A Report by Any Other Name Wouldn’t Smell as Sweet
This Weak in Politics, Vol. 175
March 28, 2019
The Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 US Presidential election has finally concluded, with polar opposite reactions from Republicans and Democrats. Democrats responded with, “What the #$%^? Are You #$%^ing kidding me?” Republicans responded with “Whew. Shit that was close.”
We don’t actually know what’s in the Mueller Report. We merely know what’s in the Mueller Report report — the document drafted by Attorney General Bill Barr. Barr’s report was, well, an abbreviated variation of Mueller’s report. Barr concluded that Mueller concluded there was no collusion. Barr also reported that Mueller stated “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
Barr also said the report stated, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Or as President Trump translated:
This may make many of you ask what part of “DOES NOT EXONERATE HIM” does he not understand.
It’s the “DOES NOT” part.
You asked, we answered.
The president, as he has done 184 other times (literally), called the Mueller probe a “witch hunt.” Following the release of Barr’s letter summarizing the findings, Trump said this was nothing short of an attempt to overturn the will of the voters. No, Mr. President. That would be the electoral college.
The actual Mueller report, it has been reported is 300 pages long (and some of you complain TWITPOL is too long?). Barr’s first draft analysis of the report is 4 pages long. Four Pages! Instead of 300. With that sort of ratio, Anna Karenina would be 216 pages long, two of the world’s largest faiths would be pretending to abide by the 2.5 Commandments, CBS would have a Sunday news show called “15 Minutes,” Lindsey Graham would still be an asshole, and Donald Trump would only have 6 credible sexual misconduct allegations.
On the plus side, this would also mean that President Trump’s first term would last only a year, with just a little over 4 months left.
There are those who suspect that Barr didn’t merely tamp down the sheer volume of information in the Mueller Report, but that he might have actually edited it selectively: We know this because, through our myriad sources we were able to obtain the first page of Mueller’s report with Barr’s handwritten edits.
The above edits are exactly the same style of elective editing the right has used to justify calling William Shakespeare a Second Amendment champion.
So, there you have it. The Republican Party is celebrating the fact that the president may have been helped by Russia, but he didn’t direct that help, and, it remains an open question as to whether he committed felonies! Woohoo!
It did not take long for the party to go on a freshly emboldened victory lap. And by “go on a victory lap,” we mean they went back to destroying the environment, yanking healthcare away from the poor and the infirm, threatening to investigate and jail political opponents, requesting a silencing of opposition voices on television. So. Much. Winning.
At least they didn’t try to cut funding for the Special Olympics.
Oh shit.
Seriously. Who sits around thinking “know who has it too good and needs to be knocked down a peg? Special Olympians.
This thing:
And as for the Democrats and the “mainstream media” they are left to answer a question about their handling of the Mueller report— do we have egg on our face? Well, umm…maybe a little?
The Democrats biggest failing was in setting expectations of the Mueller report. The party very calmly and coolly expected the Mueller report to provide sufficient information to impeach and remove President Trump, retroactively impeach Presidents Bush (44) and Reagan, cure cancer, explain the song “Horse with No Name,” and lower the cost of prescription drugs.
To put it into medical terms — because the president and the democrats both want to now focus on healthcare — Democrats saw the then-pending Mueller report as a panacea for all the woes of the past eleventy hundred years of the Trump presidency. The ongoing nature of the probe was a placebo for the party still stinging from their 2016 loss. (Note to Trump supporters: ‘placebo’ means something that somehow makes you feel better even though there is really nothing of actual value in it for you. Think of it as the Trump tax cuts of medicine).
In international news, British Prime Sinister Teresa May this week promised that if a Brexit deal were passed in the Parliament, she would resign.
Here’s a thought. Why don’t we cut a similar deal with Trump here in the US? We’ll build the damn wall — hell, we’ll even wall off California if that’s what it takes — in exchange for a Trexit.
And that’s the way the weak spent the week in a nation where our president is calling the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee “Little pencil-necked Adam Schiff,” adding “He’s got the smallest, thinnest neck I’ve ever seen,” at the same time his wife was urging school children to be mindful of how their words might affect other’s feelings.
Maybe this will anger Schiff into action. It would be amazing if Schiff wrote the single best report on Trump/Russia…Barr none
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