The Democrats, and their allies in the mainstream media, were breathless. After many failures, they finally had the smoking gun; the evidence that would finally take down Donald Trump's presidency. Where the Russian collusion allegations and claims of racism had not succeeded, this controversy would do the trick.
Ironic, isn't it, that this big "gotcha" moment is backfiring, and instead may shoot down the candidate in the best position to defeat Trump next year?
The big event, of course, is the laughable "whistleblower" affair regarding Trump's conversation with a foreign leader, now identified as the president of Ukraine, that was such a hot topic last week.
This is the point where certain government employees need to be reminded, once again, that just because they disagree with their organization's policies or procedures, or the officials in charge, they don't get the privilege of sabotaging things from within. Even if you except true whistleblowers from this, this event still doesn't qualify. Nothing that's been reported about Trump's conversation with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky even rises to illegality. This episode might someday be "Exhibit A" when it comes time to repeal civil service protections for government workers.
Now, it's been learned that the so-called whistleblower didn't even have firsthand knowledge of the information contained in the phone call. "Heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who heard it from another you'd been messing around." Isn't there a song that says that?
The real scandal here isn't Trump's interaction with Ukraine leaders, but with what happened when Joe Biden was vice president and interacted with them.
A little research will turn up details of the involvement of Biden's son, Hunter, with the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings. Now, a tape has emerged of Biden bragging at a 2018 Council on Foreign Relations panel discussion about how he threatened to withhold United States loan guarantees unless the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating his son's activities was fired. "Well son of a b---h, he got fired," Biden proclaims in the video.
Funny how that works, isn't it? Biden, who obviously doesn't know when to shut up, admits in a public event with the cameras rolling that he leveraged American finances -- and with the blessing of President Obama, he also said -- to achieve a result that most likely benefitted his notoriously wayward son. Yet Trump is the one who needs to be investigated, impeached, and hung by his neck until dead from the top of the Washington Monument because a likely member of the Deep State who's opposed to Trump's policies heard something that had been passed through several channels and decided to play hero?
Does anyone remember the old childhood playground game where a bunch of people would sit in a circle, one person would whisper something into the ear of the person next to them, that person would repeat what they heard -- or thought they heard -- to their neighbor, and so on until they got back around to the originator? Most times, what came back to the first person was nothing at all close to what they first said. There's a reason that hearsay isn't admissible in legal cases.
Things have a way of working out, though. This controversy may end up taking out Biden, not Trump, and help ensure the incumbent's re-election next year.
Biden, along with Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" (or "Lieawatha," take your pick) Warren, are the three front-runners for the Democrats' nomination. Democrats may not want to admit it, but for all his faults, Biden represents their best chance for defeating Trump. America is not ready to embrace the radical economic policies that Sanders and the "Pretendian" support. And none of the other candidates have much to recommend them. Casting Couch Kamala, Mayor Pete, Beto? They aren't serious candidates. They aren't really much removed from nuts like Yang or the woman who was talking about spirits and crystals.
It's not really odd that while Democrats may be calling for Trump's impeachment over this matter, they're strangely silent on investigating Biden's role in what started it, or even in calling for him to drop out of the race.
The mainstream media, as should have been expected, continues to focus on Trump instead of Biden in this matter. And hard-left outlets like Vox, The Intercept, Media Matters, and of course MSNBC continue to insist there's no "there" there with Biden but Trump needs to be tarred and feathered.
As with all these laughable scandals before it, this one will blow over. The real Russian collusion was the fake Steele dossier that formed the basis of the entire investigation. Some questionable Ukrainian documents of questionable authenticity formed the basis of much of the complaint against Paul Manafort (that fact hasn't gotten much play in the media, surprise surprise.) And now, anyone with any intellectual honesty can see that this current matter is much more of a threat to Biden's continued viability as a candidate than it is to Trump's conduct while in office.
And if the Democrats pursue impeachment, that almost guarantees Trump's re-election. Impeachment is a political process, not a legal one, and even if the House impeaches him, there's no way the Senate will convict him and remove him from office. It didn't work when Bill Clinton was impeached when the Republicans held both houses of Congress, despite undisputable evidence of the charges against him. It generated sympathy for Clinton and the Democrats.
So, when the taint from this, combined with all his other gaffes, chases Biden from the race, and the Democrats nominate an unelectable candidate to face Trump next year, Trump's opponents can blame themselves for what happened. The rest of us will thank them, but not before enjoying a hearty laugh at their expense.
