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Home » Cassidy Hutchinson plays a game of telephone

Cassidy Hutchinson plays a game of telephone

The New Neo Posted on by

The big news of the last two days is Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the January 6th committee on all the awful things Trump did, or what others said he did, or what she says others said he did.

Andrew C. McCarthy wrote this piece in which he credited Hutchinson’s testimony with being devastating to Trump, and yet he nevertheless wrote this curious passage:

The day’s lone witness [Hutchinson] pulled back the curtain that countless advisers and aides kept around the mercurial Trump for four years. There are significant questions about aspects of her account, particularly where it involved hearsay — things she had been told about the president’s actions, as opposed to the things she herself witnessed. We also have to reserve judgment, even allowing that she seems impressive, because the highly partisan, unapologetically anti-Trump committee merely presents its side of the story, and has gone to unseemly lengths to exclude cross-examination and alternative perspectives.

So why on earth should we credit anything she says? McCarthy’s reasoning seems to be because it’s so devastating to the man so many love to hate (including McCarthy, who has been quite intense on the subject, particularly since January 6). So McCarthy follows that seeming disclaimer up with this:

All in all, though, Hutchinson showed the nation, moment by moment, what he was like on a day when, undeniably, Trump was at his worst.

It was worse than America thought. Even Americans with extraordinarily low expectations about the former president’s previously undisclosed, behind-the-scenes behavior during the hours when the riot unfolded.

Skillfully led through a prosecutor-style direct examination by committee chairwoman Liz Cheney, Hutchinson explained that Trump was like a wild beast at the Ellipse shortly before his gasoline-on-the-fire speech…

And then he goes on to describe her testimony – whose veracity he’s already cast doubt on – in great detail, as though it’s the truth. Why? It’s the truth because it fits McCarthy’s preconceived notions, I guess. He also tries to invalidate the objections of those who deny they said what she said they said.

The most recent comment I saw to that article when I looked at it yesterday was: “I don’t think her testimony or this piece will age well.” The comments there careened between loving McCarthy’s piece and finding it awful. There’s one there by someone with the moniker “Tom Jones” who states very well how bias confirmation works, although he doesn’t seem to realize that’s what he’s doing:

If someone tells me the sun rose in the east this morning, I don’t need cross examination to believe it. Trump’s reported behavior is 100% exactly, precisely the way he would be expected to behave. It takes a willing suspension of disbelief to delude oneself that he wouldn’t behave this way.

So it fits a preconceived notion held by Trump-haters, ergo it is true. I think that dynamic is operative in so many of these rumors about Trump.

Here’s an article that appeared in The Federalist:

Moments after the Hutchinson’s testimony, NBC’s Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander reported “a source close to the Secret Service tells me both Bobby Engel, the lead agent, and the presidential limousine/SUV driver are prepared to testify under oath that neither man was assaulted and that Mr. Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.”…

CBS News followed up with “confirmation” of the agency’s categorical denial, likely from the same sources.

Hours later, another pillar of Hutchinson’s testimony fell apart when a spokesman for Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann told ABC News a handwritten note for which Hutchinson claimed authorship was actually written by Herschmann.

The note, displayed by Cheney as an exhibit, included a statement for the president to read as the riot unfolded on Capitol Hill.

“The handwritten note that Cassidy Hutchinson testified was written by her was in fact written by Eric Herschmann on January 6, 2021,” a spokesperson for Herschmann told ABC News Tuesday night. “All sources with direct knowledge and law enforcement have and will confirm that it was written by Mr. Herschmann.”…

Here’s a later piece by McCarthy in which he tries to salvage some of what he said in his first piece on Hutchinson and Trump. This second one is pretty weak, and rests on a lengthy discussion of hearsay and why her testimony might not have been hearsay and why that doesn’t matter in the legal sense. I know something about the complex rules of hearsay, having learned them a long time ago (please don’t give me a pop quiz!), but that’s not the issue here. When most people criticize something as “hearsay” and they’re not in a court of law, they’re not using the legal definition and they’re not often even aware of what the word actually means in the technical legal sense. They’re using it in the vernacular sense to mean something like: “it’s a game of telephone, and we can’t credit it when someone says I heard so and so say to so and so,” and the comments overheard are offered for their truth. Of course – as McCarthy points out – Hutchinson may actually have overheard such a thing, or thought that she overheard it. But it doesn’t matter, because the only reason her statement on this was put out to the public by this committee was that we are supposed to think it is the truth about Trump and about what happened on Jan 6.

