The Disingenuous Defense of President Trump

Republicans on the Capitol Hill would have you believe that President Trump was merely expressing a wish when he told the President of Ukraine he’d like him to investigate Joe Biden:  “do us a favor”.

The backdrop of the conversation was that military aid had been authorized but not yet released.

The immediate response of Congressional Democrats to the request was to cry “quid pro quo” and seize upon it as their best basis for impeachment.

Leave aside whether the purported exchange – even if true – is a sufficient reason for President Trump’s removal.  (The Sensible Conservative says no.)

The high probability remains, though, that an implicit quid pro quo was precisely what Trump meant to convey.

Republicans, and the “Sean Hannitys” of the right, dispute this characterization, citing the fact that the actual language used by the President was not a demand or a formal offer.

Get real.  Put yourself in a business setting.  You’re a subordinate who has asked for a raise from your boss. You haven’t received a response yet when he says he’d “like” you to do something.  Do you think the soft phrasing means that your business superior is giving you an option?  You’ve just received a directive couched politely.  (If you don’t understand that you won’t be long with that company!)

And so the President’s backers taking that line are either fools or insincere.  I will give them credit for being the latter.  That approach from a political perspective has short term advantages in that it confuses many as to what exactly was President Trump’s motivation during the subject telephone call.  But it’s not honest.  Long-term, however, that posture undercuts  Republican attacks that Democrats are deceiving the American public on what they say and promise regarding their true left-wing agenda.  Is the GOP lying about that, too?