Dec. 12 Open Thread: Cohen Gets 3 Years, Pelosi Pwns Trump
Donald Trump’s claim that Michael Cohen’s payoff of two paramours was a “civil” rather than a criminal offense just clanged into the iron bars of reality, as Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to his role in the scheme. (AMI, the corporate parent of the National Enquirer, also admitted its role in the felony but was not charged.) In a scene that would have made riveting TV if this were a reality show instead of reality, Cohen gave an emotional speech acknowledging his crimes:
“I blame myself for the conduct which has brought me here today, and it was my own weakness and a blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light.”
Mr. Cohen said the president had been correct to call him “weak” recently, “but for a much different reason than he was implying. It was because time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass.”
Only Donald Trump could turn a two-bit bully like Michael Cohen into a sort-of sympathetic character.
One big scene that did make the reality show was the White House visit from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to talk to Trump about his insistence on his wall, which is holding up budget negotiations and has Trump talking of a government shutdown. As Ezra Klein points out, Trump doesn’t want the wall. he wants a public fight about the wall, so he did all this on live TV, where Nancy Pelosi showed why Democrats who want to dump her don’t appreciate why Republicans demonize her — she doesn’t back down from a fight. In fact, she wiped the floor with him, challenging him to put up or shut up in a way Hillary never managed to pull off. Trump claimed victory, of course — if he’d been in charge at Pearl Harbor he would have declared victory from the smoking ruins of his fleet — but she put the wood to him immediately. It was all for show, of course, but Trump hadn’t planned on losing the showdown.
Pelosi won me over. After the televised meeting she addressed Fox News questions about why she and Schumer wanted the meeting in private:
Pelosi: We don’t want to contradict the president when he is putting forth figures that have no reality, no basis in fact. We have to, if we’re going to proceed in all of this, have evidence-based, factual, truthful information about what works and what doesn’t. I didn’t want to, in front of those people, say, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She’s been successfully painted as a ‘San Francisco liberal’. But she learned strategy and tactics from her family in Baltimore before heading west. Her dad and her brother were both mayors of Baltimore. And her dad was a congressman. She’s a skilled in-fighter.
I’ve been won over as well.
Same here, Nancy rocked. Knew Trump would declare victory, it’s all he’s got. Even better he’s owned a shut down should it actually occur.
Bravo to Nancy’s performance at that meeting. That said, it’s one thing standing up to Trump; let’s see her stand up to a roomful of insurance and pharma executives. Or stand up to a centrist Dem president.
Now you see why Nancy won’t impeach Trump. Without Trump to react to, Dems have nothing.
No, you don’t want Patton leading the peace-keeping force. But we’re not in Berlin yet, either.
Strong and ethnic minority women are coming for the bitter ole white boys. Nah ha !
But I don’t know, it was good to see a strong woman push back against the pussy grabber reality show host but the 3 of them still reminded me of the retirees in my neighborhood at an HOA meeting arguing over poll vaulting mouse turds.