Pierce: The Republican Party Completely and Utterly Disgraced Itself at Michael Cohen's Hearing

[babylonsister]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a26558985/republicans-michael-cohen-hearing-disgrace-trump/?fbclid=IwAR3lkT38amoI0ZQLLPeLrWahw9ITX1MqMZoh3bqWAUmguqK-qr1EXVLrHUo


The Republican Party Completely and Utterly Disgraced Itself at Michael Cohen's Hearing
The questioning from these products of the conservative bubble world was so bad it made a career hoodlum look good.
By Charles P. Pierce
Feb 27, 2019


WASHINGTON—On July 24, 1974, a congressman named Thomas Railsback leaned into the microphone in front of him on the broad, curving dais of the House Judiciary. Railsback was a Republican from Moline, Illinois. The issue before him that night was whether to vote to send to the full House of Representatives articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, a Republican from California who, at that moment, was the President of the United States. You could see the anguish on Railsback's face the way you can see the current still running in a river that is only thinly iced. "I wish," Railsback said in a ragged voice,"that the president could do something to absolve himself." Then, Tom Railsback, Republican of Illinois, voted "Yea" on all three articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon.

I mention this bit of history only to illustrate how utterly and completely the Republican Party disgraced itself on Wednesday when Michael Cohen, the current president*'s former king fixer, sat before the House Oversight Committee to describe some of the garish and baroque offenses against the law and the republic committed by Donald Trump. There was not a single Railsback to be found. Not one Republican asked a question about the specific offenses that Cohen had illuminated in his opening statement.

Instead, they hammered away at Cohen's own crimes—which, of course, did nothing but remind the folks watching at home on whose behalf Cohen had told so many lies and paid off so many women. They spent great chunks of their time trying to get Cohen to promise he wouldn't sign a book deal after he gets out of the federal sneezer in three years. Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas told Cohen that any subsequent book deal would be "kind of sweet," as though he'd be willing to spend three years in a federal prison if an editor from Random House would be waiting on the day he got out.

snip//

This was a vivid look into the chronic ward of the prion disease that has eaten away the higher functions of American conservatism—and, thus, those of the Republican Party as well—since Ronald Reagan first served up the monkey brains almost 40 years ago. These are the complete creatures of the talk-show culture, the perfect products of two and three generations of gerrymandered in-breeding. These are the monsters from inside The Bubble. You could see this moment coming during the Obama years, in which the country returned the two worst Congresses in American history, full to the gunwales with Bible-banging crazy people. Sooner or later, this was going to be all that was left, and it was going to have to confront a serious crisis with unserious people. That's what Wednesday was about.

As for Cohen, he gave as good as he got, and it was easy to forget for a moment what a bought-and-paid-for hoodlum he'd always been. He did the contrition dance deftly and, by and large, managed to stay cool under Meadows's provocation and Jordan's idiocies. He even did a better job debunking some of the alleged Trump misdeeds—love-children, the mysterious meeting in Prague—than the Republicans on the commitee bothered to do. There was something about him that yearned for the old days when he was sitting around Trump Tower with the boss, paying off porn stars and threatening high-school records offices. It would have been poignant if it wasn't all as sordid as the worst brothel on the Singapore docks.

[smirkymonkey]

1. K&R

[UpInArms]

2. Best 'graph for me

This was a vivid look into the chronic ward of the prion disease that has eaten away the higher functions of American conservatism—and, thus, those of the Republican Party as well—since Ronald Reagan first served up the monkey brains almost 40 years ago. These are the complete creatures of the talk-show culture, the perfect products of two and three generations of gerrymandered in-breeding. These are the monsters from inside The Bubble. You could see this moment coming during the Obama years, in which the country returned the two worst Congresses in American history, full to the gunwales with Bible-banging crazy people. Sooner or later, this was going to be all that was left, and it was going to have to confront a serious crisis with unserious people. That's what Wednesday was about.

[BigmanPigman]

3. They are the dregs of the previous GOP dregs.

[alwaysinasnit]

5. Every time I think that they can't get any lower, I am always surprised. Is there any level

beyond which they can't sink?

[Efilroft Sul]

15. The Marianas Trench is their Everest.

[alwaysinasnit]

17. Good one!

[cstanleytech]

20. Seeing as they have all embraced Putin the answer would be "No".

[alwaysinasnit]

21. So, are there any decent Republicans left? Or have they all gone extinct?

[cstanleytech]

22. There might be a few diehards holding on but the majority are long gone.

[happybird]

6. +1

[ArchTeryx]

12. It's all fun and games...

...until the Monsters from the Id suddenly appear and start trashing the place, isn't it?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Bootlickers and complicit criminals. Not much else in Trump-Republicon Party. . . . nt

[erronis]

7. All getting $s/marching orders from somewhere else - not their constituents.

Much as they blather on about how they were elected to "get to the bottom of Hillary's emails", or "Benghazi", or "Whitewater", or whatever. They don't serve their districts or states. They serve their owners.

[Evolve Dammit]

9. Well said erronis.

[Auggie]

11. +1,000,000

[Blue_Tires]

8. kick

[Uncle Joe]

10. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread babylonsister.

[gilligan]

13. Disgrace

Of the Republican party happened long before this hearing.

[Honeycombe8]

14. He's a really good writer. Charles Pierce of Esquire.

He has a way of bringing home what happened today, and how the Republicans behaved.

[Marcuse]

16. Faustian bargain. Tax cuts and Judges.

[Achilleaze]

18. Indeed. The republicans pissed on themselves today

Which is a nice change of pace, since they are usually pissing on the American people.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

19. One thing to seek truth from Cohen on his crimes and

another to be just down right mean and unhinged spewing with hate. Surely not ALL their base liked that.

[Silver Gaia]

23. There was one, and only one,

Republican who actually asked Cohen a few pertinent questions. That was Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan. TPM talks about that exchange here: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/after-three-hours-one-republican-broke-ranks-asked-cohen-real-question

Amash asked one other question that I thought at the time was ridiculous because it was unanswerable as asked, which was: "What is the truth that you know President Trump fears the most?” Oh good grief. The only person who knows the answer to that is Trump himself. No one can KNOW what anyone else fears (or loves, or hates, or wants). We can only speculate. We can think, believe, feel, etc., but we can't KNOW. To ask a question like that of someone under oath is just ignorant. IMHO.

(ETA: I see this has become a RW talking point today. They are saying that Cohen saying he couldn't answer it showed a lack of credibility because if he *really* knew Trump all that well, he could have answered it. Oh, good grief again! Do they all lack the ability to think critically?)

Anyway, Amash did use his time to do something other than just attack Cohen or be disruptive.