FREE WHITEWATER
Subscribe
Notify of

4 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Joe
7 years ago

Some observations on the hearing, in no particular order:

• Huckleberry Graham did a partially OK job at running the hearing. He got off into the unmasking weeds a few times, but otherwise was way better than I thought he would be.
• I can’t say that for the rest of the repubs, with the exception of Ben Sasse. They threw acre-feet of dust into the air, in an attempt to confuse the issue. Who leaked to the WaPo, rather than what they leaked, was all that mattered to the R-Team. High-dudgeon was on prominent display about the manifest illegality of leaking the truth. None of them took issue with the facts in the leak, but all of them were really angry and vengeful about the truth coming out. That attitude was a stark advertisement for an independent commission, and soon. The R-Team is all-in on covering for Trump. You didn’t have to watch much of the hearing to discern that.
• Texas politicians are among the stupidest anywhere. Yates absolutely bludgeoned Cruz and Cornyn. They took such a schooling that they left before the second round of questions. Sally prepared. They didn’t. It showed. Cruz tried to trap Yates by misleadingly quoting statute. Yates pounced, reading off her notes the law that updated the one that Cruz tried to slip over on her. It was a beautiful moment. Cruz, who reminds me of a toxic hybrid of a used-Yugo salesman and an over-oiled funeral director, got spanked. That yutz was 2nd in line for the nomination!
• Cornyn fared no better when he asked Yates why she would put the law above the president w/regards to Muslims. Sally was ready and gave Cornyn a constitutional primer on what the AG does and followed it up with a wet fish-slap across Cornyn’s face. She pointed out to him (paraphrasing) that when he asked her at her confirmation hearing if she would obey the constitution and bust the president, if necessary, she had said yes. And then she pointed out that was what she was doing. And then she thanked Cornyn for voting for her. I think Cornyn and Cruz bailed early to go audition for the Boys’ choir. Both of their voices went noticeably soprano during the hearing. The lesson is “Do not mess with Sally Yates. It will not end well.”
• John Kennedy(R-LA), heir to the Senate seat once owned by Diaper-David Vitter, got nuked by Clapper. Clapper pointed out dryly, when asked if he had ever leaked unclassified documents, that there is no such thing. If it is not classified, it is public property. The crowd laughed their asses off. Kennedy went back to nattering about who leaked the unquestioned fact that Flynn was a Russian plant. Then he just shut up and was not heard from again.
• The overall takeaway from the hearing was that Yates had the goods on Flynn, charged up the hill to alert Trump’s lawyer (twice) and then was summarily fired, in very Archibald Cox-like fashion. A scoop dropped just before the hearing that Obama personally alerted Trump to the situation the day after the election. Yet Flynn stayed on until he was busted in the WaPo, and likely would still be there if the leak had not happened. Trump has exactly no plausible deniability to fall back on.

The hearing reinforced my feeling that Trump is on borrowed time. It certainly appears that the Gov. has tons of evidence, and is looking to drop it, after making absolutely sure it is hard. When they do, it will light off a supernova well worth watching.

Comey is a cipher. He got caught yesterday wildly exaggerating, under oath, how many e-mails Weiner had on his laptop, which caused him to pearl-clutch his way to sabotaging the Hildebeest’s election . Yet the FBI certainly appears to be playing this straight w/respect to Flynn. I don’t know what to make of all of this.

Joe
7 years ago

Perhaps the Republicans are suffering from a paucity of plausible excuses for Trump?? He isn’t giving them a lot to work with. It is difficult to come up with good-sounding ways to defend the roiling, methane-belching cesspool that is the Trump administration and family (mostly one and the same).

At some point, and Graham seems to be getting close, they will have to decide between their political future and Trump’s. I sense that won’t be all that long. It is poor political tradecraft to unquestioningly support a guy that is averaging about a scandal a day. Even hardened veterans of the Nixon and ‘lil Bush administrations know that…

I’m suspecting that it will not be too long until you hear a sound like an airliner toilet flushing, and the R-team support will fade to evanescence. Should that not happen, 2018 will be vicious, and they already know that. We shall see at what level self-preservation trumps tribal loyalty.