What’s more, it was offered knowing it was very poorly sourced, and without any opportunity for the opposition to cross-examine Hutchinson (as McCarthy has also pointed out), which is the hallmark modus operandi of this show-trial committee. And even further, it was done without bringing the people Hutchinson describes as having said it to testify on the matter, even though they appear ready and willing to do so in order to discredit her.

All of this is done this way to get the lie out there, because the members of the committee are well aware, and are very practiced in, the principle of a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its boots on. They’re in the business of speedy lie dissemination, and it’s often worked quite nicely for them so far.

Comments

Cassidy Hutchinson plays a game of telephone — 66 Comments

  1. “Impressive”?
    “Hearsay”?
    Ergo, “Impressive hearsay!!”(?)

    IOW (i.e., in the REAL world) most unimpressive.
    (Wonder how McCarthy is going to be able to climb down from this?…)

  2. The thing about Hutchinson’s “testimony” is that it describes the Trump his haters WANT to believe, not the actual person who has been on the public stage for decades.

    I mean, Trump is a loudmouth and a braggart and not afraid of raising his voice in an argument. But has there ever been any actual evidence or even allegation before this of Trump genuinely losing his cool and getting physical? The class bigotry on display is something we used to pretend didn’t exist in America.

    Mike

  3. mccarthy, gets on my last nerve, we have seen a pattern of lies, omissions out right frauds, coming from ‘impartial’ intelligence operatives, prosecutors et al, that never pan out and mccarthy comes back ‘thank you sir, can I have another’ they are never held accountable, humiliated in public, legally sanctioned, in fact the greater the lie, the higher the promotion,

  4. I like the part about Trump “grabbing the steering wheel”—or trying to—when he was nowhere near the driver, and/or there was a partition between them (if this version of the account is at least correct—who knows, though?).

    And so, “The Long Arm of the….Trump?”

    Which IMPRESSIVE “hearsay” should get her laughed right out of the hearings. (Along with Cheney and Kinzinger and Schiff…but what are the chances of THAT happening?)

    Disclaimer: See, my problem (or one of them) is that I truly (i.e., generally, usually, for the most part, etc.) greatly respect McCarthy…but he’s being utterly absurd here, alas….to the point of discrediting himself, sigh… /end disclaimer…

  7. Andrew McCarthy is more intelligent, knowledgeable, and composed than is Rod Dreher and has more integrity than does Allahpundit (who was last seen scamming around trying to salvage this yarn). They all keep stepping on these rakes. McCarthy might just try re-examining his priors. (He being the only one of the three who might ever do that).

  8. Barry,

    ‘wonder how McCarthy is going to be able to climb down from this?…’

    The same way he has from every other thing he gets wrong at the outset. His main problem is he automatically goes to the extreme right out of the gate and it always fits his personal biases. He never seems to learn.

    Time to stop quoting him when he eventually comes around and giving his writings more credence.

  9. This sort of thing is why the J6 Committee is unreliable from start to finish. As many have pointed out, a real investigative committee would have minority members, appointed by the minority leadership, and cross-examination of witnesses.

  10. I don’t, I used to because of his counter terror expertise, I sent byron york, a long letter when he was on his high horse over January 6th, I wouldn’t bother now with him,

    this little game of telephone, is turning this country into a gulag, in many parts, look at tucker’s comprehensive list

  11. You stoopid, stoopid rubes*!! . . . . .
    Who cares about what actually happened? Don’tcha know, “it’s the seriousness of the charge” that has us shaking our heads horizontally and stroking our leftist chins.

