I confess. I posted The Barr Letter and Useful Idiots of the Jaded Left to troll for tin-foil hats. I am agnostic on the Mueller investigation. I have never viewed Mueller, Comey or Rachel Maddow as the savior of truth, justice and the American Way. My objection to Taibbi, Greenwald et al.’s gloating is primarily against their premature ejaculation — although their glee is also reprehensible under the circumstances.
But here is the thing about tin-foil hat thinking: if you are going to engage in it, do it right. Let’s say there is this vast establishment, deep state conspiracy to overthrow the popular will electoral college result of the 2016 election. Hey, I can get down with that! What makes the Glenns and the Matts and the Halaszes and likbezes so confident that William Barr isn’t part of that conspiracy? Absolutely nothing. They simply haven’t thought through their heist.
Here’s how I would NAIL Donald Trump if I was William Barr: I would write a four-page letter that appears to exonerate him from conspiracy or coordination and in which I explicitly decline to indict on obstruction of justice charges. See what I did there? No?
I sidestepped the “can’t indict a sitting President” rule. That sets a precedent. Now we let that settle in for a while. Nobody objects — least of all the President of the United States who thinks he has just been cleared. Next comes the indictment from SDNY. But wait a minute! You can’t indict a sitting President! Oh yeah? The Attorney General just waived that rule.
Is my little scenario true? I doubt it. But it is no less plausible than the half-baked conspiracy scenarios heralded by the half-cocked tin-foil hat crew. Of course the paranoid style is not noted for consistency or for thinking things through.
I must admit I have engaged in the sort of fantasy that has Barr experiencing some sort of epiphany, realizing the depravity, the evil that the conservative project has unleashed in the form of Trump and Trumpism, and recognizing that he was uniquely positioned to come out of retirement and drive a stake through it. But there is nothing, nothing in the man’s entire life history that indicates that sort of moral fiber. It was really, just an hallucination.
SW,
Well, as long as you realize it was a hallucination you’ll be alright.
It’s not the barrs of the world that worry me(well, ok they worry me, but not as much as the supposedly progressive voters).
Beyond sad that anyone other than RWDWs have supported the Barr Report.
Sort of makes you wonder about them.
“Which brings us to Thursday morning’s doings in the House Intelligence Committee, the Republican members of which all signed a letter demanding the resignation of committee chairman Adam Schiff. These, of course, are the guys who had no problem with Devin Nunes’s second career as a White House lawn ornament. Schiff, who has been Target 1 for the president*’s poodles for some time, was having none of it. From NBC News:
‘”My colleagues may think it is okay that the Russians offered dirt on a Democratic candidate for president as part of what was described as the Russian government’s attempt to help the Trump campaign. You might think that’s okay. My colleagues might think it’s okay that when it was offered to the son of the president, who had a pivotal role in the campaign, that the president’s son did not call the FBI, he did not adamantly refuse that foreign help. No, instead that son said that he would love the help of the Russian.
“You might think it’s okay that the national security adviser-designate secretly conferred with Russian ambassador about undermining sanctions, and you might think it’s okay he lied about it to the FBI. You might say that’s all okay. But I don’t think its okay. I think it’s immoral. I think it’s unethical, and I think it is unpatriotic. And yes, I think it is corrupt. And evidence of collusion. Now, I have always said whether this amounts to proof of conspiracy is another matter. Whether the special counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt the proof of that crime would be up to the special counsel and I would accept his decision and I do.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a26974661/donald-trump-most-innocent-human-being-russia-mueller-report/
I keep coming back to Welch asking McCarthy “Have you no shame?” I think we all know the answer that every current elected Tepublican would give today.
Personally, I don’t think what Barr did mattered much at all.
Emike,
“Beyond sad that anyone other than RWDWs have supported the Barr Report.”
Whatever an RWDW is………
You are rerunning the blither that has been going on since July 2016 when the DNC told Hillary she could hide behind how bad Trump is.
The insidious thing about the Trump scam is that there is a “Deep State” in the sense that there is a real National Security State that is impervious to the democratic process. This National Security State has grown in power since the cold war and has a strangle hold on foreign policy and defense strategy. Eisenhower warned us about it during its infancy and it has grown to a size and strength that would astound him. But what has the Trump mob done but proposed to throw ever more money into the mouth of the beast? And the existence of this force is a convenient dodge to deflect any accountability should dear leader be caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Submit a budget that cuts into the military industrial complex, protects social security and medicare and medicaid and I might start to believe there is an ounce of sincerity to this. Otherwise, just fuck straight off.
no . . .
Alright, ASSHOLE (and I use the term advisedly), is your “deep state” composed of “Politically-Correct Cultural Marxists” or is it not? Because that is the full deep-state narrative you are relying on and if you’re leaving the antisemitic/Islamophobic conspiracy theory part out of it, you’re WORSE than Nazi scum who at least have the integrity of fessing up to their genocidal intentions. See my upcoming post on William S. Lind.
I’m rude? You didn’t answer my question, you sniveling weasel, and now you’re trying to change the subject. Answer the question, coward. Is your “deep state” composed of “Politically-Correct Cultural Marxists” or is it not? Just think how rude I’ll be when I delete all your comments.
For the record Mr. Q, I don’t believe that Adam Schiff is working in the interests of defense contractors.
ilsm:
Come back when you can be polite.