There is so much going on in the news it is overwhelming. Federal debt reaching 100% of GDP with more spending proposed, Andy Cuomo satisfying his critics by demonstrating that he is indeed as corrupt as we thought he was, the teacher’s union steamrolling over Joe Biden’s education policy, Trump acquitted once again as the media rails against him. It is indeed a target rich environment. Where to turn my sights? If this is the Biden Administration’s idea of a “return to normalcy” it’s going to be a busy four years.
Alas, let’s have a look at the Senate impeachment trial and acquittal. With only a handful of Republican Senators onboard for this theater of the absurd, and that would include the usual RINO suspects: embittered Mitt Romney, the Maineiac Susan Collins, Alaskan Lisa Murkowski, Nebraskan Ben Sasse and Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey, no one with any political acumen suspected that a guilty verdict would be forthcoming. 45 Senators agreed with Rand Paul that “this sham of a trial is unconstitutional”, making “this trial dead on arrival in the Senate”. But in all probability, that wasn’t the point, nor the intent of the exercise. The goal has always been to wound Mr. Trump, subject him to a death by a thousand cuts, and in this latest impeachment incarnation, to prevent him from running for office again. With the democrats calling for impeachment long before he even took office, and some suspect as early as that escalator ride in Trump Tower, the left has sought to discredit, impede, obstruct, and destroy everything from cabinet appointees to policy, hobbling the Trump Administration with sideshows to distract the American public from his accomplishments. Distractions included two impeachments, the Mueller Russia-collusion investigation, a Ukrainian phone call, a tax return witch-hunt, assorted “whistle-blowers”, and even a porn star. And if a case were to be made for Mr. Trump being, in essence, a despicable character, why on earth would you bring forth a cast of minions with an even higher despicable quotient? I bring you the likes of Pelosi, Schumer, Nadler, Schiff, Waters, and Swalwell to name but a few. If the media ever wanted to engage in dumpster diving on the other side of the aisle, this lot serves up a smorgasbord of lies, scandal, guilt by association and swarmy backroom dealings. And now with acquittal take 2; cue the predictable outrage from the media.
With so many medial outlets crying foul, it is difficult to choose but one as an example of excess. Politico, desperately trying to portray itself as objective, but following NPRs proven tactic of an attack-appease-attack narrative in their reporting, led with “This Acquittal Sends Three Dangerous Messages to Future Presidents” as a headline. With quotations and analysis from various sources, a majority of content negative, they engaged in predictable subterfuge with the adjective game. “Brilliant impeachment presentation”. “Failed to convict in either trial-despite overwhelming evidence.” “Lack of conviction sends chilling message”. Brilliant is hardly the word I would use to describe our elected officials given their recent conduct. Perhaps frothy or maybe rabid would suffice. Overwhelming? Based on the fact that he used the word “fight “ multiple times in his rally speech, and in particular: “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” That should be an embarrassing line of attack after the defense produced a montage of democrats using the same admonition ad nauseum. Apparently the only thing these mental midgets really should fight for is a thesaurus. And “chilling”? Really? Like they’re promoting a new Steven King thriller, speaking of rabid leftists. When adjectives aren’t enough, they resort to a few well-placed nouns and a couple of action verbs: “Trump was not exonerated”. “Exoneration……will embolden those and their ilk who stormed the Capitol”. By “ilk” I have to assume you are referencing Hillary’s “basket of deplorables”. Or perhaps Obama’s “clinging to their guns and religion” crowd. You know……..Republicans.
It’s amazing how these catch words circulate among the media’s talking heads. As if “insurrection” wasn’t enough, find me a media outlet that hasn’t attached “deadly” to it. With recent evidence suggesting that the Capitol police officer died, not from getting his head bashed in with a fire extinguisher as the media would portray it, but from a cerebral vascular accident (a stroke), with no external signs of trauma, hours later. A tragedy that anyone died for sure, but it would appear that the only person who died directly as a result of violence at the Capitol was the ill-fated, unarmed female protester, veteran Ashli Babbitt, who when lifted by protesters to breach a broken window into the Speaker’s Lobby, was shot by a Capitol Police officer. I haven’t heard President Biden calling for non-lethal marksmanship like shooting her in the leg, a tactic he once suggested should be employed when police officers are dealing with assailants of color. And why isn’t anyone alarmed that breaching a window conveyed a death sentence? I certainly don’t see Ms. Babbitt’s name adorning the back of NFL player’s helmets. Wrong color, wrong riot, perhaps. But Politico made some bold statements that can’t be ignored. “Republican Senators had closed minds and would put party and personal political advantage over loyalty to the country”. Seriously. And the four tortuous years of democrat obstruction, baseless accusations and hypocrisy wasn’t an example of partisan politics, of putting party before country? Please. Don’t you recall that politician that said, “Elections have consequences?” You remember him. Why then, did you refuse to accept the results?