    — — —

    * “roobs”? [ grin ]

  12. Lionel Hutz: Well, we’ve got plenty of hearsay and conjecture. Those are kinds of evidence.

  13. but enough from michael avenatti, (he was the brain trust, sarc, that pushed for stacking the court, among other things)

  14. I suspect many of us here *used to* be National Review readers, including Andrew McCarthy, Victor Davis Hanson, Mark Steyn, Kevin Williamson – even William F Buckley. Buckley is long gone, Steyn and Hanson have gone elsewhere; McCarthy, Williamson (and David French) got too busy hating Trump the imagined person to accept that his administration brought us more of what they said they wanted than twelve years of President Bush (either one). I parted ways with NR in the fall of 2016 and basically haven’t been back.

  15. McCarthy is often maddening and in the second article cited by Neo is particularly maddening. (Neo has it right about his internal contradictions here.) It almost sounds as if **he** of all people does not understand hearsay in the legal sense. Here is part of what he wrote:

    “If Engel was present, engaged, and listening to what Ornato said, and the circumstances were such that, if Ornato got details wrong, Engel would naturally be expected to correct him, then Ornato’s words were by implication Engel’s words, as if he had spoken them himself. It would not be simply a matter of someone telling Hutchinson what that person saw Trump do; it would essentially be Engel telling Hutchinson what Engel did with Trump.”

    Is not that still hearsay: an out-of-court state by declarant Ornato offered for its truth? Or by declarant Engel offered for its truth? What distinction is McCarthy trying to make here? (What am I missing?)

    It might be an exception to the hearsay rule: present-sense impression. But McCarthy does not appear to be offering that possibility.

    McCarthy also asserts that columnists’/bloggers’ objections to Hutchinson’s testimony as hearsay is irrelevant because the Jan 6 hearings are investigatory, such that the rules of evidence do not apply as they would in a trial. True enough as far as it goes. But then the hearings are analogous to a grand jury proceeding, which is not public. In short, what we have is essentially a kangaroo court or show trial to allow the public to pre-judge the guilt of de facto defendant Trump: a one-sided presentation of “evidence” with no prefatory rulings by a judge as to admissibility and no opportunity for cross-examination (“Skillfully led through a prosecutor-style direct examination by committee chairwoman Liz Cheney…”). There **would** be an opportunity for a sort of cross-examination if (as I understand it) Pelosi had allowed the committee to be formed in the usual way, with adverse Republicans represented. But she didn’t do that.

    The circus nature of the whole thing is reflected in the current media commentary: opinion-heavy reports on the testimony from both ends of the political spectrum, followed by analysis of the one-sided nature of the other side’s reporting by columnists and bloggers — commentary about commentary in several layers. If charges are ever brought against Trump, it is difficult to imagine how he could ever get a fair trial after all this.

  16. Hutchinson is impressive and Liz Cheney is a skilled leader. Got it. Say no more.
    _______

    [Democrats] are very practiced in, the principle of a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its boots on.

    They also understand that the truth can sprint rather quickly if it stands alone for very long. Gov. Abbott slammed the Biden admin’s terrible border policies as bearing some responsibility for the 53 dead immigrants.

    Within minutes or hours Joe Biden had a retort, and Kamala said this the next day.

    “How the governor of that state responded really highlights part of the problem because his response when there are 50 dead bodies in his state is to go straight to politics,” Harris said in an interview with NPR. “Instead of dealing with the realities of the issue.”

    The concept of rapid response is usually lost on the GOP. Of course, it helps to “own” most of the media outlets.

  17. Donald Trump was at the moment President of the United States and Commander in Chief. In the event he attempted to resist his staff when they disobeyed his orders… so what?

    Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that the Democrats were saying he did nothing to try to stop the riot? Now it comes out he apparently wanted to intervene, and now that’s a terrible evil too?

    These people who are trying to hobble Trump are having the opposite effect… I want to see THEM held to account for their seditious actions against the legitimate chief executive, and I will support him 100%!

  18. Ms. Hutchinson’s favorite phrase “something to the effect of”

    McCarthy has a long history of using the NY Times and WaPo as his sources but presenting like he actually knows something. I remember a year or more ago when he repeated NY Times lies about the death of Officer Sicknick weeks after they finally released the DC ME report. He can’t be bothered to know the facts.

    He does try to stick something late in his writings so he can salvage some reputation after dutifully repeating NYT talking points.

  20. I had almost the exact same reaction when I read McCarthy’s piece. I sometimes think McCarthy might finally come around to realize that his Trump hatred might be distorting his worldview just a bit, but this latest episode pretty much puts those hopes to rest.

