The juxtaposition is so stark, it borders on the surreal.
It’s the President of the United States fulfilling one campaign promise after another, alongside a Congress so consumed with his removal that they have forgotten why they were elected in the first place.
Add to that the omnipotent media, an enthusiastic part of the Resistance, working overtime to unseat a duly elected president.
It is said that if the Left did not have double standards, they would have no standards at all. The televised Senate impeachment trial emphasizes that.
The long-sought impeachment of President Donald Trump was brought about by an anonymous source — a “whistleblower” whose allegations, if not his identity, surfaced suddenly one day on the world’s stage.
Let’s be clear. The world has not met him. He reportedly blew himself into Adam Schiff’s inner sanctum, and with his help and the help of his staff, prepared to bring this president down once and for all. The word “coup” comes to mind.
This person is critical. The question of bias is critical. The logistics of the allegation and the path it took are critical. The president deserves to know the identity of the individual who took steps to unseat him.
One thing is certain. As a very public whistleblower in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton 22 years ago, I can state unequivocally that this yet-to-be-identified, anonymous person bears no resemblance to a bona fide whistleblower. Identifying him as such does great damage to the much deserved credibility of actual whistleblowers. He deserves disdain, not accolades, for his inauthenticity.
Whistleblowers have a few things in common, none of which apply to this guy. Whistleblowers have first-hand, unique knowledge, and information about something s egregious that they are compelled to act.
Most whistleblowers stand alone. It is a very lonely place to be. The element of choice no longer exists. In making this difficult decision, they lay it all on the line. For all practical purposes, life as they know it, personally and professionally, ceases to exist.
The higher the profile, the more public the attacks. It is a high price for doing the right thing, and it is a lifetime price. Despite all this, most true whistleblowers would do it all over again. It is black and white. There are no shades of gray.
Compare and contrast that with the anonymous, protected person who brought about this impeachment. Who is he? Where is he? Who knows? Unlike actual whistleblowers, he is fully protected, shielded from public scrutiny, shrouded in cotton bunting and escorted through what for all others was a very painful and public process.
Keep in mind, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court rejected a question on the Senate floor that would have mentioned this individual’s name. How is that possible?
I was not protected. I was not shielded. I was eviscerated. Not only by President Clinton and his wife, but also by the mainstream media. A concerted effort began to decimate my credibility. The effort gave birth to what we now call fake news. That led to the Senate’s acquittal of President William Jefferson Clinton, by changing the subject. The abuse of power, the perjury, the subordination of perjury, the malfeasance of President Bill Clinton simply disappeared. It swiftly became a mere matter of a distasteful “affair”, something between a man and a woman, and ultimately not impeachable.
In other words, the lies won. Fake news changed history. We are facing it again.
In the impeachment of President Trump, the “whistleblower” lit the dynamite, ran for cover, hid in the arms of Adam Schiff, and behind closed doors probably fancies himself a patriot.
The same characters involved with this “whistleblower” surfaced once again, this time in the predictable John Bolton debacle. It’s a recognizable cast. Each can be counted on to play their respective parts.
Here we have the New York Times. Again. The chief recipient of leaks, as far back as in the early days of the administration, when departing FBI director James Comey leaked to the Times to spur the appointment of a Special Counsel.
Then we have Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, whose twin, incredibly, also works at the White House in the National Security Council. He reportedly oversees the office that reviewed the Bolton manuscript for clearance.
Which then, predictably and in a timely manner, was leaked to none other than the New York Times.
When Bolton was tapped as National Security Advisor, my State Department buddies with personal experience with Bolton over the years were, to a person, stunned. To put it mildly. They described the diminutive Bolton as Napoleonic with a firm belief in his own omnipotence. They predicted he would never allow the president to override his decisions, believing always that he is the smartest person in any room.
Each on that day predicted his swift termination and his all but certain outrage and vindictive reaction.
When Bolton left, he wrote a book. The pen, after all, is mightier than the sword. You might recall, if you recall anything about me from the Clinton scandal, that “it was all about a book.” I was portrayed as a greedy, avarice-driven busybody whose only agenda was self-enrichment through a book.
That there was no book got lost in the sauce.
But, for the record, you bet I had planned to write a book. I believed at the time that it was the best — and in fact only — way to disseminate the sheer malfeasance of the Clinton presidency, to expose both Bill and Hillary Clinton as the criminals I knew them to be.
Ultimately I found I would be heard by the Office of the Independent Counsel, thus making the subject of a book moot. But the manufactured stigma lingered. There is simply no unringing the bell.
But please note. Have you heard any of those allegations leveled at John Bolton? No chastisement over his “book deal” and no attacks on his integrity. I have not heard claims that he was driven by greed. In fact, there has been no predictable reporting on his “advance” and what he stands to earn, at all. In fact, we heard nothing.
His magnum opus appears to have been designed for vengeance, planned to come out mere months before a presidential election. The media made sure it never surfaced prematurely, and until last week’s leak to the New York Times, there had been no mention of his book publicly.
And then, the sinking ship that was the promised impeachment was in dire need of rescue. The Times was tapped once again to carry the ball over the finish line.
Because the volatile John Bolton had joined the Resistance. He would have the last word against a president who had the temerity to fire the smartest man in the room.
But through it all, we saw a split screen.
We saw President Trump alongside Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu presenting an historic peace proposal. And on the other side, the split screen showcased the latest in a long series of resistance tactics designed to remove him from office — this time in the Senate of the United States, with all the gravitas that implies.
The same held true with the announcement of the USMCA, an enormously significant trade agreement that stands to boost our economy for decades to come. Held for just about a year in the House, Speaker Pelosi trotted it out at the 11th hour in an attempt to defuse dissatisfaction with the House’s glaring unproductivity.
Nevertheless, the USMCA received relatively short shrift in the news, as have so many of the President’s accomplishments over the past three years. The mainstream media agenda has focused almost exclusively on whatever scandal the left is presenting on any particular day. The juxtaposition is dizzying,
And there is no end in sight.
Reflect on how we got here. There were the remarkable and unprecedented FISA abuses which in turn, allowed the blatantly illegal surveillance of those affiliated with a presidential candidate of an opposing party. Notably absent were any kind of defensive briefings.
Then we had the unending Mueller investigation, based on what we now know to have been lies propagated by members of Obama’s Intelligence Community with the help of none other than Jim Comey. His best buddy, in turn, was none other than Bob Mueller. His investigation, stacked with Clinton donors and armed with a political agenda, left the world anxiously awaiting proof that President Trump was, as promised, an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. This ominous pronouncement colored the airwaves for months and months on end.
And not only in our country. I spend a good amount of time in Europe. Their opinions are informed almost exclusively through the airwaves of CNN. Need I say more?
The long awaited results were clear, if ghastly for the Left. Because the fruit of their labor was an oversized goose egg. After 40 million dollars in taxpayer funds, there was simply no there there. It became even more clear with Mueller’s sad congressional testimony.
Sandwiched between it all was the Kavanaugh circus. Again, the world watched as President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court was brutally savaged by outlandish allegations by an ever-changing cast of questionable characters during his confirmation hearings — all due to irrational hatred of the president who nominated him.
And now, courtesy of this well-oiled resistance machine, we find ourselves at the sorry end of the impeachment.
Life provides precious few guarantees. But one is certain: When the Senate acquits President Trump — and it will — Impeachment 2.0 will commence. There will be no end.
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