Instead of re-opening the FBI investigation of Judge Kavanaugh, conservative columnist Cal Thomas wrote this:
If the FBI wants to investigate things that need investigation there is much behavior from the Bill and Hillary Clinton era that would keep agents busy and produce results of interest to the public and law enforcement, including alleged Chinese hacking of Hillary’s emails while she was secretary of state, Uranium One scandal, foreign gifts to the Clinton Foundation and so much more.
Accordingly, when Trump is out of office, I am sure Cal will call on the FBI to investigate the Trump company’s alleged associations with money laundering, foreign election contributions, overseas tax havens, and Melania’s immigration status.
Cut the Crap
Cal was not writing about FBI investigations. He was arguing against re-opening the Kavanaugh background file. Why do Republicans refuse to hear under-oath testimony from anybody other than Kavanaugh and the accuser? Why isn’t Kavanaugh calling for testimony from others? Why isn’t he offering to take a lie-detector test?
We don’t need to know anything else to know who is telling the truth. It is common sense.
But we are governed by the rule of law, not by common sense. The rule of law is a fancy term for enabling powerful people to hide the truth. Thanks to Brett Kavanaugh we have a clear example of how this works.
2 comments ↓
“Cut the crap.”
Things are bad in politics. No doubt. But I go round and round trying to decide if I believe that politics has always been this bad, or whether things are worse now than before. I can provide good arguments both ways. I suppose the answer doesn’t really matter. Either way, we have to resist the Bad now and forever, amen.
No — it does not matter if things are worse now than before. And I agree with your hope for better governance in the future, but my recent reading does not give me much hope — Homo Politicus (2008, Dana Milbank), The Dark Side of Camelot (1998, Seymour Hersh) and The Year of Voting Dangerously (2016, Maureen Dowd). The common thread across all three is that both political parties are corrupt to their cores.
And this idea reminds me of sitting in the XHS cafeteria during spring semester campaigns for class and student council officers. Two premises were put forth:
1. Some argued that candidates say things to get elected, but they won’t do those things when they get into office because they will only be able to do what the principal allows.
2. Others argued that, if you don’t get elected, you won’t have any power at all. So the main thing is to get elected.
What I see in national politics is that the second argument drives everything in both parties. And, of course it is true. Only those who get elected make policies.
So, like you, I am not sure how this gets better. Are there any principles upon which policy-makers should base their work? Or is that naive because policy makers need to get re-elected, which means the principle is always the same — do what gets you elected, which is exactly what I see in both parties. (And that is my beef with John McCain. He had to be a Republican to get re-elected in Arizona. That meant he was a member of the party that engaged in “enhanced interrogation” on our behalf. I love irony.)
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