I really like Shawn Vestal’s writing in the Spokesman-Review.
Shawn Vestal: Ruckelshaus reminds us what Nunes and company have forgotten
Boomers who paid attention 45 years ago will remember the famous Saturday Night Massacre.
Forty-five years ago, the president tried to fire an independent special prosecutor who was investigating him.
Two men of principle – the attorney general and his deputy – refused. They quit rather than carry out President Richard Nixon’s clearly improper order, an order later ruled illegal.
They stood on principle against a president who had none.
The question of principle versus political self-interest is hotly relevant in light of the release of comments made by the president’s chief congressional justice obstructer, Devin Nunes, at a recent Spokane Club fundraiser for 5th District Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. Nunes talked about how important it is for the GOP to keep Congress in order to “clear” the president, and his desire – which is surely no secret – to impeach the deputy attorney general, Ron Rosenstein.
“If Sessions won’t unrecuse and Mueller won’t clear the president, we’re the only ones, which is really the danger,” he can be heard saying on the recording, first aired by “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
“I mean, we have to keep all these seats. We have to keep the majority.
On the recording, Nunes talks about blocking the Mueller investigation as if he were plotting an advertising campaign. Just political spadework. Nunes has been shoveling continually as the chief misleader in Congress on behalf of the president’s frantic “witch hunt” hysteria.
He’s done all this, remember, about an investigation into the possibility that the president teamed up with a dictator who was manipulating our elections – a possibility that seems less preposterous every day. Even if turns out to be nothing, though, the only way you could know right now that the president should be cleared is by having inoculated yourself against hearing the facts when they emerge.
Further down …
“The question of principle versus political self-interest is hotly relevant in light of the release of comments made by the president’s chief congressional justice obstructer, Devin Nunes, at a recent Spokane Club fundraiser for 5th District Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. Nunes talked about how important it is for the GOP to keep Congress in order to “clear” the president, and his desire – which is surely no secret – to impeach the deputy attorney general, Ron Rosenstein.
‘If Sessions won’t unrecuse and Mueller won’t clear the president, we’re the only ones, which is really the danger,’ he can be heard saying on the recording, first aired by “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
‘I mean, we have to keep all these seats. We have to keep the majority.’
On the recording, Nunes talks about blocking the Mueller investigation as if he were plotting an advertising campaign. Just political spadework. Nunes has been shoveling continually as the chief misleader in Congress on behalf of the president’s frantic “witch hunt” hysteria.
He’s done all this, remember, about an investigation into the possibility that the president teamed up with a dictator who was manipulating our elections – a possibility that seems less preposterous every day. “
Curmudgeon at Work 