In an alternate universe in which people were mainly

concerned about the welfare of the nation, there would be universal sighs of relief and celebration today. In this universe, the President being innocent is good for the country, and the President being guilty is bad for the country. Concern that our nation's leader is compromised and criminal have been ameliorated after thorough investigation. The President would not be surprised, because he knew he was innocent, but he would be congratulating and thanking the investigators doing their diligence and bringing actual criminals to justice.

In reality, we are primarily concerned with whether we took a win or a loss for our team. Whether the President's innocence is good for the country is immaterial: what matters is that our side won, so in your face. Now let's get our revenge and investigate all your people. Or what matters is that our side lost, in which case we are sad that the President is apparently not a criminal. Because the President was assumed guilty by many people, that guilt became a political position to be held, as opposed to a matter of truth and fact. "I'm for quality healthcare, sensible gun laws, bringing the troops home, and the guilt of the President. Vote for me."

And if the investigation had gone the other way, and did result in an indictment or impeachment of the President? It would be the reverse. The innocence of the President would be a political position to be defended, not a matter of truth, so the indictment would be viewed as an attack from an enemy. And the other side would be celebrating a devastating blow to the integrity of our government.

camcgee®

All-In [28802]

TigerPulse: 100%

Posts: 58393

Joined: 11/14/03

This seems right to me

Mar 25, 2019, 2:24 PM

This is a characteristically good take from Yuval Levin about what the upshot of Barr's summary is:

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-barr-letter-interlude/

One of the peculiar consequences of the intense short-sightedness that now characterizes our public life is that every significant event immediately sets off instant commentary about how the future will be shaped by this latest twist—as if another twist won’t make us basically forget this one in five minutes. We all do this, and it’s hard to avoid doing it. But it leads us again and again to lose our perspective. We have trouble understanding ourselves as living in the middle of a story, rather than at its end.

This problem stands out especially starkly today, in contemplating the commentary about the conclusion of the Mueller investigation. Everyone is responding to what is obviously an interim step in the process of digesting the investigation’s findings. The special counsel submitted his report to the Attorney General, who has then summarized the key findings for the Congress and the public. No one outside Mueller’s team and the upper ranks of the Department of Justice has read the report. There is every reason to think that Barr has summarized the findings honestly and accurately—he is a man of good character, and it would in any case be foolish to mislead the country in a way that would soon be discovered. But the power of a document like Mueller’s report, particularly outside the strict context of a court of law, is bound to be in the details—in the volume of evidence, its character, its most salacious particulars. And those details will be public, probably fairly soon, but they are not public yet.

...

About a year ago, I wrote around here that I thought the two sides to the fight between Trump and the DOJ each had a strong argument, but not about Russia. Collusion seemed implausible, but Trump’s defenders could point to FBI misbehavior in the investigation, and his critics could point to Trump’s misbehavior in office. That still seems to be where we are, and what we know so far suggests the Mueller report doesn’t really make either of those look less bad than it looked before. And yet the Attorney General’s summary of the report is likely to take some of the steam out of both of them—because it’s harder for an (essentially) exonerated person to complain about a witch hunt and it’s harder to argue obstruction when the process was concluded and found no underlying crime. The logic of “all’s well that ends well” undermines both. Neither of these is a legal argument, and both sides will certainly continue pushing their political arguments on both fronts too, but the way Barr has been extremely careful to frame the investigation’s conclusions will probably weaken both sets of arguments.

The question is whether the report itself frames those conclusions (especially about the president’s behavior) in the same general way. We are not at the end of the Mueller drama. We are in an interlude created by the Attorney General’s decision to summarize the report for the public before releasing it. In this period, however long it lasts, the major remaining sources of indignation and concern may be temporarily drained of their power some. That will affect the ultimate outcome: It will be harder to revive the passion of the partisans after some period of talking as though the story is at an end. But depending on the details and arguments in the report, it may turn out to be harder to revive one side’s passion than the other’s—and it isn’t obvious right now which that would be.

When we look back upon this sordid story, we won’t remember its conclusion as defined by Barr’s letter but by Mueller’s report. And we have yet to see what that report says, so we don’t actually know exactly what that definition will consist of. Maybe everything proceeds as expected from here. But is that how things have gone so far?

flag link

military_tech

thumb_down

thumb_up

Re: In an alternate universe in which people were mainly

But...you still just said...

Re: But...you still just said...

Just differing philosophies, I guess.

Re: Just differing philosophies, I guess.

Re: In an alternate universe in which people were mainly

If Trump were found guilty of Russian Collusion or anything

I'm glad you would support it...

Because most of them see the investigation itself

there were actually 3 investigations on collusion...all had

Shall we revisit this subject after the AG investigations...

Hayell yeah! Burn em! :)

Dems bad, Repubs good.***

This seems right to me

Re: In an alternate universe in which people were mainly

Not really. People know Trump is a scumbag.

That wing, you mean Pelosi, Schummer and the rest...

There is the Bernie/Tulsi/Greenwald wing that is

Too much generalizations there to be accurate.

Star Lord said it best - "We're all losers."

TigerBoard POTD