Rep. Devin Nunes does his best. It’s his job to repeat the entire Republican theory of “Why Trump isn’t really a criminal,” at the beginning of every Impeachment hearing. The problem is that the Republican ‘story’ is entirely ludicrous. Nunes isn’t my favorite Congressman, but this leaves him looking like a gullible idiot. I’m pretty sure he’s neither, of course. But I can’t stop watching him.
Nunes is the House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member, so he gets stuck telling the Republican story. He is not, unfortunately, a natural storyteller. (His natural inclinations seem closer to disjointed invective, nasal proctology, and flop-sweat.) Maybe if I’d seen more of Nunes before Trump humiliated him, I might have a better opinion. I’m sure his partisan Trump support hasn’t been his best side. That’s my hope, anyway.
Watching Nunes’ daily opening remarks are… an experience, certainly. I like the irrationality, of course. I mean, the Nunes nonsense is breathtaking. Devin, Devin, Devin. Dude, really? But I also love the overall story’s progression with each new presentation. Nunes has to give what’s effectively the same speech before every hearing, layered in righteous outrage and bile. That naturally encourages a gradual escalation in ire every time he has to give the opening remarks.
Theoretically, it’s the same problem for Democrats, since Chairman Adam Schiff has his own opening remarks up first. Schiff’s answer has been to summarize the prior testimony. First, Schiff is a powerful speaker, so that sets the bar high. Plus, every new day gives Schiff more colorful material to work with. So far, every day’s testimony is a continuous condemnation of Trump and his lieutenants. That gives Schiff some speaking room. Every witness – and I mean, every freakin’ one – undercuts Republican’s previous day’s vapid talking points. Schiff has been dutifully laying that out with every opening remark.
That leaves Nunes in a tight bind. He’s a dutiful “Trump-no-matter-what” loyalist with his nose stuck so far up the President’s cheeks he can’t see daylight. That limits his choices to “Trump is perfect.” Even with that, Nunes should be drawing on the positive parts of the last testimony. Unfortunately, there isn’t any good news; the witnesses are uniformly damning. Nunes is left to struggle for something new to spice things up.
Devin Nunes does his best to find new material. He usually starts by insulting and denigrating the witnesses and everyone involved in the hearing. (Hey, go you’re your strengths.) Besides, more witnesses mean he has different people to insult, so at least that’s some variation. Then Nunes drops into his full Republican wing-nut conspiracy part of his story. That’s where my anticipation comes in. Will Nunes just tweak the details of yesterday’s spittle-flecked outrage a little closer to primary colors? Will Nunes find himself a whole new conspiracy theory? That’s the drama of it for me.
Today, Nunes hinted that the entire Russian attack in 2016 might really be a Ukrainian/Democrat plot. That’s pretty ballsy, given that it’s, you know, not even slightly true. As a visual aid, Nunes gave the witnesses their own copies of the Republican-only House report that insisted Trump didn’t collude with Russia. Nunes had to ignore the bipartisan Senate report, the Mueller Report, every Democrat on the committee, and all 16 US Intelligence agencies. Hey, the man’s a pro.
Of course, Nunes ground on. Trump couldn’t be guilty because the extortion didn’t work. Trump said the right things after he got caught. Nunes lamented the whistleblower yet again as if it wasn’t a completely moot point. I hoped he’d dropped it, but Nunes reprised the nude Trump pictures theory (an image I’ll never get out of my head). Sometimes Nunes drops in another laughably complicated conspiracy, but he mostly just hammers on his stock story just a little harder.
At one level, Nunes repeats each Putin-generated bit of laughable agitprop in ponderous umbrage. New today, Nunes added a demand for a “Minority hearing,” so they could question their own witnesses. (To do that, Nunes had to pretend half the witnesses weren’t Republican choices.)
On a higher level, though, I think Nunes’s big mistake is trying to make too much sense. He’s trying to tell a complete story out of bile, hot air, and spit. But the Republicans don’t really have an overarching narrative he can use. They trot out individual attacks and unlikely bits of fluff to counter specific crimes. Even that’s just for the party base; each conspiracy requires that people ignore a ton of commonly known facts. Assuming you’re not a dedicated FoxNews guy. But when Nunes tries to connect these conspiracies like popcorn on a thread, we can only see a whole lot of string and a few puffy bits.
Nunes, of course, looks ludicrous. And he should. If the Congressman believed his story, he’d have to be an idiot who ignored the known facts and the timeline. I’m assuming Nunes isn’t an idiot. Rep Devin Nunes would have to be delusional to pretend that Trump wasn’t extorting Ukraine, or that Trump didn’t have a quid pro quo. I don’t believe Nunes is delusional, either.
I think Nunes is the face of the corrupt Republican party. He lies because he’s a Republican, and they don’t care about lying to us. Defending Trump overrides any honor or duty. Right now, Trump is under Congressional indictment. But the Republican party is also on trial.
Republicans aren’t stupid, either. They know their future is on the line. Republicans are perfectly good politicians; they can see the election results. They know people are blaming them and voting them out. And yet – to a member – the Republican party cannot change their course. I hate to do that ‘lemmings to the sea’ thing since even lemmings don’t really do that. And yet Republicans won’t so much as admit any of the lies.
Republicans aren’t idiots. Not the people, and not the politicians. But the Republican party is acting like that drunk uncle who just got caught drooling at the GirlsDoIt website.
