Charge of the Right Brigade

When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered. Honour the charge they made!

My principle is never to attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

As previously noted (See The Articles of Impeachment, Article II), this impeachment thing began with the colossal stupidity of the president in allowing the Whistleblower Memo of July 25 be handed to Congress, as required by law, a violation of the White House policy of stonewalling: Zero cooperation with a proceeding he called tantamount to treason.

Whatever the Constitution said, POTUS called the House inquiry a scam, a witch hunt, a scandal, a star chamber, being conducted by “scum,” as he referred to the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Shifty Schiff, all triggered by the famous phone call.

That was the so-called “perfect” phone call demanding the president of the Ukraine dig up dirt on his corrupt potential opponent in the 2020 election, or else he wouldn’t get his anti-tank weapons Congress had appropriated. “No quid pro quo,” he trumpeted proudly.

Not known as a Latin scholar, the president probably didn’t know what that meant. To others it sound like a shakedown, with all the class of a Jersey mobster reminding the owner of a mom-and-pop bodega in Bayonne that if an “insurance premium” remained over- due consequences might occur.

The power of stupidity as a political motivator was demonstrated by the 24 members of the Trump Loyalist wing of the Republican House— aka The Lite Brigade, intellectually speaking —who charged into the normally hushed secure rooms of the House Intelligence Committee where impeachment investigators were conducting private interviews, wildly brandishing cellphones (normally verboten), chanting “Let Us In…Let Us In.”

How stupid could these two- dozen members of Team Trump be? Had they no respect for their forefathers who in these very hallowed rooms conducted the famous closed door hearings by the United States House Select Committee into Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack on Benghazi, better known in history by the immortal word: Benghazi Benghazi, Benghazi.

For more than two years (September 11, 2014 to December 12, 2016) the nation was enthralled by the closed-door attempt to nail Crooked Hillary. Actually, it was the last of six investigations pursued behind closed doors by Republican- controlled House committees (Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Oversight and Government). Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi was the outstanding achievement of that Republican Congress without an indictment of the Secretary of State for whatever. .

To be fair, Team Trump must have been under the influence of Trump the Stupid. From his foxhole in the Oval Office, the Dumbo-chief had been firing off Twitters, whining about how his party was not coming to his defense. Nobody was standing up for him against these traitors who were following the Constitution behind closed doors.

All 24 of the chargers are now in line for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by the POTUS, to be given to any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to American life through work in national security, world peace, cultural, or other significant public or private endeavors.

My nominee for the bauble would be Rep. Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican who said, “This is a Soviet- Style process. It should not be allowed in the United States of America. Every member of Congress ought to allow in that room. The press ought to be allowed in that room.” *

One can’t help wondering how the dissidents sitting in the Gulag might be cheering Rep. Scalise’s support of Soviet-style democracy.

Adding insult to injury, the Light Brigade chargers ordered pizza for all into the hearing room during the protest. What an unintentional slap in the face to their beleaguered intellectual leader? Had they not noticed presidential cuisine preferences with cabinet conference table lunches littered by McDonald hamburger wrappers?

Those also serve who eat pizza while the nation marches backward into the future in this age of Dumbocracy.

NEXT: Artificial Stupidity or A.S.

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Marvin Kitman,
Oct. 27, 2019
 

* Approximately 25% of House Republicans are currently members of the three panels conducting the Impeachment Inquiry