Political Toxicity Beyond Fever Pitch

Last Thursday was a shitty day in our nation's history.  Former FBI Director James Comey was called to Capitol Hill to testify under oath, and neither Democrats nor Republicans could stop themselves from being partisan.  I listened to the beginning of the hearing streaming from Reuters on my computer at work, with one ear bud in.  I shut it off after a while and left to meet a friend for lunch.  We talked about a lot of things, but one of the things I told him I would be doing when I got back to work was checking the headlines on the various news sites and comparing them to each other.  The same testimony would certainly yield very different, very partisan headlines.  I was right.  Fox News was focused most on the inappropriate things former Attorney General Loretta Lynch said, while CNN and MSNBC were focused on the inappropriate things President Donald Trump said and discussing how it was probably obstruction of justice.  The conservative news organizations talked about how great it was that Trump was right about not being personally under investigation for collusion with Russia, killing the Left's narrative.  The liberal news organizations talked about how great it was that Comey said he was afraid Trump would lie and that he took Trump's statement about hoping Comey could let Flynn go as a directive that went unheeded.  Reuters was somewhere in the middle.  That's been a decent homepage for the last several months.

President Trump went on to say more dumb things after the hearing, calling out the credibility of Comey's under-oath testimony.  Predictably, the Left pivoted from the narrative of Trump lying about Comey having told him three times that he wasn't personally under investigation (CNN even made a rare retraction of a fake news story when Comey confirmed Trump's account there), and to the narrative of Trump obstructing justice by saying he hopes that Comey could let Flynn go.  Trump's son made a good point about that statement though, that most people who know anything about Trump would probably believe to be accurate, in that when his father tells someone to do something, there is no question that he is telling them to do something.  There is no, "I hope you can do this..."  Even Comey had to admit that he couldn't think of a time when someone was prosecuted for a comment of that nature.  Of course, he didn't go quite as far as he did with the Hillary Clinton investigation, where he inappropriately suggested that no reasonable person would try to prosecute her.  The way in which he "learns from his mistakes" seems rather partisan.  That was the reason cited for him refusing to say publicly that Trump wasn't under investigation anyway.

Whether or not a reasonable person would ever try to prosecute Trump for his statement to Comey about his hopes for Michael Flynn, Trump's statement was highly inappropriate and worrisome.  Comey was certainly right about that.  That is not how a President should act.  Though not criminal and not solid ground for impeachment, it's concerning and problematic that he said that.  And if I can admit that, the Left should be able to admit that Loretta Lynch's statement telling Comey to call the investigation into Hillary Clinton a "matter" rather than an investigation during the election cycle was highly inappropriate.  And don't even get me started on Eric Holder, Barack Obama, and Fast and Furious...  But the difference between Lynch's comment to Comey and Trump's statement to Comey was that Comey appeared to obey Lynch's suggestion and ignore Trump's suggestion.  He should have ignored both.

Ever since Comey was fired, I've said that he's going to get a multi-million dollar book deal, and that appears to be happening.  He's an intriguing and tragic character who I believe has inadvertently contributed to the deep political division of our country.  I think he started out with good intentions and ended up in some impossible no-win situations, with several unfortunate election-cycle announcements that likely impacted voters.  In my opinion, he's near the center politically, and he tried to stay out of politics, though he probably preferred Clinton to Trump.  When Trump got elected, he felt responsible and developed an extreme distrust of Trump, and the media helped fuel the fire, so he felt the duty to take detailed notes on all of his meetings with Trump and ultimately testify before Congress, having construed Trump's worrisome behaviors in the worst ways possible.

In the long run, Comey's testimony won't impact very much, though it's at least understandable why he testified before Congress.  Having Sessions testify was a waste of time.  Foghorn Leghorn isn't in cahoots with the Russians either.  But here we are in mid-June, with the NBA and NHL champions crowned, the dog days of summer just around the corner, and America's pastime, baseball, in full swing.  There's nothing like baseball to bring people together.  The Republican congressmen and Democratic congressmen were practicing for their ballgame against each other this morning, and a gunman opened fire on the players on the Republican diamond.

The gunman was a Leftist who volunteered for the Bernie Sanders campaign.  He was frustrated with "the one percent."  He disliked Trump, he disliked Republicans, and he was a complete lunatic.  If not for the policemen with guns on scene, there would have been many more deaths than just his.  As of now, there are some severe injuries, but thankfully no deaths.  The Democratic Congressional team got together and prayed for those who were hurt, a classy move.  And apart from a few crazy far Leftist reactions, the act was universally condemned by Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independents.  For those few who suggested that it was a good thing, or normalized violence by saying it was self-defense for Republicans trying to repeal Obamacare, while being upset with people who normalize or even humanize Trump (a human being who is President of the United States whether you like it or not), you're even worse than the crazy people on the right you hate so much for being alright with the killing of abortion doctors or bombing of abortion clinics, although I can't even remember the last time that actually happened.

But the only person to blame for what happened this morning is the gunman.  The media was all about blaming the far right when a Democratic Congresswoman was shot, as well as in pretty much every crime that was even possibly politically-motivated where they could spin it in a way to blame Rush Limbaugh or Donald Trump or whoever else.  Was Keith Olbermann the most recent pundit to play that card?  I don't remember, because it's happened so often.  But I don't blame him, or Bernie Sanders, or the actors in the plays portraying Trump being murdered, or even Kathy Griffin.  They have the right to say and do what they want under the First Amendment, short of actually calling for and inciting violence, shootings, and murders.  The blame rests squarely on the psychopath gunman, but the increasingly divisive political climate in our country certainly doesn't help.

And for fuck's sake, can we stop with the narrative that we need more gun control every time some psychopath goes on a rampage?  The idiot Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, said that it wasn't the time for that, but in the same breath called for more gun control and cried about the "93 million" people killed by guns in America every day.  That would leave us with a population of zero in four days, or roughly how many people would be left it all of the bad guys had guns and none of the good guys did.

Maybe we can start to bring this country back together.  Maybe all the cable news networks can air a live baseball game between Red and Blue members of Congress.  We can raise money for charities that both sides agree on as worthy, we can enjoy watching Rand Paul slide Brillo pad first into second base, and we can all just drink a beer and watch a ballgame together as Americans.  At least until Bernie Sanders complains that, "Eight Republicans came to bat in the same inning where only four Democrats came to bat.  It's an injustice!  Shouldn't both teams be allowed to send six men to bat?"
"Bernie, that's not how baseball works," Ted Cruz will say.  "Both teams are allowed three outs."
"Baseball is unfair!"