If [as reported] it turns out that Comey wanted to go public about Russia last summer but was overruled by the Obama White House, that would be disgraceful and would shed new light on one of the seamiest stories in American political history.The idea that the Russia story shifted the election grows paler every day. Nevertheless, if you believe it, the #1 guy responsible for letting it happen was Barack Obama.
Comey was criticized for a double standard in going public about the investigation into Hillary Clinton's email scandal, but not going public about the Russia investigation.... If he wanted to go public earlier about Russia but was overruled by Obama, that would be equally disgraceful and equally disastrous....
The attempt by Russia to choose our next president is so extreme and momentous that it is not enough to criticize leaders of one political party.... The Senate Intelligence Committee should ask President Obama what he knew about Russia, what he did and did not do about Russia, and why.
Dem: Obama Should Testify He Was "Disgraceful & Disastrous"
One of the party's faithful, former Senatorial aide Brent Budowsky, comes to a painful conclusion.
Nominating somebody who was a person of interest in an openly active FBI investigation was a serious blunder though it's hard to see who the Democrats would have found acceptable (O'Malley, maybe? Doubt it would have been Bernie).
ReplyDeleteAt some point the Democrats are going to have to accept that Trump got elected ,because he was not Hillary.
I mean, that was always the major point in his favor in my book.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. They've been remarkably resilient in rejecting reality for some time now. I'm not sure they can't keep it up indefinitely.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, if Comey had gone public in the summer with this information, it would have meant telling the public that BOTH of the major candidates for President were 'persons of interest' in active FBI investigations.
ReplyDeleteSo one thing to keep in mind is that our Presidential nomination system is badly broken. We should never have gotten to that pass in either party, let alone both of them.
When you put it that way, it's kinda scary.
ReplyDeleteThen I am putting it the right way.
ReplyDeleteBut the difference there is that the investigation into Trump, from what I can see, was spurious, and the investigation into Clinton was basically suppressed.
ReplyDeleteThat's what's scary.
I am trying to keep in mind the decent Americans who would have been given pause by that information, Grim, because I'm running into a lot of folks for whom that would have made no difference - either way.
ReplyDeleteWell, I might just be one of those people.
ReplyDeleteFor the life of me, I can't understand what this whole Russia panic is about. I really can't. Nations try to influence foreign elections all.the.time. Our own government gets hacked by Russians and Chinese all.the.time.
I started off as a never Trumper, but when I realized he was going to be the nominee I had to reassess that stance in light of the fact that Hillary would have been FAR worse for the country than Trump. Still don't like the guy, but he has done better than I expected so far despite headwinds that would have tanked anyone else.
So far, there is exactly ZERO evidence that Trump has done anything wrong or illegal. OTOH, there's plenty of evidence that the Obama administration unmasked intercepted surveillance products and illegally (and very likely *selectively*, unless you believe the Clinton camp never communicated with the Russians - I don't) leaked sensitive intel to the media AND DNC staff.
Sadly, I don't get to dictate who ends up on the ballot. The best ordinary people can do is do their homework and vote for the best choice available. Given the choice between a candidate who we know broke the law and acted with criminal negligence wrt to security, destroyed evidence, and displayed contempt for the law and one who has been *accused* of.... what, exactly?....it's hard to see an earlier announcement as a game changer.
IOW, what Eric said.
I'm with Eric and Cassandra. Hillary's legal troubles didn't matter to me one whit. I have ten other reasons to reject her before I even get close to mentioning them. The more information that comes out about the 'investigation' into Trump's associates, the more it looks like spin.
ReplyDeleteYour comment does make Comey's decision to try to publicly clear Hillary from the Server-gate charges a bit more understandable. If he was getting pressure to go public with the Trump-Russia investigations, he could have made a deal to discuss the investigation that was already public knowledge.
So one thing to keep in mind is that our Presidential nomination system is badly broken.
ReplyDeleteI'll be a bit of a crank here, but in what way or ways is it broken? The process that nominated Trump as a Republican is largely the same process that nominated W, McCain, and Mitt Romney. Did you object to their nominations?
The Democrats do appear to have some serious problems with insider manipulation of their process, and a process that seems ripe for insider manipulation (the super delegates, specifically). I agree with complaints from other Republicans that our nomination process is too frequently hijacked by candidates looking for publicity but I don't see that as having any more impact in 2016 than in 2008 or 2012. Jeb was going nowhere from the start despite his obvious money advantage due to Bush fatigue and the optics of him running against Hillary. The next logical candidate, Cruz, was totally unacceptable to the GOPe (for lack of a better term). The last possible coalition candidate would have been Rubio but he stumbled badly due to his own inexperience and the crab bucket effect from the other candidates fighting for his slice of the vote. Trump wound up being everybody's second (or maybe third) choice, which was enough to win.