    I didn’t watch Hutchinson’s testimony live and have only watched snippets here and there after reading analysis of what she said. I’m somewhat surprised by the number of people who thought she was an impressive witness, even some who doubted her veracity. She seemed to me to be very unsure of herself and qualified almost everything she said. I’m also somewhat surprised that someone so young and unimpressive could hold any position of authority at the White House. But I guess I’m just naive. I suppose the feeling I sometimes get that we are being governed by children is because that, to a certain extent, we are.

  21. In his offering credibility to Hutchinson’s obvious slander, totally refuted by those present, McCarthy has at long last revealed himself to have abandoned all sense of decency. His former rectitude lies trampled beneath his feet.

  22. I must first say that I’ve been assiduously ignoring the Jan. 6 hearings, so everything I think about this young woman’s presentation (is it correct to call it “testimony”? I don’t know) should be viewed through the lens of my ignorance.

    But here’s the thing, AFAICS. The worst case I perceive for Trump is that he was intensely frustrated by all the many election shenanigans going back months, he strongly believed (as lots of us did) that he should have won the election going away, and on the day when there was no longer any turning away from the fact that he was not going to have a second term, he got really mad. He threw things, he yelled, he took out his frustration and anger on those nearest him (hurting no one) – and also went out and spoke with conviction to his supporters, encouraging them to protest peacefully in exactly the same way that people had been protesting things all year. Exactly, that is, except for the violence and destruction, which he specifically ruled out. Then he failed to do… something, I don’t know what, to stop the protest-turned-riot in the capitol building. (As if the rioters were going to be checking their Twitter feeds as they stormed the Capitol, violent insurrection on their minds.) This, after having offered the National Guard for the day and having been rebuffed by Pelosi.

    What crime am I supposed to believe he committed? I can’t figure it out. I once threw an unopened can of Coke across the room toward my teenage son, who was driving me nuts – meaning, as God is my witness, to hit the wall, but because I am terrible at throwing things, hitting him instead. (I could in fact have been charged on that one – but even my victim couldn’t believe that I’d been aiming for him and actually hit him.) Just recently, I was so frustrated with my father-in-law that I kicked off my flip-flops hard, hitting the wall of my bedroom. I am not a physical person, but I did these things. One more: my mother-in-law once threw a bag of dried beans at my husband (then a kid), I believe missing him but sending two pounds of pintos flying all around their kitchen.

    What crime am I supposed to be clutching my pearls about?

  23. “I’m somewhat surprised by the number of people who thought she was an impressive witness”

    White upper-middle class professionals think other white upper-middle class professionals are amazingly impressive.

    Mike

  24. “What crime am I supposed to be clutching my pearls about?”

    They think, or at least have fooled themselves into thinking, the riot at the Capitol was an actual attempt to overthrow the government. That Trump allegedly wanted to go to the Captiol while the riot was underway is supposedly meant to prove he was actually leading the insurrection.

    No. It doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t have to. Remember, America’s political and media elite have been ignoring more and more of reality since the start of the Obama era. Imagine the government officials in the old Soviet Union who read Pravda actually believed what was in it. THAT is where America’s political/media establishment is right now.

    Mike

  27. like Wiley Coyote, McCarthy keeps on making a fool of himself. maybe he should make a policy of waiting a day until he writes something?

  28. its funny how Hutchinson stayed on working for Trump for a few months and wanted to continue into Florida , with such a bad man.
    Hell hath…

  29. Today I ran across this recent Michael Anton piece on “National Review” and it hit the target for me:
    ________________________________

    One reason the genuine right considers National Review a joke is that the magazine long ago lost the ability to distinguish between friends and enemies. NR spills considerable ink cozying up to the left and trying to show that they are not like those unacceptable bad conservatives but are instead harmless and reliable good guys. It attacks and backstabs those who ostensibly are, or should be, its friends and sucks up to its supposed enemies…

    National Review presents itself as the flagship publication of American conservatism, but then goes around calling conservatives it doesn’t like Nazis. Those who call you Nazis are not your friends but your enemies. No one who is not a fool takes advice from his enemies, or assumes that said advice is well intentioned.

    https://americanmind.org/salvo/reductio-ad-hitlerlum/
    ________________________________

    I can understand, to a point, conservatives who disagree and strongly so about Trump. But making common cause with Democrats who hate Trump and everything conservative makes no sense to me, unless Trump truly were a nightmare fascist leader who had been inches away from installing a violent totalitarian regime.

