The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Somebody Give Breathless Conor Friedersdorf’s Breathlessness A Breath

Posted on | April 13, 2019 | Comments Off on Somebody Give Breathless Conor Friedersdorf’s Breathlessness A Breath

by Smitty

It’s an easy play if a deadline looms in the age of Trump, I suppose: get all literal about some Eminence Orange utterance. Trump’s non-command of the Progressive Era definition of stateman–buries your liberty in legislation, but uses mellifluous tones while doing so–makes targeting him trivial.
Which brings us to young Conor of the singular ‘n’, as Dan Riehl is fond of noting. He doesn’t seem to have aged much since my last encounter with his work, having just graced us with this: A President Falsely Charging ‘Treason’ Is What the Founders Feared.
It seems there was a tweet:


Poor wee Conor seems to think that the choice of adjective, “TREASONOUS”, which would, per Friedersdorf’s subtitle (and I guess this may be the editor’s contribution) “violate his oath of office.”
Breathless Conor breathlessly intones:

Trump is guilty of levying a false accusation of unsurpassed gravity and additionally guilty of violating his oath to protect and defend Article III, which defines treason as “only” those offenses.

Now, I can agree with Conor. Were the universe to blow it mightily and leave me in charge, I would not personally trot out the “T” word unless I was going to drop a subpiano^W subpizz^W–one of those legal documents on the person in question. It’s like threatening divorce or something. You just don’t even bring it up unless it’s going down.
However, Trump isn’t actually threatening anyone here, is he? He’s characterizing the behavior of the entire party. I’m relatively confident that at least half of the Democrat Party hasn’t actually done anything treasonous yet. But give them time.
Conor wanders further through Trumpisms.

The Framers were guarding against the possibility that Americans would one day elect a man so morally weak and corrupt that he would falsely accuse political enemies of treason

Truly a “blind [guide], which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.”
Conor, Obama’s Administration (allegedly) subverted the intelligence apparatus and spied on American citizens! Trump is arguably the most vetted public figure in American history. Why don’t you extract your head from its sunless location and consider precisely the behavior the Founders WERE concerned about! Do you grasp that, if Her Majesty had prevailed in 2016, the stunts applied to Trump’s campaign would be used a little more, and a little more. . .
We have actual problems in this country, young man. Trump’s choice of adjectives ain’t a fart in a thunderstorm.

Category: Donald Trump

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