Sunday, May 30, 2021

Subpoenas Should Start With McCONnell

When it comes to describing what we saw on the floor of the Senate this week, I literally don't know where to begin.

It's tempting to say at the beginning.  And, ordinarily, I might do that.  But I'm going to start at the end, because, in some ways, that's the aspect of this legislative tragedy that's the most revealing.

I am, of course, talking about the effort by congressional Democrats to create a bipartisan committee, with members from both houses of Congress, to investigate the January 6 assault on the Capitol and make recommendations based on their findings.  The template for this effort was a similar commission created in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.  The creation of that commission was relatively uncontroversial, as the public response to that horror was somewhat more unified than the response to the Capitol attack.

What a sad, sick difference nearly two decades make.

This time, the bill died by way of a filibuster, the first successful one during Joe Biden's presidency.  And not even everyone showed up to vote.

I am willing to give Patty Murray, a Democrat, and Pat Toomey, a Republican, both of whom would have voted for the commission, a mulligan if they (as both of them said they did) had family issues to address.  I have no idea what to give Kristen Synema, nominally a Democrat but otherwise whatever else she wants to be; even if she helps Democrats keep control of the Senate, it's still hard to care when it comes to her.

But I think no mercy should be shown to the eight Republicans who couldn't be bothered to show up.  Who showed the lack of courage behind their lack of conviction by using the Memorial Day weekend as an excuse to avoid doing the job the taxpayers are paying them to do.  Who showed complete contempt for the Capitol Police and others who put themselves completely on the line to save their worthless skins.

Let's put this another way.

They ran away from doing what the country wanted them to do, and what their Trump-addled voters don't want them to do, in a desperate attempt to hang onto the power they don't want to use.  And, while this dance goes on, the nation slowly rots.

Now let's work backwards from this shameful outcome.

This is what happens when the moral and intellectual level of Republicans in Congress sinks to the point that they care only about keeping the jobs they no longer want to do.

This is what happens when they are willing to surrender their responsibilities to everyone except themselves, and the person running interference to ensure that they keep the jobs they no longer want to do.  They betray their obligations to the people, and even perhaps to their own personal safety and the safety of their staffs and Capitol visitors, to do that person "a personal favor."

They're not so keen on doing favors for the people who put their safety, and even their lives, on the line to protect their increasingly worthless existence.  The proposed commission would have ensured that we knew who organized the attack, how badly our security was compromised, and what steps we need to take in order to ensure that it doesn't take place again.  We will probably still be able to learn what we need to learn about all of those issues, as the Democrats in Congress and perhaps the Biden Administation as well will undoubtedly conduct their own separate investigations.

But we could have, and should have, done this as a united nation, with a united front.  And we won't.  Which certainly explains why the Capitol Police officers feel that the Republicans regard them with contempt.

I almost think that they may be guilty of giving the Republicans too much credit.  I think that the Republicans aren't thinking about the Capitol Police at all.  They are only thinking about themselves.  They are, in fact, acting like people with something to hide.  And, perhaps they are.  Which only makes the need for a full investigation of the January 6 attack all the more urgent.

Because there's a very good chance that at least some of the perpetrators are still in the Capitol.  That many of them, in fact, have been there all along.  And that, as some have suggested, what happened on January 6 was basically a dress rehearsal.  Something that could be instigated and then, over time, normalized through an increasingly complicit media.  Something that could be a "dry run" for a much larger, much more effective attack at a point when our government might even be more vulnerable, and an attack on it much more successful.

When a political leader asks that a crime against an instituation for which he bears official, indeed constitutional responsibility, not be investigated, and does so because he's requesting a "personal favor," it begs the question of how much that leader knows.  It screams, in fact, the possibility that he knows who he's protecting, and why.

And I'm not just talking about Donald Trump.  Yes, Mitch McCONnell is protecting him, but not because he wants to do so.  Even he has openly condemned Trump for his transparently obvious role in the attack.  But, that being the case, why would he regard squelching an above-board, even-handed, full investigation of the attack as a personal favor?

It begs that old, Watergate-era question immortalized by the late, great Republican Senator Howard Baker:  what does he know, and when did he know it?

I don't for a minute believe that McCONnell's posture on a bipartisan investigation of the attack is all about protecting Trump, given that he's already effectively hung Trump out to dry.  It's been obvious from the very beginning that the thugs who assaulted our national legislature knew what they were doing.  They knew where to enter the building, and where to go once they got inside.  They succeeding in effectively holding members of Congress and their staff hostage in their offices.  They made off with sensitive data vital to protecting and advancing the interests of our nation.

There are very few accidents in life.  January 6 wasn't one of them.

What do you know, Mitch?  When did you know it?

Regardless of who investigates January 6, their first subpoena should go to you.

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