  31. Dante should have created a level in Hell for war mongering ,war profiteering chicken hawks like the Cheney and Bush families. At least McCain served and killed soldiers on both sides but the Cheney’s and younger Bush’s send other kids over to fight in unnecessary wars.

  32. avi:

    You fight the war (9/11/2001) with the army you have, not the army of 20/20 hindsight.

    I would submit that the chickenhawk line is chickensh*t. You may disagree. Whatever.

    GWB and Darth Chenney have squandered whatever reputation they once had by going OMB, but Liz Chenney is responsiblfor her own reprehensible behavior.

    Before there was TDS and OMB there was BDS, BushHitler, GWB as a chimp, and of course the Dan Rather and the TX National Guard hoax. Forgotten all ths avi? Bunge hasn’t, he buys it?

  33. I with Ray Van Dune. If Trump gave an order, an order backed by some sort of action to see it carried out, and the Secret Service ignored it; then exactly who was in charge of the Executive Branch while Trump was still President? We already know that Nancy Pelosi called JCS on 6 Jan. to tell them to ignore Trump’s authority as Commander and Chief, and while the JCS didn’t follow Pelosi’s request, they did call the leader of China to essentially say they wouldn’t follow Trump’s orders without letting China know. These are the actions of a coup, the usurpation of authority. At best, the claim against Trump was just wanting to usurp power, not actually taking it.

    As for Andrew McCarthy, holy Gell-mann amnesia.

  34. But this is the impeachment all over again, testimony about something overheard that was fabricated hearsay in the first place, and then repeating it enough times, from enough different people, with enough solemn officious ceremonial questioning, to make it appear consecrated as a fact. It’s exactly the same tactic. The people that are inclined to believe, will. The people that are inclined to believe in good government will be shocked and appalled at the kabuki theater masquerading as governance.

    Does anyone remember the solemn procession across the Halls of Congress with the Holy Articles of Impeachment? The only thing missing were the robes, and a funny hat, and maybe a nice purple pillow with gold roping for carrying the documents.

    I have to say though, this one was a lot more comical. Trump in The Beast, lunging from the back seat, strangling an agent and grappling for the wheel. Oh, Wait….. What about the bulletproof partition that would make this impossible?? And while the officials were sputtering out their answers, here comes the video showing him getting into an SUV instead. Well? Did you lie about the wrong car, or lie about what he actually did? Then, while they’re spitting out their next rationalization, here comes the Secret Service: Nope, that didn’t happen at all, when can we testify under oath? “Well then, I’ve got this note that I wrote”….. and some annoying ex-official immediately pipes up, “Wait a minute, I wrote that note” And they said vaudeville was dead…

  35. “Before there was TDS and OMB there was BDS, BushHitler, GWB as a chimp, and of course the Dan Rather and the TX National Guard hoax.”

    Except that was the case of a President starting a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and the primary reason given for that war turned out to be false. Trump did…what?

    People like om are the reason the GOP establishment thought they could get away with foisting JEB! on Republican voters.

    Mike

  36. Bunge forgets about 9/11/2001 and all that led up to the second war in Iraq, because Bunge 20/20 hindsight and the Bunge hobby horse. Entirely predictable and expected.

    Don’t be a Bunge.

    People like “om.” I’m surprised that Bunge considers me a “person.”

    Your strawman of Jeb! just shows ignorance. Another Bunge trait.

    Don’t be a Bunge.

    The question wasn’t about President Trump Bunge and what President Trump did. TDS and OMB have nothing to do with those things, its about an unhinged hatred and animosity. Sort of like you and GWB?

    Don’t blow a gasket, try to stay on topic.

