"First Family"

The newest issue of Time magazine has a cover picture of Pete Buttigieg and his husband, headlined as:  "First Family."



After Kamala Harris's razor-sharp and highly acclaimed questioning of William Barr in the Justice Committee hearing, I'm tentatively leaning toward a ticket of Harris and Buttigieg.

It would be a terrific pairing for many reasons, including diversity.  One whose parentage is Eastern Indian and African-American, and one who is a mid-western, white male who is a happily married gay man.   And that gay man was re-elected as mayor of South Bend -- after he came out -- by 80% of the vote in conservative Indiana, where Mike Pence was governor at the time.

Just saying . . .

Ralph

EJ Dionne on how Barr "shamelessly corrupts debate over Mueller report"

[Regret that I could not post earlier during this news-rich week.   Had to have a temporary hospital stay to check a problem that's no longer serious.]

One of my favorite political pundits, E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post pretty much sums up the week with this column:

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". . . .  We now know that the entire debate the country has been having over special counsel Robert Mueller's report was fatally infected by . . . Attorney General William Barr's four-page letter offering his gloss on the findings of the 448-page document. As a dandruff shampoo ad taught us long ago, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

"It's not good enough that a redacted version of the report was eventually made public. For 27 days, the debate over Mueller's findings was twisted by Barr's poisonous distortions that implied a full exoneration of President Trump. Many public statements and much punditry were devoted to insisting that Trump's opponents owed the president an apology, that the Russia matter was never what it was cracked up to be, that the president was free and clear.

"While it would be nice to see an outpouring of public apologies from those who were snookered by Barr, I am not anticipating a run on sackcloth. But it is very heartening -- but also, in light of Barr's subsequent conduct, very disturbing -- to know that one person who was infuriated by what Barr did was Mueller himself.

"As The Washington Post and then The New York Times reported, three days after the attorney general released his propaganda document, Mueller wrote Barr to express his dismay. "The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions," Mueller wrote, adding, "There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation."

"Yes, and confusion was what Barr had in mind. The longer Mueller's findings were misrepresented, the more time Trump had to claim vindication, to denounce the media and -- well, to lie and to disfigure the results of inquiry that were in fact devastating about his conduct. Mueller's office did not take this calmly. It intervened the day after Barr issued his non-summary summary, and again with Mueller's letter.

"Recovering from Barr's original sin is well-nigh impossible. Of course we now know what the report said. Congress can investigate, and the House can even impeach. But the political context for such decisions is irreparably warped. It will take enormous work to overcome that first impression that Barr so deviously created.

And anyone who still hopes that Republicans might have qualms about this massive coverup was not watching Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing where Barr testified. We have a president who was plainly elected with Russian help, and Republican senators want to go after FBI agents whose only transgression was to be worried about the intervention of a hostile power in our politics. They also want to reinvestigate -- Hillary Clinton! Most Republicans have locked away their consciences to appease a mob screaming, "Lock her up!"

". . . . To trust Barr as anything but a specialist in smokescreens is now impossible. . . .

". . . The corruption Trump has fostered now goes to the top of the Justice Department. We have an attorney general who has proudly and shamelessly corrupted our political conversation to protect a president whose survival depends upon burying facts and clouding public understanding."

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I agree with Dionne.   I have also, more dispassionately, been trying to fathom some explanation for why Barr would choose to tarnish his considerable reputation by working for Trump and seeming to be acting as his personal attorney instead of doing the job the Senate confirmed him to:   top lawyer for the American people.

After all, he has worked in the top eschelons of the Justice Department, including a prior stint as Attorney General.

In my next posting, I will consider some possible explanations, even though I do not have any sure knowledge of the puzzling actions of AG Barr.

Ralph

'With booming economy, 2020 won't even be close ' -- Hugh Hewitt in Washington Post

Hugh Hewitt is a conservative pundit who used to be a frequent guest on some of the progressive MSNBC news shows to present a different point of view.  While not agreeing with many of his positions, I found him to be a credible and honest reporter.  He is not an extremist, nor is he a distorter of facts.  That's why I find this article something we should pay attention to -- in addition to the fact that the respected, liberal Washington Post chose to publish it.

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by Hugh Hewitt

Washington Post, April, 27, 2019..

"The 2020 election isn’t going to be close.

"The first-quarter gross domestic product growth rate of 3.2 percent sets up the first reality that will be noted in November 2020 because it telegraphs where the economy will be then: not in recession. Recessions are charted when GDP growth is negative for two consecutive quarters or more. That can and has occurred in sudden fashion . . . .  But the economy over which President Trump is presiding is strong and getting stronger. . . .  A recession before Election Day looks less and less likely by the day.

"Small wonder then that Trump dominates the GOP with an approval rating above 80 percent. His administration’s deregulatory push is accelerating. More and more rule-of-law judges . . . are being confirmed. . .  Readiness levels in the U.S. military have been renewed. Our relationship with our strongest ally, Israel, is at its closest in decades.

"Meanwhile, the Dems are facing a Hobbesian choice of Sens. Bernie Sanders or Kamala D. Harris, or former vice president Joe Biden. Sanders and Harris are too far to the left, Sanders by a lot. Biden is far past his best years. The nice folk lower down are looking for other rewards. The nomination going to someone such as South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg is possible, I suppose, but what happens when the dog chasing the car catches it? What was an entertaining and amusing aside suddenly becomes a commitment and, with that, well, comes a barrage of attacks. Where Trump deflects incoming with ease, the Democrats scatter, some limping away, some blown out of the picture.

"This will come as news to #Resistance liberals, who are certain Trump will lose, because they dislike him so much. They still haven’t figured out that 40 percent of the country love him and at least another 10 percent are very much committed to considering the alternative in comparison to Trump, not reflexively voting against him. That decile is doing very well in this economy. Unemployment remains incredibly low. The markets are soaring. That’s not a given for the fall of 2020, but better to be soaring than falling 18 months out.

"On immigration, border security has always been a legitimate concern (and Immigration and Customs Enforcement a legitimate agency). People don’t talk much about it as they decline to state anything that will earn them the label racist, but the reality of open borders is understood to be an unqualified disaster by most of the country, and most of the country understands the Democrats to be arguing for a de facto open-border system, if not a de jure one.

"The Green New Deal sounds like a bad science-fair project where the smart kids got the colors to combine via an elaborate device and make all the 'lava' flow black down the volcanoes’ sides and the village is destroyed. Medicare-for-all is a Professor Harold Hill production, headed for Iowa as was the Music Man. There’s not a lot of serious thinking or talking among the Ds about the People’s Republic of China and the “nine-dash line” in the South China Sea. . . . 

"Last week’s message from a booming economy should have rocked the Democratic field.  Alas, the party seems collectively intent on poring over the Mueller report yet again in the hope that, somehow, someway, there’s something there. But the probe is over. No collusion. No obstruction. Democrats have to campaign on something else besides a great economy, rising values of savings, low unemployment across every demographic, clarity about allies and enemies abroad, and a rebuilding military. It’s a tough needle to thread, condemning everything about Trump except all that he has accomplished that President Barack Obama couldn’t or wouldn’t. Not just tough — it’s practically impossible."

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I hope that Hugh is wrong.   But I know he's right about at least some of what he says.  Remember, it was a Democratic political operative -- James Carville, Bill Clinton's campaign manager -- who coined the political dictum:   "It's the economy, stupid."

We should be worried enough to run a smart primary and choose wisely -- and then really unite behind the nominee.

We cannot survive five and a half more years of a Trump administration.   Even if our economy is good (and we can argue about whom it is good for) -- there is no doubt that Trump is not good for our democracy.

Ralph