I haven't watched a minute of it. The first one I recall was Watergate, a performance I believed at the time and only later learned was more truthy than true. Over time I have come to a point of some despair about these. They are clearly necessary. We cannot stop having them, or some substitute that uncovers important truths for the American people. Yet they are always a show, increasingly orchestrated as Congress develops its artistic craft. Chesterton said that if something is worth doing it is worth doing badly, and that is a counterintuitive but very true statement. Yet there has to be some limit beyond which the deception overwhelms the information.
I have liked Andrew McCarthy's take on many things over the years. A former federal prosecutor himself, he is if anything too willing to consider an issue still open simply because it has not been pounded to the center of the earth in disproof, or to grant the assumption of good faith to participants because they have shown good faith at some other time. I like his take on the Jan 6 hearings at City Journal, and pass them along to you here.
I would say that I wish we had some new method of conducting investigations, because by natural bureaucratic decay and trial-and-error improvement in showmanship by deeply partisan officials this method is not particularly useful. Yet I know if we came up with a replacement, people would immediately start gaming that system as well.
As a side mention, Theodore Dalrymple has an excellent piece at City Journal as well, about Boris Johnson stepping down.
The well-merited political demise of Boris Johnson has come about, as is often the case, for the wrong reasons. His various peccadilloes and errors, and his failure to own up to them in manly, timely, and unequivocal fashion, no doubt point to defects of character, but defects of character are what we expect in our politicians and seekers after power. They keep us entertained.
It sounds related to our situation in that way.
Unfortunately quite a few individuals and groups--and even institutions when speaking outside certain competencies--have earned the assumption of bad faith. China comes to mind for the latter, antifa for an example group. For individuals: I'd not take what Trump says at face value, and I'd want a couple of independent sources to verify anything Christine Ford said.
ReplyDeleteCan I learn from them, though? When the moon's full and the wind's from the southeast and I know enough of the background to calibrate their skew.
Of course it is a show trial but McCarthy is still too deferential to the Democrats. Where does a legislative committee, never mind a partisan committee with no effective representation by the minority party, get the authority to conduct a trial or pursue criminal indictments?
ReplyDeleteTrump seems to be one of the least corrupt political figures in memory, because if there were findable dirt on him he would long ago have been convicted of something.
Or his corruption is out in the open and he doubles down on it, swearing it isn't. I find it entirely plausible that Trump was refusing the advice of his own hired advisors, people who had taken flak for him and damaged their careers by working for him. That is corruption of a sort, or at least unreliability and disloyalty to those who trusted him. The questions would be "How much of this is true? Were there important pieces left out of the story? Are one or two sources poisoning the others by passing along semi-true info to truthful people? Is this dead certain, reasonably certain, or probable?"
ReplyDeleteI get why you consider that "He must be pretty clean or he would already have been nailed to the wall" argument to be strong, but I don't agree with it. Compare Hillary Clinton. People who are powerful and brazen it out get away with a lot. Trump's Ukraine conversation wasn't impeachable, mostly because presidents do that stuff all the time, just more subtly and less traceably. I do go for punishing clumsiness over trickiness. But it was wrong and corrupt.
Misstatement. It should have been "I don't go."
ReplyDeleteI have been following it, and the show trial aspect only grows the more attention you pay. Ryan J. Reilly, a beat reporter assigned to J6 issues, was explaining this morning that tonight's presentation hits what he called a 'sweet spot' because the speaker has pled guilty for his activities on J6 but has not been sentenced yet. He will thus be very careful what he says, because the sentencing judge will be watching.
ReplyDeleteReilly's tone is that of one of the team, praising the wisdom of the committee in selecting this person on whom maximum pressure can be brought to say what the committee desires to hear. He fully expects the judge to comply with the wishes of the committee in punishing any departure from the business; and because the DOJ was able to coerce a plea deal via threats of excessive sentences for worse crimes if they had to go to court (plus the ability to try it in DC, where 99% of the jurors are Democrats), they never had to prove any of their case in court. Yet the hammer of sentencing is still waiting, so that the speaker's performance tonight will surely be exactly what is desired.
I'm with Jonathan:
ReplyDelete"Where does a legislative committee, never mind a partisan committee with no effective representation by the minority party, get the authority to conduct a trial or pursue criminal indictments?"
"Where does a legislative committee, never mind a partisan committee with no effective representation by the minority party, get the authority to conduct a trial or pursue criminal indictments?"
ReplyDeleteCongressional committees do not have the power to pursue criminal indictments. The most they can do is make a referral to law enforcement if they uncover possible crimes during a legislative investigation.
The Committee can make a referral to the Justice Dept. That's a real threat in the current situation because the current Justice Dept is politically aligned with the Committee and would probably do its best to justify an indictment of Trump. This wouldn't have been the case during Watergate or the impeachment of Clinton, when Justice was in the hands of the president's party.
ReplyDeleteOn corruption, it seems to me that Democrats and Republicans are often held to different standards, and that the FBI and Justice Dept did not want to prosecute Hillary, while they might want to prosecute Trump if they had something on him that would stick. I could be wrong, and I can't prove the negative case (that Trump isn't corrupt), but does it look to you that the Biden law enforcement bureaucracy wouldn't try to prosecute Trump if they could?
The presentation of the witness I mentioned went exactly as you'd expect in such a performance. He personally apologized from the stand to the officers of the Capitol Police for his role, and directly condemned Donald Trump as ultimately responsible for everything bad.
ReplyDeleteIt lacks the summary executions that Stalin would have preferred, but otherwise it's stage-managed perfectly.
Jonathan: the FBI and Justice Dept did not want to prosecute Hillary
ReplyDeleteThere was no evidence that a crime had been committed.
Jonathan: while they might want to prosecute Trump if they had something on him that would stick.
Many in Justice probably think that Trump did break the law. Trump is deeply corrupt, but whether he can be successfully prosecuted is questionable. Justice is averse to losing, so is reluctant to prosecute.
Grim: He personally apologized from the stand to the officers of the Capitol Police for his role,
As he should.
Grim: and directly condemned Donald Trump as ultimately responsible for everything bad.
Trump even defended people wanting to hang the Vice President.
people who had taken flak for him and damaged their careers by working for him. That is corruption of a sort
ReplyDeleteGeorge W Bush and Scooter Libby
Bill Clinton and Susan McDougal, among others
Ronald Reagan and Cap Weinberger, also among others
Getting yourself sideways with the opposition party for supporting your boss is not at all unusual, nor is a lack of loyalty going down the chain of command. I get that you don't like Trump but little that happened during his administration was unprecedented other than the Democrats turning the vitriol up to 11.
Christopher B: I get that you don't like Trump but little that happened during his administration was unprecedented
ReplyDeleteHuh?