I objected to McCain. I thought he was grossly underqualified for the job, albeit more qualified than Obama (that's a low bar).
ReplyDeleteI doubt this will be a popular view, but I hate the primaries and think they don't generally make for a sound selection process.
In the age of social media swarms, Facebook panics/rumors, and Tweetstorms (Good Lord), an inclusive, populist selection process is very vulnerable to manipulation. Not sure what we do about this.
...the same process that nominated W, McCain, and Mitt Romney. Did you object to their nominations?
ReplyDeleteTwo out of three. I'm always against family dynasties in American politics (W, whom I otherwise liked), and I was strongly against Romney because of two habits of his: 1) backing lefty big-state ideas like Romneycare; 2) changing all his public positions on the big issues right before running for President, and expecting the electorate to believe that represented a change of heart. On everything.
That's how you get what you're calling the GOPe.
McCain is a guy whose view of the 1st Amendment is suspect, and whose temperament is notorious. Still, he's a bona fide war hero and a man with a proven record of accomplishments (even if some of those things, like campaign finance reform, would have been better left unaccomplished).
So I didn't object to him very much.
On the other hand, in the same period we got Al Gore, John Kerry(!), Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton. Gore is nuts, Kerry was an actual traitor who met with enemy leaders in Paris in 1971 while a serving naval officer, Obama was completely unqualified when nominated, and Clinton was a criminal who holds at least half of America in utter contempt.
This seems like a pretty bad record of nominees. Don't we have better Americans than this?
With respect, the process nominating people you and I don't like is not an indication that the process is broken, any more than Obamacare (pick a program) passing is an indication that our representative democracy is broken. Neither is selecting a candidate who doesn't win the general election. I haven't been full on-board with a GOP nominee since Reagan either, and I can't see really caring who the Democrats nominate for the rest of my life though I agree they've had a run of exceptionally bad candidates despite their popularity. I think there are some things that could be done to make the GOP process run better, principally elimination of open primaries (I'd also include jungle primaries and run off elections), restructuring of the so-called 'debates' to reduce the emphasis on show-biz and sound bites, and moving away from winner-take-all delegate assignment especially for early primaries. Would those changes produce a 'better' nominee? I don't know. Conservatives account for, at best, 20% of the electorate and maybe 40% of the GOP at this point so we're unlikely to be able to drive the process to the conclusion we want.
ReplyDeleteWith respect, the process nominating people you and I don't like is not an indication that the process is broken...
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the respect, although I didn't assume disagreement implied any disrespect.
The question isn't about whether we like the nominees, but whether the process is producing the best candidates for the job. What would you say about a hiring process that produced new hires that were either family members, cranks, or liars? On the other side, family members, cranks, criminals, and traitors?
There aren't a lot of people who would make a good President, I'll grant, because the job is too big for one person. The Federal government needs to be downsized substantially so that the role becomes more manageable for a human being.
Still, it's a big country. Are we really getting the best Americans as candidates for this most powerful role?
If not, why not? What's wrong with the process that it keeps producing nepotism, corruption, deception, even treason?
The process isn't supposed to get "the best Americans"; it's supposed to get the people with the best overall support for the general election. (Maybe it should be geared to finding the best, but in that case it would look very different. It wouldn't involve popular votes, for one thing.)
ReplyDeleteNow, if the people with the most support also tend to be incompetent, then that's a problem, but it seems like a problem with the electorate rather than the process. A more fundamental issue.
Or it's a problem with the primacy of the donors, which is something that goes back to assumptions and to the party establishment. I recall some top donor being quoted in the WSJ as saying "We're so pleased that McCain is going to be the Republican candidate" in 2008, before more than a few primaries had been held. It had obviously been decided early and without the benefit of voter input.
In this case, I'd say there was a problem with the donor-focused process, which would have gotten us Jeb Bush—he was clearly the anointed candidate before the primaries even started—except that the electorate rebelled and we got Trump instead. And given the choice of Jeb or Trump, I'd say the country needed Trump. Jeb's probably a nicer guy, but we don't (or shouldn't) hire presidents on the basis of who's nicer but who has the qualities the position needs, given our current situation.
Plenty of more scary things to come, don't worry about the small stuff.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's coming from my predictive abilities.
That old saying I used about Hussein Obola "you ain't seen nothing yet". Well people have seen a lot of things for now, so that isn't appropriate.