You didn’t, at all. I just so strongly expect Biden to play by what he probably sees as traditional rules of presidential conduct that he probably will disappointingly decline to hold his predecessor accountable.
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I’m going to have to respectfully disagree on that one. I was and am shocked re: the degree to which he essentially threw up his hands after being stonewalled by Manafort et al. I mean, if he’d laid out in detail the stuff that’s laid out in the Senate report and made the same referrals for criminal prosecution, I think it would have forced the hands of the House a little sooner.
You put your finger on part of what I found so disappointing about Mueller, though. I think there are a hell of a lot of people who view & viewed their duty first and foremost as “it’s not my job to save us from Trump.” I think he’s an extremely conservative person who didn’t want to do anything he considered unseemly, but the sheer volume of misconduct that he left unaddressed surprises me still.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the House & Senate aren’t also guilty of dereliction of duty. I don’t think history will be overly kind to the opposition party that so desperately wanted someone else to do the opposition for them and drop into their lap a neatly tied package.
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Well, that is a concern… although I don’t think he’d risk having to deal with a Dem Congress angry from having to deal with even angrier constituents who expected no pardon.
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I’d actually argue that both Mueller and Comey share the same fatal flaw: their commitment to their duty to uphold the integrity of The System. They believe in this ideal vision of America, and believe in the institutions of the state, and the believe The System will inevitably do what is best, therefore one must never undermine The System. Mueller knew that there was enough of a legal question around indicting a sitting President that he opted to side-step it entirely, out of a sense of duty … and that’s where he failed.
If they were fictional characters, Comey or Mueller might make an interesting protagonist for a Shakespearean tragedy about the downfall of American institutions, where their commitment to the ideal ironically leads to the demise of any scrap of that ideal. In reality: FUCK!
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I don’t think so. I think Mueller was playing it by the book even when the book wasn’t working, just as you suggest. But I think Comey was a preening divo (sic) who just wanted attention. The public dressing down of Hillary Clinton while not pressing charges, the letter to congress on the eve of the election. That’s not a public servant acting within the bounds of the system, that was taking a step outside the system to become the focus of attention.
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Better yet, just answer “person, man, woman, camera, tv.”
(Worked great for his “memory test” anyway.)
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