October. Surprise!
These are the times that test the resources of twenty-four-hour cable news. There are scarcely enough hours in the day to cover all the developments.
What has changed since the heady days of 1973-4? Yes, I was alive then, children. Got my first job the week Nixon lost his, August it was. At the time, we thought he was the worst person in the world and couldn't wait to see the back of him. That shameful pardon from Ford seemed a small price to pay. Now, of course, we remember that he signed the EPA into existence, stopped pretending that eight hundred million "Red" Chinese didn't exist, and ended the military draft. In other words, not completely worthless. Highly intelligent. Hard worker. Pretended, at least, to like dogs. Lost in 1960 on some highly creative vote-counting in Illinois, but never whined about it. Do I have to go into all the Nixon negatives? There was a song made out of his press conference after the California gubernatorial in 1962 -- "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore...I made a flub...I lost the election." WBAI played it all the time. Fitzgerald was wrong: Nixon's life had a second act to match Noises Off.*
Not completely worthless. Let's settle on "flawed." "The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones," said Mark Antony before he proceeded to turn that formula on its head. But if he was right, Trump will be immortal. I can't think of a single thing he has done in 73 years that was not selfish, cruel, depraved and amoral. Maybe pardoning the long-dead Jack Johnson. There, now he can scan his portrait for signs of regeneration, like Dorian Gray. (My, what a lot of literary references today.) And unlike Dorian, complain that the Deep State doctored it to make him look grotesque.
The House has so many crimes and misdemeanors to choose from, they'll have to whittle them down like Maxwell Perkins -- I'm sorry, I really am -- editing a Thomas Wolfe novel. They'll probably have to skip the things he did with Russia to get the presidency, just as they'll ignore the offenses against decency he committed for decades in private life. That leaves compromising intelligence assets, abasing himself before every Russian official he could find, grabbing the Constitution by the emoluments clause to prop up his sleazily-run businesses, obstruction of justice, sharing classified information through malfeasance or stupidity (Israel's as well as ours), actively promoting violence against private citizens including reporters, flouting the will of Congress for the past nine months, and lying, lying, lying. Which, if they ever depose him under oath, will be perjury, perjury, perjury. (That's what finally got Bill Clinton impeached; oral sex is not prohibited in the Constitution.) Sadly laziness, ignorance, nepotism, fake religiosity, semi-literacy, racism, misogyny, greed, self-pity, narcissism and stupidity are not impeachable offenses either, or who should 'scape whipping? I really have to stop this.
Then there's the little matter of the tax returns, which -- if you believe Trump -- have been under audit longer than Jarndyce v. Jarndyce was in Chancery. (Help me!) For a long time I thought they were meaningless, being as mendacious as everything else about The Trump Organization. But he has fought to keep them secret in every court this side of The Hague, so there must be something pretty damn damning. Something even worse than Putin's kompromat, which all signs suggest involves jail-bait Russian girls. Something even Trumplandia would gag on. It feels like he would order Mnuchin to eat them rather than turn them loose. So as of today, I diet and exercise. If I died without seeing those 1040s it would really piss me off.
The chyron says "Pelosi puts impeachment probe on a fast track." On with the show!
*Michael Frayn's comedy. If you didn't go to the toilet at intermission, you probably peed your seat during the second act.
What has changed since the heady days of 1973-4? Yes, I was alive then, children. Got my first job the week Nixon lost his, August it was. At the time, we thought he was the worst person in the world and couldn't wait to see the back of him. That shameful pardon from Ford seemed a small price to pay. Now, of course, we remember that he signed the EPA into existence, stopped pretending that eight hundred million "Red" Chinese didn't exist, and ended the military draft. In other words, not completely worthless. Highly intelligent. Hard worker. Pretended, at least, to like dogs. Lost in 1960 on some highly creative vote-counting in Illinois, but never whined about it. Do I have to go into all the Nixon negatives? There was a song made out of his press conference after the California gubernatorial in 1962 -- "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore...I made a flub...I lost the election." WBAI played it all the time. Fitzgerald was wrong: Nixon's life had a second act to match Noises Off.*
Not completely worthless. Let's settle on "flawed." "The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones," said Mark Antony before he proceeded to turn that formula on its head. But if he was right, Trump will be immortal. I can't think of a single thing he has done in 73 years that was not selfish, cruel, depraved and amoral. Maybe pardoning the long-dead Jack Johnson. There, now he can scan his portrait for signs of regeneration, like Dorian Gray. (My, what a lot of literary references today.) And unlike Dorian, complain that the Deep State doctored it to make him look grotesque.
The House has so many crimes and misdemeanors to choose from, they'll have to whittle them down like Maxwell Perkins -- I'm sorry, I really am -- editing a Thomas Wolfe novel. They'll probably have to skip the things he did with Russia to get the presidency, just as they'll ignore the offenses against decency he committed for decades in private life. That leaves compromising intelligence assets, abasing himself before every Russian official he could find, grabbing the Constitution by the emoluments clause to prop up his sleazily-run businesses, obstruction of justice, sharing classified information through malfeasance or stupidity (Israel's as well as ours), actively promoting violence against private citizens including reporters, flouting the will of Congress for the past nine months, and lying, lying, lying. Which, if they ever depose him under oath, will be perjury, perjury, perjury. (That's what finally got Bill Clinton impeached; oral sex is not prohibited in the Constitution.) Sadly laziness, ignorance, nepotism, fake religiosity, semi-literacy, racism, misogyny, greed, self-pity, narcissism and stupidity are not impeachable offenses either, or who should 'scape whipping? I really have to stop this.
Then there's the little matter of the tax returns, which -- if you believe Trump -- have been under audit longer than Jarndyce v. Jarndyce was in Chancery. (Help me!) For a long time I thought they were meaningless, being as mendacious as everything else about The Trump Organization. But he has fought to keep them secret in every court this side of The Hague, so there must be something pretty damn damning. Something even worse than Putin's kompromat, which all signs suggest involves jail-bait Russian girls. Something even Trumplandia would gag on. It feels like he would order Mnuchin to eat them rather than turn them loose. So as of today, I diet and exercise. If I died without seeing those 1040s it would really piss me off.
The chyron says "Pelosi puts impeachment probe on a fast track." On with the show!
*Michael Frayn's comedy. If you didn't go to the toilet at intermission, you probably peed your seat during the second act.
posted by Buttermilk Sky at 11:19 AM
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