UPDATED: Ed Rogers Hits A Grand Slam

There's been no lack of commentary on the absurd "Bill Barr lied" meme that the Dems--in Congress and in the MSM--are pushing. It's obvious desperation yet, incredibly, the Dems are sticking with it. Andy McCarthy starts his latest with this:

I originally thought this was too stupid to write about. But stupid is like the plague inside the Beltway — one person catches it and next thing you know there’s an outbreak at MSNBC and the speaker of the House is showing symptoms while her delirious minions tote ceramic chickens around Capitol Hill.

But I think Ed Rogers gets to the important point of what's going on in his WaPo article, Did Nancy Pelosi just jump the shark? A few excerpts follow, but first a few comments.

The core of Roger's argument is this:

If you don’t tell Congress what it wants to hear, then you are by default lying and, hence, a criminal.

By this logic, truth is no longer an absolute. It is a relative norm. 

I believe this is a fair characterization of Dem "logic." But in that case, how do you carry on a conversation with people who, effectively, are holding their hands over their ears? Why would anyone who doesn't accept the views of Dems even bother going before the House?

But there's a bigger picture as well. The notion that truth is a "relative norm" rather than an absolute is not a new idea for Dems. It's the Orthodoxy--how's that for irony?--that they've been drilling into young Americans in our schools for several generations now. Are you a man or a woman? What do you feel like? By that logic, the idea that Bill Barr lied because he failed to say what Dems wanted him to say makes perfect sense.

The fact that Dem leadership no longer knows what the endgame is? Well, that's their problem, isn't it? But the fact that this mentality--I won't say "this way of thinking"--now controls a major political party is a problem for the entire country. If this is the hole that the Dems can't get out of, then the electorate gets to pass judgment.

As Rogers says, this is what "falling apart" looks like. But when so many people are this deranged, and are egged on by the MSM, Rogers may well be right in urging everyone to "buckle their seat belts." But there's far too much at stake here to allow this to continue.

Did House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) just jump the shark? By stating unequivocally that Attorney General William P. Barr lied to Congress and adding, as if for emphasis, that it is a crime, Pelosi may have thought she was just getting in front of her herd of angry Democrats. But inadvertently, the speaker also revealed, in stark relief, a disturbing new trend in our politics: If you don’t tell Congress what it wants to hear, then you are by default lying and, hence, a criminal.

By this logic, truth is no longer an absolute. It is a relative norm. Barr is never fast and loose with the truth. His real sin, in the eyes of the shouting Democrats, may simply involve being too serious for a day in which men such as Michael Avenatti are able to look in the mirror and see a president.

... 

It’s not clear that Democratic leadership knows what its endgame really is. Across the board, polling shows public support for impeachment dwindling, even among Democrats. ... 

Cooler heads in the Democratic camp read these numbers and foresee the disaster to which the march to impeachment would likely lead. But if the speaker’s pronouncement is any indication, the rational thinkers are being shouted out by those who are driven by fear. ... 

As Hiram Johnson, a progressive senator from California, noted more than a hundred years ago, the first casualty in war is truth. Feeling robbed by Mueller of the grounds with which to wage war against President Trump, the Democrats have been reduced to calling Barr a liar and to characterizing him as a chicken. What does falling apart look like? Fear and desperation have usually led us down the bumpiest roads in our history. Maybe it is time for everyone to buckle their seat belts.

UPDATE: In an article scheduled to appear tomorrow in the WSJ, Liberals Nod as Comey Begs the Question: If you’re smart, why consider opinions other than your own?, Barton Swaim offers a similar view:

Former FBI director James Comey published an op-ed last week asserting that President Trump has “eaten” Attorney General William Barr’s “soul.” Mr. Comey’s piece is a remarkable exercise in question-begging—a series of bald assertions that assume their own truth. 

It begins with this rhetorical question: “How could Mr. Barr . . . start channeling the president in using words like ‘no collusion’ and FBI ‘spying’?” If you don’t already agree that Mr. Barr’s words are outrageous and borderline-criminal, Mr. Comey makes no effort to bring you along. So it goes for another 800 words. ...

In that sense, Mr. Comey’s op-ed nicely captures what ails present-day American liberalism. Its defining characteristic is a labored ignorance of the other side. Liberals frequently neither know nor care to learn what nonliberals think. Their own views predominate in the universities and media; why bother considering lesser ones? Liberals take the other side seriously mainly when it has the bad manners to win an election and hold power.

...

It is the peculiar failing of highly educated elites to believe that their own views need no defense and have no opponents worth thinking about. Once you take that attitude, you’re a soft touch for duplicitous self-promoters such as a certain former FBI director.