No, I didn't watch much -- almost none -- of William Barr's testimony yesterday. But I admire though who did and reported on it. I have my limits and spending hours watching the Attorney General of the United States lie to the House of Representatives for a few hours does not make it over my otherwise very low standards.
I did put the coverage on for a while, but kept the sound off. When it looked like there was good questioning, I did turn up the volume, but it was rare. Mainly, I knew that there would be analysis throughout the breaks and later in the day, with clips illustrating events. But seriously, why would I put myself through watching the top law official in the country say to the nation's representatives things like, no, he never reads any of Trump's tweets? His "answer" implies that he also doesn't watch or read the news, since those are plastered with Trump's tweets every day.-- not just quoting them, but generally showing graphics of them. This is something I wish one of the people questioning him would have brought up. Similarly, I would have liked someone to bring up that, while AG Barr said to Rep. Eric Swalwell with a straight, albeit dour face, that he's never seen a particular, notable tweet by Trump about Roger Stone, whose prison sentence he just commuted -- I would have liked Rep. Swalwell (who otherwise did a terrific job questioning) or someone to point out to Barr that the Trump/Stone tweet was so noteworthy that...it was included in the Mueller Report that Barr did, allegedly read! The general reaction seems to be that Democrats didn't do an especially good job questioning Barr in the morning session. In fact, someone tweeted that they thought the questioning was so bad they believed Trump's approval numbers would go up -- and this received several hundred likes and retweets. Let me state that there is is no way on earth that Trump's approval will go up because of poor Democratic questioning. Trump's approval has plummeted because of mismanaging the pandemic, 152,306 deaths, recommending taking bleach, 54 million new Americans on unemployment, mishandling the racial divide and Black Lives Matter, using paramilitary forces in U.S. cities on American citizens and 80% of the public saying that they think the country is going in the wrong direction -- and more. They are not going to say, "Gee, y'know, I think that Democrats did a lousy job questioning William Barr, so I'm okay with Trump now." And that's even if all that many people even watched. I mean, seriously, folks, get a grip. Happily, from what little I saw live and from analysis later, it seems like Democrats did a much more solid, aggressive and pointed job questioning AG Barr. So, that ought to counteract all those people on the verge of switching the support to Trump... By the way, one of the lines of questioning was the added paramilitary focus that AG Barr has given to Black Lives Matter protesters compared to other protests, like those anti-shelter protests wanting to open business in Michigan that called for the death and beheading of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The Attorney General tried to claim that he was totally unaware of this. When the congressman questioning him was stunned and couldn't believe this, Barr tried to explain it away by saying "There were a lot of protests." Yeah, right -- but then, a) there are a whole lot of Black Lives Matter protests, and b) none of the other "open up business" protests involved calling for the death of a governor. All of which calls to mind Trump's ranting about needing these paramilitary forces attacking Americans in order to defend federal property. Like this tweet this week --
We end with this reminder as a public service, something which has pretty much slipped under the wire in all of Trump's cries like this above, to protect federal property and federal statues.
For the record: This is the same man who pardoned the Hammonds who were convicted of arson on federal property.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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