The Democrats came with knives out

It seems pretty clear that the House Republicans made a mistake in inviting former Special Counsel Robert Hur to testify Tuesday in a hearing that’s part of their impeachment inquiry against the president.

Hur, a Republican, had already accomplished what he set out to do. In a report exceeding 300 pages, Hur said Joe Biden did nothing illegal with government secrets found in his office and home. Anyway, he mused, it would be hard to prosecute him given that a jury would regard him as “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

It was a smear job and it worked. Journalist Judd Legum reported that in the four days after the release of Hur’s report, the Times, the Post and the Journal altogether ran 81 articles about his speculation about Biden’s memory. That reinforced the view, already well-established in by rightwing media apparatus, that the president is old and demented.

The intensity of that coverage was the basis for a flurry of commentary about the need, for the sake of democracy, for Joe Biden to step aside and allow the Democratic Party to pick a different nominee (who is not Vice President Kamala Harris). The intensity was so acute that people who know better – who know about the ins and outs of the nomination process – felt enough pressure to pretend they didn’t know better.

Had the House Republicans left it there, they’d be farther along than they are today. They had hoped to prolong the impact of Hur’s smear job with made-for-TV moments featuring a neutral prosecutor who’s merely doing his duty in explaining his findings in cold legal terms. Instead, by bringing him in to testify, they exposed him to the fury of the Democrats. Hur has done more to malign Biden than the GOP has done since taking control of the House. Now that’s even in doubt.

The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee undermined Hur’s report as well as his professional integrity. They turned a hearing intended to draw attention away from Donald Trump not only back to the former president’s own alleged theft of government secrets but also to his own demonstrable problems with memory and cognition.

For years, Republicans weaponized criminal investigations to sabotage the public reputations of leading Democrats. That gambit depended, however, on the Democrats giving them the benefit of the doubt and playing along out of concern for seeming overly partisan. On Tuesday, we witnessed something fairly new – Democrats tired of the bullshit.

Their partisan reaction to Hur’s demonstrably partisan investigation has pushed even members of the Washington press corps, who are long accustomed to seeing Democrats playing along with the GOP’s bad faith, into representing that reaction in their neutral reporting. Here’s the AP in a news summary after Tuesday’s testimony: “Though Hur concluded Biden should not face criminal charges, the special counsel also impugned Biden’s age and competence” (my italics).

There were four illustrative moments.

One was when California Congressman Eric Swalwell asked about a discrepancy between Hur’s report and the transcript of Hur’s interview with Biden. In the report, Hur characterized Biden as “a well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” In the transcript, however, Hur compliments Biden on his “photographic understanding and recall.”

Swalwell: “Did you say to President Biden?”

Hur: “Those words do appear on page 47 of the transcript.”

Swalwell: “Never appeared in your report.”

Hur: “It does not appear in my report.”

Hur wasn’t as conciliatory in the second moment, when Pennsylvania Congresswoman Madeleine Dean noted another discrepancy. In his report, Hur said the president could not remember when his son, Beau Biden, had died. In the transcript, it’s clear Biden remembered exactly the month and day. Dean gave Hur a chance to correct the record.

Caught in a lie, however, he doubled down. “I don’t believe that’s correct with respect to the transcript, but if you would refer me to a specific page, I’d be happy to look,” he said. Later, Dean did as asked in order “to clarify for you, Mr. Hur. From the transcription, page 82, the words are President Biden’s. ‘What month did Beau die? Oh God, May 30th.’”

The third and fourth moments were when two Democrats, Swalwell and New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, entered into evidence two videos of Trump sputtering, glitching and otherwise demonstrating his own problems with memory and cognition. They were just brutal.

The House Republicans weren’t alone. Hur made a mistake, too (and I don’t mean the mistake of being caught in a lie on national television and doubling down on it). He could have done what James Comey did. The former FBI director said an investigation determined that Hillary Clinton didn’t do anything illegal in using a private email server during her time as secretary of state. But, he told the Congress, she was “extremely careless.” Though he probably didn’t intend to smear her, that was the outcome. The rightwing media apparatus had already established she couldn’t be trusted. Comey seemed to prove it.

Hur could have said Biden didn’t do anything illegal with government secrets during his time as vice president, but like Hillary Clinton, he was “extremely careless.” Hur could have restrained himself the way Comey did, criticizing the president for alleged moral transgressions without leaving the realm of law or resorting to outright falsehoods. But unlike Comey, also a Republican, Hur appears to have given himself up entirely to the obsessions of the rightwing media apparatus.

That might explain why he and the House Republicans who brought him in to testify appeared entirely flat-footed against the fury of Democrats grown tired of the bullshit. According to the logic of the rightwing media apparatus, Democrats are too goody-goody to fight. You can smear them under the guise of criminal investigations and they’ll play along out of concern for seeming overly partisan.

That’s still true in some cases. US Attorney General Merrick Garland assigned Hur to investigate governments secrets found in Biden’s office and home, because he was a Trump-appointed US attorney. Assigning a Democrat would have seemed overly partisan. With Hur, Garland probably presumed his good faith would restrain the GOP.

He was wrong, of course, but it would be a mistake to conclude his error is his party’s error. The Democrats on the House Oversight Committee came with knives out. They were ready to fight, because they stopped believing the Republicans were acting in good faith.