  37. om
    “You fight the war (9/11/2001) with the army you have, not the army of 20/20 hindsight.”

    im glad you brought that up. Yes you fight the war with the army you have and if that army is insufficient you plan with your allies to perform a quick surgical strike to take out Saddam and you use the Iraqi Army to maintain stability and after a new more compliant dictator is in place our insufficient army that we had can leave quickly.
    Of course if you are a chickenhawk war profiteer, you unilaterally behind the back of your “boss” and British PM and disband the Iraqi Army so you can have a twenty year quagmire in which your friends profit from $trillion and so what if 5000 kids from middle America are killed and countless more maimed , they aint your kids.
    no Chickenhawks are lower than chickshiite

  38. Six women have now come forward claiming that Trump tried to grab their steering wheel.

  39. “Bunge forgets about 9/11/2001 and all that led up to the second war in Iraq, because Bunge 20/20 hindsight and the Bunge hobby horse. Entirely predictable and expected.”

    no we remember 9/11/2001 and that they were Saudi’s not Iraqis.
    but ok why didnt W rip new a-holes in the people who misled him or disbanded the Iraqi Army instead of joking about where are the “WMDs”?
    Or how come W hasn’t come out praising the SCOTUS for Dobbs?

  40. We have gone through this BS before, with the call to the Ukraine, where the accuser was only reporting what someone told them.

  41. MBunge:

    The number of Iraqis killed is unknown, and statistics that are given are notoriously unreliable as well as variable. See this for what is probably the most reliable data, although as I said no statistics on this are reliable. Of course, prior to the war there were plenty of violent deaths in Iraq as well. US deaths there during the war can be found here.

  42. avi:

    A new member of the Bunge club. The 20/20 hindsight generals are ready to refight the last 20 years. Go to it. The chicken hawk chicken sh*t argument was lame 20 plus years ago and doesn’t get better with time. Something about civilian control of the military and military service not being a requirement for elected office (no matter what RAH had to spin about it). What about “no blood for oil” argument? You and Bunge on two hobby horses, what a sight.

    Dobbs was a great decision, long awaited, and long overdue. Your animosity to GWB takes nothing from the Dobbs victory.

    Another blown gasket in the making. Doctors don’t like second opinions? 🙂

  43. Because invading saudi arabia would be considered declaring war on islam many of the tentpole money men like the alamoudis bin mahfouz etc were finally broughr to ground by prince salman in 2017-8 (hes tried to go legit in a business his father made)

  44. But this weaker than the vindman call (theres no evidence of this happened)

  45. OM
    straw man
    1.i dont want to refight the war, it should never have been fought
    2. foresight is 20/20 , which is why the plan was to maintain the iraqi Army to provide security- i notice that you avoid this issue.
    3. Chicken hawk applies then as now. back in the Nam days there was a commercial having to elderly men having a fistfight to symbolize how leaders send other people to fight their conflicts
    4. civilian control doesn’t mean you have the moral authority to send other peoples kids to fight and you yourself and your kids avoid it.
    5. No blood for oil? well it was our blood maintaining the supply lines for Europes oil. Let them fight for their oil
    6. W squandered $trillian and countless lives for a lie. He coulda done a mea culpa but didnt and he allowed his VP to turn what could have been a quick strike into a long quagmire.He didnt

  46. The brits took two years just to get to baghdad took eight years to leave afghanistan was somewhere around 1819 and they left around 1947 ballpark

  47. There was nothing to this story she committed all sorts of fraud perjury what not but no one will hold her accountable

  48. 1: Nice opinion.
    2. Mistake made by the State Dept types. Mistakes happen in wars. Read some history.
    3. Chickenhaws is chickensh*t, Leaders and generals always send other people to die in war. Sometimes their children go sometimes they don’t.
    4. See three, IIRC GWB had daughters not sons. IIRC it is a volunteer military Doc.
    5. It wasn;t about oil Doc. Oil BTW is a worldwide comodity.
    6. Fine opinion you have there, Keep that hobby horse rocking.

    Anything more about Dobbs and who has or hasn’t spoken about it? Or spoken about the Texas abortion laws?

    GWB nominated John Roberts to the SCOTUS and Samuel Alito as well. Surely there is a dark sinister story in there for you and Bunge to flesh out.

    🙂

  49. “GWB nominated John Roberts to the SCOTUS and Samuel Alito as well. Surely there is a dark sinister story in there for you and Bunge to flesh out.”
    and Roberts was against overturning Roe and Alito only came after W’s base revolted after that dreck Meirs
    2. No it wasn’t State Dept types it was Cheney and he sure profited from it
    3. Chicken Hawk is unfortunately a real thing, Cheney avoided Nam , but was all for others dying there. their children should be the first to go and to serve.Thats what leaders do.
    4. women didnt fight in Iraq?
    5.Germanics cant fight wars for their oil? aside from genocide, fighting wars is their greatest skill
    6. good defend W for squandering our blood and money and giving us Pelosi and Obama
    something to be proud of

  50. Avi:

    Paul Brenner and the State Dept types. Doc.

    The old Halliburton/KBR charge.

    Nam was not Iraq. Do try to keep current. Some leaders do some don’t. Sorry about human nature Doc.

    Volunteer military Doc. Do try to pay attention.

    Not to defend the Germans since the 1850s but your point is what? It wasn’t about oil. Do try to pay attention.

    Democrats elected Obama and Pelosi. Try to focus. Did you vote for AAG, JF’enK, or BHO? Do tell, or not.

    🙂

  51. I bet you voted for all of them who left tens of thousands of americans behind and enough weapons to fight five wars.

  52. “Bunge forgets about 9/11/2001 and all that led up to the second war in Iraq”

    I can’t top this. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. As anyone with even half a brain knows, Saddam was absolutely opposed to anything like Al Qaida and saw them as a direct threat to his own rule. Invading Iraq didn’t do anything to lessen the threat of Islamic terrorism and, in fact, greatly empowered the Iranians who are huge supporters of radical Islam. And before om or anyone brings up “Well, we ain’t been attacked since invading Iraq,” we hadn’t been attacked for the 70 years before that and now we get to spend at least the next 30 to 40 years worrying what some pissed off Iraqis might do.

    But let’s just put all that aside. It’s also indisputable that the disastrous occupation of Iraq played a significant role in Barack Obama getting to the White House. If nothing else, you’d think that would make people reconsider the whole affair. But nope!

    9/11 broke a lot of brains and many of them are still cracked all these years later.

    Mike

  53. OM
    Brenner on orders from the war profiteer
    Haliburton sure did well
    Both were unnecessary wars that we should not have been in. JFK killing off Diem was as stupid as our going into Iraq
    Volunteer means cannot fodder?
    I wouldn’t defend the Germans since 1096, and they aren’t the only genicidal Germanic people, but its their oil supply lines our blood was defending, not a rocket science concept
    oh it was about WMD’s! not oil. no wonder you still defend it
    Dems and independents disgusted with W voted BHO and Pelosi’s congress, but continue defending W and Cheney. nice guys. the scarecrow and the tin woodsman, you can be the lion
    I voted Reagan, Perot, Dole,W,W McCain, Romney Trump

  54. Miguel:

    Sorry, you chose poorly. The only Republican President I didn’t vote for since 1972 was President Trump in 2016. I was certainly a mistaken in 2016 and am proud to have voted for Trump in 2020 and will again in 2024 if that comes to pass.

    Some like their GWB hobby horse. The 20/20 hindsight crowd. 🙂

  55. Avi:

    Dems and Independents defending GWB and Darth Chenney. LOL

    Oil is a worldwide commodity. Germans get most of their natural gas from Roosia that bastion of freedom. 20 years ago the Germans still used nukes and coal (lignite) for electricity generation IIRC. LOL.

    Satire? A new hidden talent.

    🙂

  56. Seeing as all those presidents got us into this mess and trump moved heaven and earth to get us out with some semblance of honor whos the fool.

    What weve learned from these exercises over 40 years is not to meddles specially with parties we have nothing in common with we seem to pick the wrong dance partners

    Now rhe officers were sunni but the enlisted were shia kurds were excluded the level of decay of institutions fronthe first gulf war was worse than we thought

  57. At the outset charlie wilson and co gave most of the weapons to hekmatyar the pashtun crowder haqquani and the godfather of the taliban khalis most of the journalists of the time knew this

  58. In light of all the humiliation pain amd suffering wrought by this illegitimate duty it should have been the duty of any and all to stop this tragedy not legitimize it not empower the most unethical gamg of pirates this side of treasure island

  59. I had strong objections to trump in the primary but hillary thats not an answer to any question or any route that got you to hillary because this is the other obama term

  60. Liz Cheney gave a speech last night at the Reagan Library. She violated Reagan’s 11th Commandment many times. She claimed that the greatest domestic danger facing the United States is Donald Trump. She called him a dangerous and unstable man. And other nasty things. She claims to be defending democracy, but I think she’s doing a great disservice to the Republican Party.

    All hearsay of course. I didn’t watch the speech. But you can, if you dare:
    menews/3541126-liz-cheney-speaks-at-reagan-library-in-california/

    Ms. Cheney, the soon to be retired Congresswoman from Wyoming, has become quite a heroine to the Democrats. She considers herself to be a “profile in courage.” What she has become is a Swamp Creature who cannot tell the difference between good policy and having an “acceptable resume” which she considers Trump to be lacking. She’s now engaged in the politics of PERSONAL DESTRUCTION in spades.

    I’m disappointed. Darth Cheney and I had a short correspondence back in the day, and I liked the man. Wonder what he’s thinking about all this? Miracle he’s still alive. Sad when Republicans are dissing one another.

  61. “.. unless Trump truly were a nightmare fascist leader who had been inches away from installing a violent totalitarian regime.”

    But, um, isn’t that what all us good boys and girls are supposed to believe?

    (And if we don’t yet believe it, after Hillary, Obama, the swamp and the corrupt media has been jackhammering home the message since 2016, they’ll just have to jackhammer some more and MAKE USA believe it…. Besides, heh, it’s a terrific distraction!!)

    File under: “My fellow Americans. “I” may be aiming to destroy your country, “I” won’t lie to ya’…BUT—and “I” cannot emphasize this enough—BUT that DEMON Trump!!!! So, truly, which WOULD Y’ALL rather have? Come ‘on! It AIN’T hard to choose. (AND if you don’t vote for me then yer NOT an American…and so don’t be surprised if the FBI comes around afore dawn with a battrin’ ram to break down yer door… No, this is not a threat. “I”‘m jes’ tellin’ ya’ how it is…)

  62. Related: The fentanyl party!
    “Drug-Traffickers Arrested With 150,000 Fentanyl Pills Set Free Just Days After Arrest: Police”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/drug-traffickers-arrested-150000-fentanyl-pills-set-free-just-days-after-arrest-police

    BUT:
    “Four Men Charged After 53 Migrants Die In Smuggling Disaster”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/four-men-charged-after-53-migrants-die-smuggling-disaster
    Wonder if they’ll be able to pull the Hillary “But-I-didn’t-mean-to-do-it” defense.

    File under: Optics, Inc.

  63. Om at 11:06:

    His name is Bremmer. L. Paul “Jerry” Bremmer. I served with him in an FS assignment. Good guy, although I don’t agree with his support for the dismantlement of the Iraqi army.

  64. It was, of course, Hearsay. McCarthy should have stuck with that in a non-advocacy hearing, like this, with no one able to contest the validity of the statements being made, it doesn’t matter. It’s a show trial with no chance by the other side to contest anything.

    If this were a judicial hearing, where both sides got their chance to contest the evidence by the other side, then the Federal Rules of Evidence would apply, and there, you start with the question of whether the statement was hearsay. Here, it was. It was an out of court (or hearing) statement made for the truth of the matter asserted. She said that she heard someone say that Trump had tried to take the wheel. It was actually double hearsay because she wasn’t quoting someone there at the time, but rather someone who had heard it from one of them. Hearsay is usually not admissible unless it falls into one of the standard exceptions. There are no realistic exceptions here, esp since the people in the vehicle at the time were available to testify. Even the person she had heard the story from would have been a better witness but it probably still would have been excludable as hearsay outside any exception.

  66. “His name is Bremmer. L. Paul “Jerry” Bremmer. I served with him in an FS assignment. Good guy, although I don’t agree with his support for the dismantlement of the Iraqi army.”

    The ski instructor Herr Bremmer vas only following Cheney’s orders

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