(09-11-2020, 09:54 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: When you have an administration that orders intelligence assessments to be changed to help the POTUS's political fortunes, rather than protect the interests of the United States and its citizens, releasing the tapes in March wouldn't have made a shit bit of difference. The only reason he told Woodward what he did was so he would look smart and informed. He couldn't even grasp how insane it would be to go on camera in February saying Covid was no big deal, when he was being recorded for a book, completely contradicting himself. All he could do was think in the immediate moment what his fragile ego needed.
He could say the Earth is flat one day and a whole media machine would go into overdrive to claim the notion is true. Then he could say he was kidding the next day and that same media machine would find a way to fall in line again. What is insane is that there are people who see the dishonesty and duplicity happen, and the cost to their fellow citizens and country, constantly, and not only have no problem with it, it's the feature they like and not considered a bug.
Mick, applying your rational thought to irrational people doesn't work.
I think it would have the same effect that Joseph Welch's interchange with Senator McCarthy's had. Just a reminder:
On June 9, 1954, the 30th day of the Army–McCarthy hearings, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell Jr. with McCarthy's list of 130 Communists or subversives in defense plants "before sundown". McCarthy stepped in and said that if Welch was so concerned about persons aiding the Communist Party, he should check on a man in his Boston law office named Fred Fisher, who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, which Brownell had called "the legal mouthpiece of the Communist Party".[6] Welch had privately discussed the matter with Fisher beforehand and the two agreed Fisher should not participate in the hearings. Welch dismissed Fisher's association with the NLG as a youthful indiscretion and attacked McCarthy for naming the young man before a nationwide television audience without prior warning or previous agreement to do so:
Until this moment, Senator, I think I have never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. Fred Fisher is a young man who went to the Harvard Law School and came into my firm and is starting what looks to be a brilliant career with us....Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale and Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale and Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so. I like to think I am a gentleman, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.
When McCarthy tried to renew his attack, Welch interrupted him:
Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild ... Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
McCarthy tried to ask Welch another question about Fisher, and Welch interrupted:
"Mr. McCarthy, I will not discuss this further with you. You have sat within six feet of me and could have asked me about Fred Fisher. You have seen fit to bring it out. And if there is a God in Heaven it will do neither you nor your cause any good. I will not discuss it further. I will not ask Mr. Cohn any more witnesses. You, Mr. Chairman, may, if you will, call the next witness." At this, those watching the proceedings broke into applause.
This exchange worked because the Republicans were mainly done with McCarthy as most of the Republican party is done with Trump.
Audaces fortuna iuvat