Well, they are. In their latest anti-presidential penile tirade, titled “Trump’s Outrageous Pressure Campaign against Bill Barr”, the overwrought eyeshade folk at NR were driven to the last refuge of “conservatives”, to wit, “the truth”, when Trump tweeted that Hillary Clinton’s criticism of him during the 2016 campaign amounted to a “treasonous plot”. Well, the lick-spittles at NR can, well, lick a lot of spittle, but this particular foam-flecked (or, rather, drenched) outburst pushed them past even their generous appetites:
Trump’s wayward invocation of treason brings the problem into sharp relief. Besides being unhinged political rhetoric, as a legal matter — which is what [Attorney General William] Barr has to consider — it is sheer nonsense. The presidency is not the nation. A president is a public servant, and a presidential candidate a mere public figure; neither of them is the United States, on whom war must be waged to trigger treason. Under federal law, treason’s close cousin sedition, also touted by Trump supporters as a potential charge, similarly requires proof of conspiracy to use force against the nation and its government.
Most of the rest of the piece consists very largely of gratuitous suck-up to AG Billy—not surprisingly, since, these days, gratuitous suck-up is what the National Review does best—since the attorney general, though happy to free the guilty at Trump’s command, seems a bit chary of convicting the innocent, at least when the charge is treason—especially (I hope) when “treason” is defined as “getting more votes than Donald Trump”.
Afterwords
Ronald Reagan, after a particularly testy run-in with House Speaker Tip O’Neill over budgetary matters, told O’Neill “I can crap a pineapple but I can’t crap a cactus”. I guess we should be thankful that Billy’s rectum, like Ronnie’s, has its limits.
