I heard someone on NPR yesterday say, in the context of the upcoming televised hearings, that a major difference between this scandal and Watergate is that, in the case of Watergate, people watched because they wanted to see the evidence.
In this case, people have decided who’s right and who’s wrong and will only be watching, if they watch at all, to see who “wins.”
I’d go along with that, and with Tom Toles’ analysis as well.
I hated Nixon, which was a contrast with LBJ. I felt Johnson was an okay guy caught up in something that, had he a little more intestinal fortitude, he could have halted.
Nixon liked it. Nixon wanted it. And, years later, we learned that Nixon had torpedoed the peace talks in order to win the presidency, but we didn’t know it then.
In terms of Watergate, we knew there had been a burglary, we knew it was tied to the White House.
But we didn’t know how far up the chain things went, which was why Howard Baker’s question so well epitomized things: “What did the President know, and when did he know it?”
In this case, it’s pretty clear that everything starts with Trump because he has fired anyone who didn’t take his direction.
We could believe that Mitchell, Haldeman and Ehrlichman might have hatched some plots over in the Committee to Re-Elect, but it’s absurd to think anyone but Trump could be inviting scandal in the Trump White House.
Which won’t keep the True Believers from believing he’s innocent nor, as Toles depicts it, will it keep the GOP from remaining blindly loyal to Dear Leader.
Funny thing: Trump and his lackeys claim that the Democrats have been trying to bring him down ever since he was inaugurated.
Let’s not forget he began his administration with pointless, grandiose, easily disproven lies about the size of the crowd at his inauguration.
While, if there remained any doubts about the depth of rot in this feckless, nepotistic administration, let’s turn to our
Juxtaposition of the Day
All Don Jr had to do was keep his mouth shut and rake in the lucre.
It would be one thing for the dumb son of a bitch to say stupid things in an interview, but to write a book?
This is where we lose all doubt that there is no John Mitchell behind the scenes of this ongoing farce. It’s not surprising that Fredo Jr. wrote a book, but who the hell let it get published?
Mind you, you have to remember that his father once explained that, while he never served in Vietnam, he did have to avoid the clap.
So when Little Donnie says the sacrifice of those who died defending their country is like that of his family when they had to stop (overtly) making money, it’s just a rotten apple falling from the rotten apple tree.
As is their respective wonts, Telnaes pours her contempt into her cartoon, while Jones adds a doozy of a column to clarify his disgust:
Jr, you haven’t sacrificed shit. You haven’t even earned what you have, less enough sacrificed to get it. You didn’t have to be the best to get into college. You didn’t have to be the best to get a job at your company. You didn’t have to be the best to get your position in that company. You don’t have to give good speeches to get speaking engagements. You don’t have to have any qualifications or accomplishments to go on talk shows. Hell, you didn’t even have to write a good book to get a book deal.
To which he then adds this cartoon, which might simply be a cheap shot at the First Family’s ability to chisel their way out of things, had Don Sr. not also been guilty of failing to keep his big fat mouth shut.
But, no, the egotistical jackass issued a statement calling the DA a liar.
Again, you can’t make this shit up, but you don’t have to.
And in the spirit of the weekend as well as in keeping with Donnie Jr’s notion of sacrifice, let’s not forget that the flag-waving vets who support this guy are okay with his having lied to his draft board and sent a more honest man to the rice paddies and now they’re also okay with his having stolen millions of dollars that was intended for veterans in need.
Which I guess puts them on the same footing as the Christians who ignore his pussy-grabbing, his cheating on his wives, his bigotry, his reluctance to feed the hungry, clothe the naked or shelter the homeless.
Which brings us back to the initial point: In the Watergate hearings, whether we supported Nixon or hated him, we watched to learn the evidence.
It was a different time.
Unfortunately, the rot and stink are not self-contained, and, as Europe celebrates the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Patrick Chappatte notes how the international image of the United States has also fallen in those years.
The fall of the Wall itself was only a milestone, a symbol, though it was a galvanizing moment in a much longer process.
People celebrate Reagan’s “Tear down this wall” speech, but he had to talk fast: The Soviet grip on two Germanys was already slipping and the wall was doomed.
What had made a greater impression on the world had been JFK’s speech, at the height of the division, in which he proclaimed American solidarity with the people of both Berlins, and that there was but one Berlin.
How things have changed. How our image in the world has changed.
Even if it were not illegal in this country to solicit foreign aid in domestic elections, the threat to abandon Ukraine would earn the world’s contempt, as it has.
And, as with the fall of the Wall, it is only a symbol, a milestone in a larger process.
He *says* he’s donating to these causes. But as with the vets, I daresay someone will have to strong-arm him into actually writing the cheques.