So this is what we have now: the House Democrats have exposed 45's tawdry and cynical plot not just to undermine Ukraine, but to betray it by making its new president make a choice between the ethical behavior he promised his people and the trap he unknowingly fell into by having to deal with such a monster in the White House.
45 got caught by a free and robust press, so he released the $391M that he had had held in abeyance to this extortion, which is what it is regardless of Republican efforts to simply dismiss it because, after all, there was no actual harm done. Too bad, so sad, they're saying. You really have nothing here at all.
But to hold an ally's leader hostage like this is craven, and the withholding of Congressional funding is a direct violation of the Constitution. What Politico and now the House Democrats have done is to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine, though nobody has come right out and said that. The absence of the Javelin anti-tank missiles purchased with that money would have made resistance problematic.
Okay, Obama acted with far more restraint and sent blankets and MREs to Ukraine instead, trying not to provoke the Russians. 45's increasing of military hardware assistance might actually have been a better move.
All the more reason not to play games with the money. All the more reason to act with straight-up integrity and deliver for the Ukrainians.
All the more reason to declare that our foreign policy has been strangled by a narcissistic operator who cares not about any country, including his own. All of it comes down to a single question: Can I squeeze somebody to advance my prospects? Not that of the USA, but mine?
The Republicans scoff at what was actually asked of Zelinskyy: Not necessarily to actually investigate Burisma and the Bidens, but to announce that Ukraine was doing so. That way, the Bidens get bad press, 45 can riff forever like he did with Hillary Clinton, and the endless smear takes off on its own legs regardless of any basis in fact.
So, the Republicans claim, there really was nothing involved--not an actual investigation, but the appearance of one. Republican Elise Stefanek, one of the so-called stars of this part of the impeachment proceedings, has continually harped upon the "potential appearance of a conflict of interest" of Hunter Biden's employment by Burisma, as if that was signficant at all, as a sufficient excuse to begin investigations--and, of course, normalize 45's underhanded plot to compromise our foreign policy as just international politics writ large.
That's like saying there's a ghost in my apartment. There may not be one, but I can claim the potential appearance of one, and get people, including myself if I say it often enough, mighty scared. And that's exactly what 45 wanted the nefarious Rudy Giuliani to do--gin-up an investigation with 'facts' that, stated loudly and vaguely (the way smearing is done), would excite enough Democrats to turn on Biden and refuse him the nomination. Once begun, any connection between anything Hunter Biden had done, if anything at all, and Joe Biden, is dad, would be easy with Fox News conduit quite handy.
It's happening right in front of us, with the predictability of the next sunrise. By now, anyone reading this can create the precise scenario of another rotten attempt to compromise another country. But if you aren't a fan of foreign aid and you want to stop it, all you have to do is lobby Congress. But naturally, if you can't do that--just like Reagan tried to do in Iran-Contra, for which he should have been impeached--you can try to do an end-run around Congress. But that was The Gipper. Heaven forfend that he would be called into account.
That all of this got stopped on a dime, and the House Democrats got one step ahead of 45's nonsense, at the risk of several careers, is now being not only ignored but chastised. Already, polls have this state, Wisconsin, backing away from impeachment proceedings. It all seems too nuanced, and already too normalized in terms of his general behavior, for enough people to take a failed attempt at extortion too seriously, as long as it didn't actually succeed, never mind that he'll undoubtedly try it again, this time with far fewer participants and far fewer trails left behind. He can't help himself, and now he has revenge as a motive for the demagogic heckling he calls his speeches.
Never mind that the entire Republican Party now seems too craven to seek justice, either. They keep key witnesses--Mulvaney, Giuliani, Pompeo, and Bolton, to name just a few--from testifying, hiding even more cravenness by adding their own. There is no moral high ground present among them. They are all in the rabbit hole with him. There's no way out but unanimity in illogical resistance, repeating disproven mantras of the non-facts of false narratives.
But you actually have to be paying attention to get all this. You have to be paying attention to focus. As good of a strategy that Nancy Pelosi had in narrowing the accusations for the purposes of expediting the proceedings to try to thwart the relative lack of attention of the average American voter, it couldn't even survive that effort. The tension of the hearings, strung out over two weeks, regardless of what fruit they have wrought by brave members of the same Deep State that's trying to hold the country together, has been too much. People turned them off early on.
Who the hell are we? Do we have to actually experience disaster in order to act on the attempt to create it? Does all this get wiped away with a shrug and nose-holding while we wait for the inevitable attack by the Russians--which this time will succeed, and is succeeding quite thoroughly as Republican dunces voice their sirens about phony Ukrainian meddling? Can't we stop anything before it happens?
All this must play out now. The Democrats are too far in, too committed and damn it, too right to back away from the process. It's clear, though, that even though what's been revealed is frightening and disgusting, clearly impeachable and sufficient for removal, more shocking and ridiculous actions would have to be revealed for any Republican to even consider crossing over. It's not absurd to think that, unbeknownst at the present moment, those actions might have already happened.
But remember these names, too: Hill, Vindman, Yovanovitch, Kent, Taylor, Stevens, Cooper. They put it on the line for the USA: the one we're more familiar with, the one that's supposed to be a beacon of strength and purpose for a decent, relatively orderly world. Not 45's world, the one that serves him and him alone, never mind anyone else's needs.
They have guts. They are what we're supposed to be about. Not their boss, elected by a technicality, unable and unwilling to understand the essence of his position and the good it could do so many.
Maybe 45 slipped away for a hospital check-up to get some sleep-aids. He might need that more than anything else. How else could he get through the night?
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment