Why did Mueller hide THE key fact? Plus: Lying about Biden

Hate to say "I predicted this," but I predicted this. Months and months ago, I wrote that Bob Mueller exemplifies the axiom that every general prepares to fight the previous war, not the present war. His approach has always been "Squeeze those lower down in the criminal hierarchy and they will sing about Mr. Big." That approach won't work when Mr. Big has the power of the pardon.

It is abundantly clear that Mueller could not make his case on conspiracy because Trump offered pardons in exchange for shut mouths. True, Trump may not have made that offer openly and directly, but anyone reading his tweets should have been able to comprehend the thuddingly-obvious message.

Moreover, there are plenty of indications that such offers were made behind the scenes. In the case of Michael Flynn, we even have voicemails. This DU reader spotted an oft-overlooked nugget in the superseding indictment of Flynn:

“The defendant informed the government of multiple instances, both before and after his guilty plea, where either he or his attorneys received communications from persons connected to the Administration or Congress that could affect both his willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation. The defendant even provided a voicemail recording of one such communication.”

Did you hear anything about this in Mueller's statement yesterday? No, you did not.

If you listened very carefully, you may have caught a hint of a whisper of a semi-subliminal suggestion that witness tampering played a role in the deep-sixing of Mueller's case. Nothing stopped Mueller from making this claim forthrightly and unmistakably. He should have shouted the truth; instead, he tried to get his point across via ESP. Maybe he should have played a tape recording of one of those voicemails right there on camera. At the very least, he could have stated that such evidence exists.

Mueller's insistence on keeping this ultra-important fact veiled is unfathomable. In essence, he is protecting Trump.

And what is Mueller getting in return? Trump just blasted him as a "true Never Trumper." (Weirdly enough, Trump also used the occasion to go after John McCain again.) Deliciously, the president also admitted -- briefly -- that Russia helped him get elected. Meanwhile, all of the Red Media propagandists are painting "Satan horns" on Mueller's forehead; here is a particularly hellish example.

I still say that Mueller was compromised. 

Let's talk about Biden. I don't have the heart to get too emotionally involved in the horse race because I really believe that Trump has it locked up. (Hey, it's me. I always bet on the worst possible outcome.) But some of you may be curious to know who I favor.

Right now, I can't make up my mind between Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Warren has the policies I like, particularly on the topic of student loans -- although she should also propose to do something about overpaid college administrators. (Why should taxpayers fund those leeches?) As for Harris: Her questioning of Barr was transcendentally sublime. They say that a politician must campaign in poetry and govern in prose; if that's true, then I must ask you: Is there a finer poet in this field?

I also admire some of the less-discussed candidates.

Montana governor Steve Bullock may have the best chance of winning over the rural voters in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and elsewhere who gave the last election to Trump. His record is good -- as good as one can expect from a Dem in a red state. He favors affordable health care and clean elections. Plus, he reminds me of Joel McCrea -- the exemplar of the honest, plain-spoken westerner.

Cory Booker is another guy I just plain like. No-one in this country has mounted a more compelling argument for Trump's impeachment. When it comes to the poetry of politics, he's almost as gifted as Harris. And when he was mayor of Newark, he managed to increase affordable housing while reducing the deficit. That's an important factor, given all the hot checks that Trump has been writing.

As for Biden...

Well, I've always liked Biden, but I don't want him to win the nomination. He has (as mentioned in a previous posts) a deep, dark, dopey secret which will open him up to ridicule once it is revealed, as will inevitably occur.

Besides, age is a factor. That admission is not an easy one for me to make, given the grayness -- increasingly, the whiteness -- of my beard.

That said, I do feel compelled to defend the man against various unfair attacks. That crime bill? It was supported, at the time, by the Congressional Black Caucus. We can't allow that fact to go down the memory hole. The people complaining about black incarceration rates rarely mention that most of those convictions are on state charges.

As for Anita Hill: Biden did nothing wrong and should never have apologized. Here we have yet another of those situations where pure repetition has convinced many people that someone did something horrible even though few can cite any specifics.

(Hillary is another victim of this phenomenon. Next time you hear someone insult her, ask: "What, exactly, did she do?" Nine out of ten times, the insulter will sputter like Porky Pig. After a few seconds of sputtering, you'll probably hear some crap about Vince Foster. And pizza.)

When it comes to specifics, Anita Hill's actual complaint is that Biden did not allow other witnesses to come forward to support her claims. Here's the part that she's not telling you: The credibility of those other witnesses was questionable. The Republicans wanted them to appear on camera and to become the story. Biden did Hill a favor by making sure that the she remained the story.

In this instance, it's instructive to see how the right interprets the same set of facts. This writer in the Federalist castigates Biden not for impeding Hill but for bending the rules to help her.

On “The View,” one interlocutor told Biden that people were upset he hadn’t allowed other women to testify against Thomas. He explained that he tried to get them to testify, but there were problems and that forcing them to testify may have been worse for Hill. He was understating wildly, referring to the last woman mentioned in this summary of problems with Hill’s alleged witnesses:

Hill’s four alleged corroborating witnesses provided very weak testimony. One witness told Committee staff that the alleged harassment happened before Hill ever worked for Thomas. Another witness claimed that Hill had no political motives to oppose Thomas because she was a conservative who fully supported the Reagan Administration’s civil rights policies. This representation was false. Angela Wright, who many claimed would provide similar testimony as Hill, declined to testify because of serious credibility issues related to her motives and her previous efforts to falsely accuse a supervisor of racism.

Much revisionist history has been drafted by partisans who oppose Thomas’s judicial philosophy. It’s true that Biden did his best to help Hill, including concealing witnesses who would have been a disaster under examination.

Get it? The Republicans wanted Wright and the others to testify. Biden tried to help Hill.

Younger people are being given the false idea that Biden was the one who grilled Hill mercilessly. Actually, that role was played by Arlen "Single Bullet" Spector -- and no, there was nothing Biden could have done to shut Spector's vile mouth.

Some Hill supporters are engaging in pure anti-white racism:

“I know that we have been cultured to feel that only the white man can save us,” organizer Roxy D. Hall Williamson said at the event. “I just don't feel like Biden is our answer.”

In other words, Roxy D. Hall thinks that it's fine to judge a person by the color of his skin. And no, we have not been "cultured" to think any such thing. May I remind you of the Obama presidency? May I remind you that Hillary won the popular vote?

I believed Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings, and I still do. But the woman I admired then is not the woman I see now. The woman I see now is trying her best to re-elect the president. She's not the least bit frumpy, but she's more than a little bit Trumpy.