Exposing the “C” Word

Shhhh, the “c” word is still lurking out there, somewhere. Or everywhere.

No, I’m not talking about “collusion.” It seems the Mueller Report has made clear there wasn’t any between the Trump administration and Russia in connection with the 2016 election. Or at least that’s what we’re given to believe based on Attorney General Barr’s summary of the report. It would be a whole lot better if we could read the entire report, of course, and that’s what at least the Democrats in Congress are asking for.

But again, based on Barr’s summary, there’s another “c” word that is still in play — and that word is, of course, “corruption.” Or, to put it another way, “the Trump administration.”

The Mueller Report apparently did not exonerate Trump and his cronies from obstruction of justice tied to the Russia investigation. But exactly what did it conclude about possible obstruction? Well, we don’t know. Barr isn’t explain that in is summary. So we need to have the full report to know if there’s anything hiding there or whether Trump has a clean slate, as unlikely as that seems.

In the meantime, we’re now getting Trump’s exaggerated claims that he’s perfectly innocent of everything. That much was expected. And Trump and his allies are going after their Democrat antagonists hard, calling for investigations of their “traitorous” comments. Okay, then let’s also go after those politicians whose words for Mueller and his cohorts have followed the very same track: traitors. For two years Trump has been calling Mueller’s investigation a witch hunt. Now that he likes the results, Trump isn’t so sure it was a witch hunt after all.

Perhaps its silly — or ridiculous — to imagine that everyone might apologize a little and we get on with business. But in this highly polarized world of ours, there will never be any apologies, which probably doesn’t matter because no one seems to be able to get anything done anyway. The “other side” remains a treasonous assortment of malcontents.

So does the Mueller Report actually settle anything? At this point the answer has to be — no idea yet. We have got to be able to read and digest the results of that two-year probe. Maybe it will show us Trump is clean though with the sentences and indictments for so many of Trump’s closest allies (think Cohen, Manafort, Flynn, etc.) that seems about as likely as Lindsay Graham behaving like a statesman or Rep. Steve King denouncing white nationalism.

So let’s hold off all our fervor and instead focus on getting all of the Mueller Report made public. Donald Trump is and will always be a dim-witted man who lies, cheats and casually undermines the foundations of democracy with his malodorous, incompetent behavior, but maybe there’s an instance where he has played it right.

Yeah, and I’m the Pope.