Impeachment Day 4: Battle Lines Are Drawn, Birds of a Feather
As details emerged from the analysis of and reaction to the whistleblower memo concerning Individual #1’s actions, it has become clear this story will not be going away any time soon.
Two parts of this history in the making are my focus for today: Media Reactions and Republican Responses.
I found a phone number for Satan yesterday afternoon and called it. Congressman Duncan Hunter was apparently on receptionist duty, and he assured me that hell has not frozen over.
My call was prompted by learning of Friday’s San Diego Union-Tribune editorial endorsing the concept of impeachment hearings.
Here’s a snip of the printed page, for those of you who might think this is some sort of a joke.
Mind you, the paper’s stance is not a full-throated “Impeach the M*****F*****.” They’d like Democrats to remain focused on the Ukraine situation.
Will impeachment be followed by a Senate conviction and Trump’s removal from office? That still seems unlikely. But at least the process will underline the urgent importance of proper presidential conduct. Making clear to this president that there are lines he should not cross may not change his behavior. But it will establish — or re-establish — a standard for his successor, to the benefit of America.
I wish I could share the editorial board’s optimism that there will actually be an elected successor. Or that Individual #1 is really just a bad apple.
(I do, however, applaud the paper’s move toward the center. My bill for anti-nausea meds had declined considerably. And I’ve used to savings to subscribe.)
What we have now in Washington is the culmination of a decades-long process, of which one part is the denigration of democracy. While it’s not a ‘conspiracy,’ there is a shared view about the need to remove the needs and aspirations of the people from the ruling equation in favor of the needs and aspirations of the few.
Our local paper wasn’t the only media outlet calling for the impeachment process to continue. The New York Times editorial board has also taken a stand.
The Times is at the center of a hubbub over it’s news side publishing information (that the whistleblower was a CIA officer) potentially endangering the safety of an individual who played by the rules and (I’m presuming) a dedication to the meaning of the oath she/he took to defend the Constitution.
Individual #1 stood before the staff of United States Mission to the United Nations yesterday and proclaimed that he wants to know who provided information to a whistle-blower about his phone call, accusing that person of being a “spy” and alluding to “the old days” when spies were dealt with differently.
As was true with the implied, but never spoken, threat made to Ukraine’s president, the intended recipients heard the message.
I braved the pop up ads and spam at the conservative Washington Examiner to get this quote:
Two Trump supporters are offering a $50,000 reward for information about the national security whistleblower at the center of the Ukraine phone affair.
Controversial conservatives Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl said they would pay the money for “information relating to the identity of the ‘Trump Whistleblower.’”
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Republicans on Capitol Hill are split into two ornithological camps: noisy parakeets and ostriches.
From USA Today:
At the House Intelligence Committee hearing, Republicans focused not on defending the president's actions but on attacking the motives of congressional Democrats, the whistleblower and the media. "I want to congratulate the Democrats on their latest information warfare effort against the president," the ranking GOP member, Rep. Devin Nunes of California, said sarcastically in his opening statement.
Here’s Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News program:
"The Michael Cohen hearing didn't work for them, the John Dean hearing didn't work for them, the Bob Mueller hearing didn't work for them," Jordan said.
"Last week, the Corey Lewandowski hearing didn't work for them -- so they said, shazam! I know what we'll do, let's say President Trump coordinated with some foreign government. Let's see if that works.
Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:
Senate Majority Leader and Satan’s turtle, Mitch McConnell, has already called the Democratic move to begin a formal impeachment inquiry “laughable to think this is anywhere close to an impeachable offense.” The rest of the Republican Senate decided to pretend they were too busy to read nine whole pages—namely the whistleblower complaint that alleges, at minimum, abuses of power by the sitting president of the United States. CNN provided a handy list of Republican senators displaying cowardice on Thursday.
All is not well in Trump cult land, however, as an astonishing piece from Gabriel Sherman about Fox at Vanity Fair illustrates:
Trump’s final bulwark is liable to be his first one: Fox News. Fox controls the flow of information—what facts are, whether allegations are to be believed—to huge swaths of his base. And Republican senators, who will ultimately decide whether the president remains in office, are in turn exquisitely sensitive to the opinions of Trump’s base. But even before the whistle-blower’s revelations, Fox was having something of a Trump identity crisis, and that bulwark has been wavering.
In recent weeks, Trump has bashed Fox News on Twitter, taking particular issue lately with its polling, which, like other reputable polls, has shown the president under significant water. Meanwhile, Trump’s biggest booster seems to be having doubts of his own. This morning, Sean Hannity told friends the whistle-blower’s allegations are “really bad,” a person briefed on Hannity’s conversations told me. (Hannity did not respond to a request for comment). And according to four sources, Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch is already thinking about how to position the network for a post-Trump future. A person close to Lachlan told me that Fox News has been the highest rated cable network for seventeen years, and “the success has never depended on any one administration.” (A Fox Corp spokesperson declined to comment.)
Inside Fox News, tensions over Trump are becoming harder to contain as a long-running cold war between the network’s news and opinion sides turns hot. Fox has often taken a nothing-to-see-here approach to Trump scandals, but impeachment is a different animal. “It’s management bedlam,” a Fox staffer told me. “This massive thing happened, and no one knows how to cover it.”
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My friend at Political Charge has some advice for activists worth sharing:
Trump and his supporters are going to do everything they can to change the story, and twist it to their liking. Attorney General Bill Barr did exactly this when the Mueller report came out and his narrative defined the report for weeks. We can already see Trump's defenders throwing all kinds of things at the wall to see what sticks.
We must stay focused on Trump's behavior: Trump tried to extort the Ukrainian president into investigating one of his 2020 political rivals, and then covered it up.
Try as best you can not to get pulled into whatever distracting story they throw out there. By replying or sharing those distractions, we end up helping them distract from what Trump did. Here's an example of what not to do:
Them: It's a witch hunt!
Us: It's not a witch hunt.
Them: It's a witch hunt!!!!
Us: No, it's not a witch hunt.
We think we're counteracting what they're saying but all anyone is hearing is that we're arguing over whether it's a witch hunt or not, and what has gotten lost is what actually happened.
I get it. This isn't easy to do. I wrote more about how to do this kind of thing HERE with tips on how to employ it when you're on social media.
https://twitter.com/joncoopertweets/status/1177545844897267714?s=20
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Email me at WriteDougPorter@Gmail.com
Lead illustration by T.J. Hawk/Flickr