It was brutal…BROOO-TAL!
Had it been a beer league softball game the mercy rule would have been imposed, before the first pitch.
But this didn’t take place on the diamond. It was at a congressional hearing in DC. And the chair of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, our old pal Rep. Jamie Comer (R-TheFrankfortLoop) emerged from it all like a punch-drunk lightweight who traded blows with Mike Tyson.
Comer, who, for all the world, comes across as an extra in a regional theater production of Li’l Abner, has spent a substantial amount of time, energy, and ignorance over the past year and two months making the case that President Biden, the seemingly mild-mannered grandpa-like figure puttering around the White House lawn, is really the leader, the copo di tutti copi, of the biggest crime syndicate to threaten the American Way of Life™ since Whitey Bulger ran Boston.
It has been Jamie’s theory that Biden is covertly engaged in a worldwide influence-peddling racket, starting with his tenure as Vice President under President Barack Obama and continuing to this very day, with his once woebegone-now-recovered son, Hunter, serving as the front man, taking jobs with connections to sordid governments like Russia and China, thus stuffing the Biden Crime Family’s pockets with millions — hell, maybe zillions — of dollars.
Jamie knows this, despite all those naysayers out there, because Boss Biden would, on occasion, call his son while he was in a meeting with his business associates and/or clients and offer a quick hello. And, on occasion, he would meet his son for dinner when the latter was entertaining associates to line up some business deals.
That’s about the size of it, folks.
Sheesh, what more do you people want?
And then, of course, there’s the $5 million bribe from an official with Burisma, a now defunct Ukraine energy outfit that included Hunter Biden on the company board. The story goes that Biden accepted the dough while serving as Veep to get rid of a nosy prosecutor digging into Burisma business.
Of course we now know this tale was made up — a lie – circulated by an unreliable FBI informant working in behalf of the Russians.
Details, details!
At any rate, it’s fair to say Jamie’s labors in behalf of his country and the Republican Party looking for a leg up in the November election haven’t, well, proved to be a resounding success. In fact, as far as disasters go, you might want to say the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was a simple wienie roast in comparison.
Jamie has proved unable to come up with the teeniest, tiniest bit of evidence that Biden needs to be impeached post haste to save the nation. And it all came down around Jamie’s bloated ego on Wednesday during a hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee that ultimately devolved into a sort of a Friar’s Club roast of Comer Pyle.
It took Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the panel’s ranking member and the man who earned the moniker “The Smart Jamie” during these proceedings, to point out that none of the nearly 20 fact witnesses called on by Comer to testify before the committee could “identify a single act of wrongdoing by President Biden, much less a high crime and misdemeanor, and who overwhelmingly testified that Biden was not involved in any of his family’s business ventures.”
Bank records further failed to establish any wrongdoing by the president, primarily because he didn’t do anything wrong.
“Today Chairman Comer and his ace MAGA detectives have finally jumped the shark,” Raskin said. “The comedy of errors comes crashing to an end as House Republicans in more than a dozen Biden districts beg for mercy and the Committee throws a flabby Hail Mary more than a month after the Super Bowl is over.”
But the real coup de grace came from a witness, Lev Parnas, a Ukraine-born American businessman who worked with former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani on behalf of The Rapist, erstwhile President Donald J. Trump. Their job was to dig up some Ukrainian dirt that could be used against Biden in Trump’s unsuccessful re-election bid against him in 2020. The $5 million bribe claim, a lie, was circulated by Russian elements and embraced by Republicans.
“The American people have been lied to, by Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and various cohorts of individuals in government and media positions,” Parnas told the committee. “They created falsehoods to serve their own interests, knowing it would undermine the strength of our nation.”
Biden, Parnas said, remains victimized by “a bunch of false information that is being spread by the Kremlin.”
“The only information ever pushed on the Bidens and Ukraine has come from one source and one source only: Russia and Russian agents,” he said.
With that information in hand, and Comer and the Republicans unable to uncover evidence that could convict Biden for so much as jaywalking, the session became as chippy as your average NBA game, with Democrats openly taunting Comer for his failure to produce.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) who entered the committee room in a Vladimir Putin mask, which may have made some of the GOP members comfy-cozy, basically dared Comer to impeach Biden on the spot.
“I think we should do it today, let’s just call for it,” said Moskowitz, who has been a thorn in poor Jamie’s side since the inquiry began. “I’ll make the motion, Mr. Chairman. I want to help you out. You can second it, right? Like, make the motion to impeach President Biden. You second it. No? Nothing. Okay, we got nothing.”
Comer viewed the entire Moskowitz routine with the perpetually perplexed visage that has marked his time as presiding officer. One has to wonder who will play Jamie in the movie about this whole mess since the obvious choice, fellow Kentuckian Jim Varney, is dead.
Despite being reduced to being universally seen as a complete and utter failure, Comer is still in there pitching, ignoring sensible advice that he call the whole thing off, announcing after the hearing that he intends to invite the president to appear before his committee.
“In the coming days, I will invite President Joe Biden to the House Oversight Committee to provide his own testimony and explain why his family received tens of millions of dollars from foreign companies with his assistance in to testify,” Jamie wrote on X.
Testify about what? Not committing any high crimes or misdemeanors?
Three presidents, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Gerald Ford, have given testimony to congressional committees – Ford, the most recent, was called to explain his pardon for former President Richard Nixon. The chances of Biden actually appearing are about as remote as Pluto, whether it’s a planet or not.
It is hard to imagine an inquiry of this stature being conducted in a more abysmal fashion. Comer undertook this operation simply to enhance Republican chances at the polls, and his effort has resulted in an avalanche of innuendo and lies. As one Democratic committee member put it, the probe has uncovered more evidence against Trump that it has against Biden.
Jamie Comer is a failure.
Traveling further along this path will show just what a dope he really is.
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Written by Bill Straub, a member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame. Cross-posted from the NKY Tribune.
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