MULPTIPLE UPDATES: The Usual Suspects Pontificate

The usual Republican suspects are desperately seeking to distance themselves from Trump and the irate patriotic demonstrators/rioters--senators, representatives, and assorted pundits are tripping over one another in their mad dash for the sidelines. To some extent it's understandable. Nobody wants to be identified with mob action that has no coherent leadership. On the other hand, as some have also noted, there's a distinct lack of perspective. If you examine the claimed provocation, the reaction may not seem so disproportionate as is being stated. 

Don Surber takes Powerline's John Hinderaker to task for Hinderaker's Trump Has Gone Nuts. In fact, of course, Hinderaker's colleagues Paul Mirengoff and Scott Johnson have also been howling at the Trump moon, denouncing Trump for the losses in Georgia and now for the storming of the Capitol. However, prominent law professor Glenn Reynolds neatly fisks Hinderaker in one sentence (Reynolds' words are in red):

JOHN HINDERAKER:

President Trump is right in saying that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud. I think he is quite likely right, although no one knows for sure, in alleging that absent fraud he would have been re-elected. But his conduct has nevertheless become indefensible. . . . At this point, it is blindingly obvious that Trump has no pathway to victory. To the extent that Democrats committed or enabled voter fraud, they have done so successfully. There never was a plausible way to challenge the certified results in any state in the 60+ days between the election and the inauguration. Whether fraud occurred, sufficient to reverse an apparent result in any state, is a complicated question of fact that would require months, if not years, to litigate fairly.

Battles in support of election integrity needed to be fought in advance of the election, not afterward, when it is too late. But the Trump campaign, for some unfathomable reason, was seemingly unprepared for the foreseeable prevalence of voter fraud. Even when the election was over, Trump scrambled to put together a legal team.

Actually he had two high-powered law firms, well-equipped for this sort of battle, who were intimidated into dropping their representation by a campaign of social-media threats.

This is just one more of the shameful miscarriages of civilized standards we've witnessed in the last four years--to be added to the list that commenter Cassander came up with. That law firms should drop representation of a client solely because that client is unpopular with a political faction--not because of anything unethical that they have been asked to do--is a disgrace that should call for sanctioning by bar associations. 

Moreover, it's not true that Trump failed to take action before the election. Recall: an attempt was made to challenge the lawless actions of the Dem executive and judicial authorities in PA in disregard of clear legislation before the election. The Roberts SCOTUS refused to even consider the case on utterly specious grounds in a 4-4 decision. This is only one example of the hostile disregard for law that Trump has faced throughout his administration.

Indeed, liberal law professor Jonathan Turley points out the TDS knows no bounds when it comes to the legal establishment attacking Trump:

For many legal analysts, President Donald Trump remains a type of criminal Midas figure: everything he says or does turns instantly into a crime. 

Over the last few years, the media has published a long line of unfounded criminal theories by experts claiming that a tweet or a meeting or a statement established a clear prosecutable case. It is a popular and profitable take with the media which has been feeding an insatiable appetite for such reassuring views. 

Law has become a recreation and legal analysts have become part of the legal entertainment.

This pattern is continuing to the very end of the Trump Administration.

Turley is referring to the baseless claims that Trump committed a crime by speaking to the GA SoS Raffy-what's-his-name. Read it all if you need to be convinced. Another liberal legal voice, Alan Dershowitz, has also denounced the baseless claims.

What's so disturbing in all this is not so much that liberals lie and cheat. That's a given. It's that Republicans are so eager to join in this despicable attacks on Trump. One need look no further than Mitch McConnell's very disingenuous statement today in which he claims--contrary to all the known facts--that Trump's claims of fraud have been thoroughly reviewed and rejected by the courts. As if Texas and all the states that joined with TX had actually received a hearing on the merits.

Whatever the outcome of today's events, I doubt that the hypocrisy at play will go unnoticed by citizens across the fruited plain.

UPDATE 1: Steve Sailer captures more of the lack of perspective, originally pointed out by commenter aNanyMouse--Alternative Timeline NYT: Mostly Peaceful Protesters Call for Electoral Accountability Inside Capitol.

UPDATE 2:

INCREDIBLE VIDEO

This guy was next to the woman shot and killed in cold blood by Capitol Hill Police. Could’ve been anyone, completely unacceptable!!! pic.twitter.com/dk0AneW3B9

— Assistant Groyper (@AsstGroyper) January 6, 2021

UPDATE 3: Jonathan Turley yesterday, but it says it all about why all those people were there:

Jonathan Turley

@JonathanTurley

A court had to order Fulton county to remove posters blocking the view of observers and to force the county to allow observers to move closer (10 feet). What is astonishing is that the Georgia officials forced such reasonable requests to be litigated in the courts.

After all of the concerns and controversies, why would Fulton county election officials resist such a basic access for observers?  These are simple measures to help assure voters that there is transparency and access. This only fuels the suspicions of roughly 40 percent of voters.

Paul Sperry

@paulsperry_

Smug DC elite disrespected 63 mil voters, dismissing them as deplorables & smelly Wal-Mart trash, and subverted their will for 4 years. When 74 mil doubled down on Trump, they wrote them off as chumps & racists.And now they wonder why they'd be angry enough to storm the Bastille?

Know what's "banana republic crap"? Using intel agencies to investigate & spy on a presidential campaign based on the false political oppo research of his opponent, then ambushing his NSA & setting in motion a slow-moving coup of his presidency. Biden has nerve to talk of sedition.

And now we have to watch the usual suspects pontificate as if there were no context for what happened today? And pretend that if these had been Leftists the narrative wouldn't have been entirely different?

UPDATE 4: Will they finally get their coup? We may hear about that from McConnell tonight. For four long years they've been trying to frame Trump, egg him into doing something--anything--they can twist, demeaning him, lying and misrepresenting him. And he's no longer allowed a public defense. Shame:

Facebook and Twitter are now outright removing Trump posts. Nothing like a wildly exaggerated "crisis" to justify censorship that will eventually be used on everyone else

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 6, 2021

UPDATE 5: Housley isn't the only one asking this:

During protests this summer I saw mountains of law enforcement on the Capitol steps...were they there today? Why not? Who made the call on this? These questions need to be answered immediately.

— Adam Housley (@adamhousley) January 6, 2021

UPDATE 6:

This is my city, DC, on fire — last May. I didn’t receive a single text message on that night. But this afternoon my inbox was flooded with concerned messages from friends & family. We supposedly don’t believe the media anymore, yet it still manages to shape our perceptions. pic.twitter.com/U2hKMRH5Yx

— Mike (@Doranimated) January 7, 2021