I actually the worse that Trump and the Republicans look will become some weird attack on the Democrats. They’re going to be the party who made Trump look like a total crook and the GOP heartless monsters who traded health care for tax cuts.
The GOP being connected with the DNC hacking just won’t fly. It’s common, public knowledge that the FBI warned both parties about potential Russian intrusion. The RNC let them check their computer systems, while the DNC refused. Instead, the DNC preferred their own cyber security hires to do this. Ironically, it was a company whose founder was Russian born.
If there is a “crook” or shady dealings involved in the last election it would appear to be more in the Dem arena – i. e. Loretta Lynch’s Comey directive, HRC’s multiple abusive of the law, including literally destroying emails asked for by Congress, the vast unmasking done by Susan Rice (now safely esconsed in Obama’s presidency tial library), violation of the Federal Records Act, espionage assertions, to name a few issues that never seem to rise up and nudge the curiosity of the Dems.
Well, the Russians did make some efforts to affect our campaign, and Flynn did lie about taking money from foreign governments. So, an investigation of some kind is merited. That said, I do think the primary motivation of the Democrats is to make it more difficult for Trump to govern, and heaven knows he is more than willing to help them in that effort. What they are doing is pretty much the same as was done with the Benghazi investigations. So, at this point we are only about 5 or 6 months into this. I would hope that the Democrats will be willing to limit continuing this to a total of 4 years, just like the GOP did with their repeated Benghazi investigations. Otherwise, this is going to get boring. Maybe they could spice things up by voting to repeal Trump’s legislation over and over, assuming he ever passes anything. (Snicker!)
Steve
Oops, almost forgot. An important part of the Whitewater investigation, it also served the purpose of making it harder for Clinton to govern, was to leak as much as possible so that the investigation held all of the attention of the media. By Ken Starr standards, the current FBI investigation is nearly leak free. Fortunately for the Democrats, Trump himself is keeping the focus on the investigation. Should Trump ever stop tweeting, they will need to find some way to replace Mueller with someone more willing to leak to the media.
Steve
The only reason the investigation has any traction at all, from a wild eyed righty:
“…University of the Arts professor of humanities and media studies Camille Paglia railed against the current state of journalism in America.
Paglia called what she said the Democratic Party had done to journalism “absolutely grotesque†and warned it would take decades to recover.
“It’s obscene,†she said. “It’s outrageous, OK? It shows that the Democrats are nothing now but words and fantasy and hallucination and Hollywood. There’s no journalism left. What’s happened to The New York Times? What’s happened to the major networks? It’s an outrage.â€
“I’m a professor of media studies, in addition to a professor of humanities, OK?†she continued. “And I think it’s absolutely grotesque the way my party has destroyed journalism. Right now, it is going to take decades to recover from this atrocity that’s going on where the news media have turned themselves over to the most childish fraternity, kind of buffoonish behavior.â€
And I hear the latest is that witness testimony is being blocked or slow walked. Wouldn’t want to get to the bottom of this “dangerous intrusion into our elections.” (Snicker)