But perhaps the worst commentary from Politico was the following diatribe: “The disgraceful sacking of the Capitol was, like Pearl Harbor and 9/11, a seminal day in American History and, like them, it can be easily distorted in the future, spawning a thousand conspiracy theories. The House managers laid down an ironclad narrative, well documented and crisply reasoned, that will forever guide discussion of this event and prevent later, self-serving distortions of what happened. They worked to engrave the story in our national memory”. Wow. Do these people actually go back and read this nonsense after they write it? Where to start? How about sacking? As in Attila the Hun, or the Vikings perhaps? Maybe they were inspired by the guy with the horned headdress. What BLM rioters did to New York City and Minneapolis…..now that was sacking. I haven’t seen anyone wearing Nancy Pelosi’s Nikes or selling AOC’s signature white pantsuit on eBay as a result of Capitol looting. Nor has anyone declared, like they did last summer, that looting is a form of redistribution that should be tolerated. Was this vandalism, yes. Destruction of property, check. But certainly a minor league, half-hearted example of sacking as compared to the wanton destruction of our cities in a series of riots that were most often defined as “peaceful protest” by the left. And comparing the Capitol riot to Pearl Harbor and 9/11? Absolutely disgusting. This has to be the result of public school education when we allow the teacher’s union to educate our children. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Pearl Harbor saw 2335 American servicemen killed, 1143 wounded, and 68 civilians killed in an unprovoked attack by the Japanese Imperial Navy in 1941. The United States, then a neutral country in the conflict, suffered 4 battleships sunk, 3 cruisers sunk, 4 battleships damaged, 3 destroyers damaged and 188 aircraft destroyed. How dare you make this comparison and dishonor the memory of those lost when the bodies of sailors still rest in the overturned hulk of the USS Arizona. And 9/11 should be recent enough that the memory of that horrific day should be fresh, preventing you from making such a misguided comparison. 2606 American civilians in the towers and the complex as well as all 157 passengers aboard the two aircraft lost their lives. All the buildings in the World Trade Center complex were destroyed, the collapse of the towers resulting in damage to an additional ten buildings surrounding the complex. I don’t recall seeing any congressmen leaping to their death from the 80th floor of a burning building. Any of these crazy comparisons coming from the left, comparing Republicans to Nazis, the Capitol riots to the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor or 9/11, are reprehensible, and need to stop now. In these hyper-partisan times, journalists should choose their words more carefully. Who then is more complicit in inciting violence anyway? And regarding the comment that the events can be “easily distorted”. Well isn’t that exactly what we are witnessing by the democrats and the press? Aren’t these over the top comparisons themselves distortions? “Spawning a thousand conspiracy theories?” Theories like Trump incited the violence, or he of the horned headdress and facepaint is a QAnon kingpin instead of the mentally impaired miscreant he turned out to be? And don’t even get me started on the “ironclad narrative, well documented and crisply reasoned” without allowing me to don my hip boots. Did anyone who stayed awake long enough to listen to the argument, find any of it crisply reasoned? It was all showmanship and subject to interpretation. Even Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal, who for four years has been behaving like Trump ran over her puppy, declared that “democrat floor managers were at their best when they were direct, unadorned, and dealt crisply with information and data, as they did most of the time.” Crisply again. When exactly was that, Peggy? It is apparent that Ms. Noonan longs for the days of Reagan when decorum and civility reigned. Those days are over, sweetie. What upset her most was “when vandals strolled though the abandoned Senate chamber and rifled through the desks of senators. Those are literally the desks of Mike Mansfield, Robert M. La Follette, Arthur Vandenberg, John F. Kennedy and Barry Goldwater. They each had, in accordance with tradition, carved or otherwise had inscribed their names in them. It looked to me like history itself was being violated.” Easy there, old girl. It was wrong, it was unlawful. But we are not a monarchy and the king’s scepter was not being used as a toilet plunger. It was the People’s House that was violated, a house that now, surrounded with fencing and razor wire, conducting business that offends half the nation, looks to be one step further removed from representing “We the People”. The one thing Politico did get right was quoting Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor who stated, “We were left with a show trial”. In the same article, Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow for Human Rights and Constitutional Governance at the Family Research Council, called it “an act of rage and vengeance rather than sober deliberation” Bravo. Somebody is paying attention. And as far as “engraving the story in our national memory”, I suspect that they accomplished that goal, but not in the way they anticipated. Witness Congressman Jamie Raskin digging deep, invoking his children and stifling a sob, in a performance worthy of Academy Award consideration. Laughable in its disingenuousness. But if Cuomo can get an Emmy for his coronavirus ruse, then certainly Raskin should garner attention from the Academy for this performance. This is what I will have forever “engraved” in my memory: the shameful partisan bickering, the disdain for the Constitution and the refusal to accept election results. The disenfranchising of half of American voters to thwart the agenda of a duly elected president. And to unconstitutionally persecute him after he has left office to assure he cannot disrupt their progressive agenda. Even the Supreme Court took a pass on this political theater. What a disgrace.
No comments:
Post a Comment