Preceding today's essay by Dana Milbank, The Post Editoiral Board announced: "Beginning today, Post Opinions columnist Dana Milbank is providing regular commentary on the impeachment inquiry into President Trump.: This development of assigning a single staffer to the current impeachment inquiry into the conduct of The LK (Lyin' King). The assignment of a single DC Fishwrap staffer topursue the impeachment story in 2019 stands in contrast to the assignement ot two (2) reporters to the 1974 story and reminds this blogger of the old story of the oil boom in the Texas Panhandle town of Borger in the early 1920s. The swarm of oilfield workers to tiny Borger and a lot of lawless behavior promoted the tiny local aw enforcement department to send a telegram to the governor's office for the assistance of the Texas Rangers to get things under control in Borger. A reply telegram reported that help was on the way. The next day, the train stopped in Borger and a single man wearing a large Stetson hat got off the train. The first question asked of the man in the large white hat was
Where are the rest of the Rangers/" The new ly arrived Texas Ranger replied, "You only got one riot, don't you?" And in short order, peace was restored in Borger, TX. This blogger imagines the discussion of the assignment of reporters to the ununfolding 2019 impeachment story and consensus of the DC Fishwrap's editorial board was summed up with a single mention of The Lyin' King who has already confessed to commiting impeachable acts on live television. If this is (fair & balanced) blogotorial speculation, so be it.
[x WaPo — DC Fishwrap]
Impeachment Diary: The Day That Irony Died
By Dana Milbank
TagCrowd Cloud provides a visual summary of the following piece of writing
US Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ.) reads a resolution to censure Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) on October 21, 2019 (Washington Post video)
It is my sad duty to report that, after a long and painful illness, irony is dead.
Irony was already on life support last week when Trump brothers Don Jr. and Eric, who owe everything they have to family money and favoritism, spoke out against nepotism — in the Biden family.
Surrounded by loving admirers, irony finally succumbed at 6:22 PM Monday, when Republicans attempted to force a vote in the House censuring Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), and claiming the leader of the impeachment inquiry “misled the American people.”
So, after defending President Trump through 13,435 false or misleading statements as of last week (by The Post Fact Checker’s tally), Republicans are now thoroughly outraged because they think somebody misrepresented something Trump said.
And so Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ), with the blessing of GOP leadership, the co-sponsorship of 172 Republicans and a sum total of zero self-awareness, read aloud on the House floor Monday evening a censure resolution saying Schiff “manufactured a false retelling of the conversation” between Trump and the Ukrainian president — an example of “conduct that misleads the American people in a way that is not befitting an elected member of the House.” (Schiff said at the time it was a “parody” and was “in not so many words” what Trump actually said.)
Apparently, Republicans chose to answer Schiff’s original parody with a satire of a censure resolution.
Completing the farce: Just a few hours before consideration of the resolution alleging Schiff misrepresented Trump, Trump served up an entirely new falsehood about Schiff. Without basis, Trump alleged that Schiff invented the whistleblower’s allegations.
“Maybe the informant was Schiff,” Trump proclaimed at a Cabinet meeting Monday. “It could be Shifty Schiff. In my opinion, it’s possibly Schiff.” (Lest you have doubts about irony’s demise, Trump issued this defamation three days after signing a “National Character Counts Week” proclamation endorsing “honesty,” “integrity” and “respect for others.”)
Democrats quickly tabled the resolution in a party-line vote, 218 to 185. But it was an instructive exercise, for it represented the essence of the Republican anti-impeachment strategy. Trump urged Republicans on Monday to “get tougher and fight” on impeachment, but there is no good defense of Trump on the merits in the Ukraine dirt-for-dollars scandal (nor, for that matter, in his willy-nilly pullout from Syria, nor his attempt to award himself the Group of Seven [G7] conference). Instead, Republicans complain about process: Schiff is unfair! The proceedings are too secretive! Democrats are ignoring precedents! As The Post’s congressional expert Paul Kane observed last week: “When having trouble arguing the facts, you go straight into a full-frontal attack on the process.”
Alas, for Republicans, the facts are against them on the process, too. Compare what’s happening now with what happened before and during the Clinton impeachment:
When Trump staff chief Mick Mulvaney is called to appear before the impeachment inquiry — a subpoena is imminent, I’m told — Republicans will howl, as they have before, about the probe’s improper intrusion into White House deliberations. But during their endless probes of the Clinton administration, Republicans hauled in three chiefs of staff (Mack McLarty, Erskine Bowles and John Podesta) and a dozen other senior White House officials — many testifying without protection of executive privilege.
Republicans are outraged that the inquiry is taking depositions in closed sessions rather than public hearings. Biggs, accusing the Democrats of operating “Stalin-esque, Soviet-style” hearings, sent a letter signed by 76 other Republicans protesting “secrecy.” But Republicans didn’t find it “Stalin-esque” when they hauled 141 Clinton administration officials in for 568 hours of similar private depositions.
Republicans were outraged that Democrats allowed a staff lawyer to interview a witness, Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski. This complaint, too, might carry more weight if GOP investigators hadn’t approved the same technique to question Clinton administration officials Janet Reno and Louis J. Freeh.
Republicans are seeking to censure Schiff for, they say, mischaracterizing a rough transcript. But during the Clinton probes, a Republican committee chairman, Dan Burton (R-IN), called Clinton a “scumbag” and released selectively edited interview transcripts that omitted exculpatory information. Though Burton fired an aide (David Bossie, later a Trump adviser), he received no reprimand for doctoring transcripts.
Irony is dead, but hypocrisy predeceased it.
And so there was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Fox News last week saying “you have a better chance of getting a fair justice system in China” than under “known liar” Schiff.
And there, on Fox News on Monday, was Biggs, ringleader of the Schiff censure, reciting a list of procedural complaints about due process, transparency, copies of transcripts and the presence of counsel. Schiff “is not a fair arbiter,” Biggs protested.
On the same show, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) continued the complaint. “We can’t see the transcripts,” he protested, saying the censure resolution was to “highlight just how unfair the process is.”
These may be the only arguments Republicans can make in Trump’s defense. But when you’re complaining about process, you’re losing. ###
[Dana Milbank is a nationally syndicated op-ed columnist. He also provides political commentary for various TV outlets, and he is the author of three books on politics, including the national bestseller Homo Politicus (2007). Milbank joined The Post in 2000 as a Style political writer, then covered the presidency of George W. Bush as a White House correspondent before starting the column in 2005. Before joining The Post, Milbank spent two years as a senior editor at The New Republic, where he covered the Clinton White House, and eight years as a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, where he covered Congress and was a London-based correspondent. He received a BA cum laude (political science) from Yale University (CT).]
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