Mueller didn’t fail. The country did.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Mueller didn’t fail. The country did.
Former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III appears during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Being thousands of miles away from home in Portugal, a country that 45 years ago was in the grasp of a brutal dictatorship, gives me an interesting perspective on former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Wednesday testimony and on the now nearly forgotten — was it only a week ago? — racist call for four nonwhite congresswomen to “go back” to where they came from.
I worry that we — the media, voters, Congress — are dangerously unserious when it comes to preservation of our democracy. To spend hours of airtime and write hundreds of print and online reports pontificating about the “optics” of Mueller’s performance — when he confirmed that President Trump accepted help from a hostile foreign power and lied about it, that he lied when he claimed exoneration, that he was not completely truthful in written answers, that he could be prosecuted after leaving office and that he misled Americans by calling the investigation a hoax — tells me that we have become untrustworthy guardians of democracy.
The “failure” is not of a prosecutor who found the facts but might be ill equipped to make the political case, but instead, of a country that won’t read his report and a media obsessed with scoring contests rather than focusing on the damning facts at issue.
Many well-meaning figures continue to beat the drums of impeachment rather than demand that Trump be voted out of office for betraying his country and lying to voters to conceal his crew’s unpatriotic sellout to Russian actors.
Trump’s authoritarian liturgy, like that of many 20th-century despots, also co-opts religion, abandons universal liberal values including a free press, substitutes corporate cronyism for democracy and excludes from the body politic those who disagree with the government. Given his druthers, this president would exile critics just as dying colonial regimes would send off dissidents without hope of physical return.
And despite all this, too much of the chattering class remains dangerously unfocused and frivolous. It deploys irony and cynicism when clear-eyed explanation and morally defensible perspective are essential. Democratic presidential candidates and voters had better get their act together to find someone to beat Trump. If not, Trump with the complicity of a craven party and the indulgence of those who know better will further fray our tenuous attachment to democracy and truth.
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"The “failure” is not of a prosecutor who found the facts but might be ill equipped to make the political case, but instead, of a country that won’t read his report and a media obsessed with scoring contests rather than focusing on the damning facts at issue."
I would say this fairly sums it up. Mr. Mueller did not seem to be judged by what he said, more along the lines of how it was said.
If Democracy is to die, it will be ignorance and apathy that slays it.
I would have more respect for Herr Mueller if he had followed the leads wherever they took him on the Russian interference in our elections. Instead he turned it into a get Trump at all costs side show.
First he hires a team of Hillary and Obama sycophants. I am sure they were completely impartial./S
Then his complete and absolute failure against the Russian bot companies in court. The first real thing his team did in investigating Russian interference and they blow it.
But at least he gave us great theater arresting Roger Stone.
As for his testimony. There is a reason he had two babysitters with him. Someone needed to coach him through his testimony.
Especially loved his walk back of the red meat he threw the Democrats. At least his babysitters were smart enough to know that he had perjured himself.
The Dems must be terrified of Trump getting 4 more years. With the insane exploding clown car of candidates racing ever further left I can see why.
Tell you what. You start referring to the President as President Trump, and not the little immature names you like to use, we will return the gesture in kind. Until then Herr Mueller failed. President Trump triumphed against hateful liberals...yet again.
Pretty much everyone that agrees that your immature names for the President are just stupid. There are many of us.
[deleted]
Don't include me in your "we"
Don't believe I did, but your responding shows a bit of guilt.
[deleted]
I never sent you a PM and I know I will get a ticket for this, but you're lying and that's not cool
I sent himm a BM once
The fact that Robert Mueller conducted an unimpeded investigation of the President and publicly testified before Congress is direct proof that our republic is working as it should. The fact that Hillary Clinton could not use a popular majority to overturn an election is direct proof that our republic is working as it should.
Our politics is broken, not our republic. Our country has not failed; our political parties have failed us. Political parties have become a clear and imminent danger to the republic.