Kudos to the National Review, which I generally do not like, for publishing Mona Charon’s column, “Shades of Presidential Scandals Past”, which tosses more than a few solid punches at the “Move along, folks, move along, nothing to see here, move along” approach being fostered and foisted by most of her compadres at NR regarding jive talkin’ bad boy Billy Barr, attorney general, head shyster, and ass coverer in chief for Cap’n Two Scoops.
Most NR talking heads have treated Barr’s defense of Trump as sans flaw, instead of pointing out that it isn’t the attorney general’s job to be the president’s personal attorney, even though Trump (and his defenders) clearly think it is, but not Mona. Unsurprisingly, she warms up with the standard conservative anti-Trump line of “if it was wrong for Clinton to lie why isn’t it wrong for Trump to do the same” line, but she soon cranks up the volume, treating oily, fraudulent Barr’s oily, fraudulent defense of Trump not with skepticism but rarther the scorn it so richly deserves:
Not only do Republicans utterly reverse themselves about the importance of truth telling, they also lean in. William Barr told the world that the president “fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation.” This is laughable. Yes, he turned over some documents and permitted aides to be interviewed, but he fired the director of the FBI and told Russian visitors that this relieved great “pressure due to the Russia thing.” He ordered Robert Mueller to be fired for risible “conflicts” (such as asking for his old FBI job back, which was itself a lie). He lied about the meeting in Trump Tower, tasked Corey Lewandowski with ordering Attorney General Jeff Sessions to unrecuse himself, and instructed the special counsel to limit his inquires only to future election interference. He asked his White House counsel to lie about whether he had ordered Mueller fired. He claimed he could not recall events 30 times in response to written questions. He repeatedly refused requests to sit for an in-person interview, and dangled pardons to those facing criminal trials to discourage cooperation with law enforcement. “Stay strong,” our don-in-chief told his felonious former lawyer — “hang in there.” And throughout it all, he kept up a steady campaign of delegitimization of the Mueller inquiry as a “witch hunt” and a “hoax.”
Thanks, Mona. You impress.
