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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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Former special counsel Robert Mueller testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, July 24, 2019, before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on his report on Russian election interference. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

I was loathe to write a diary entry on the spectacle that was Mueller’s testimony, but my wife left the TV on- ABC- and the special report interrupted her viewing as I walked by in the living room.  I just wanted to see Jim Jordan (R-OH) question Mueller, but had to sit through listening to people like Cedric Richmond, Karen Bass and Hakeem Jeffries before it got to Jordan.

Jordan, centering on the fact while Mueller could easily seek process offense charges against people like Michael Flynn and people like Paul Manafort for offenses having nothing to do with his existence in the first place, yet not find it in him to bring charges for lying on three documented occasions by Joseph Misfud, was an important question that needed to be answered.  Of course, St. Robert of Mueller would not or could not answer the question.  When Jordan point blank asked Mueller if Misfud was “Russian or Western intelligence,” Mueller’s non-answer gave the answer and in either case, that is not good that “some” intelligence operative was feeding disinformation to low-level Trump campaign officials.  If he was known to be Russian intelligence by Mueller, then it blows the entire collusion narrative to bits.  Worse, if it is Western intelligence, it likewise confirms the beliefs of many that this was a concerted effort by a “deep state” to thwart and resist Trump.  Your choice- which is worse?  So Mueller does not answer because he knows both choices are bad.

The Democrats were focused on Volume II of the Mueller report- the alleged five documented instances of possible obstruction of justice.  They had their game plan going in with each successive Democrat methodically moving through the alleged charge and the elements of the crime of obstruction.  It was when Ted Lieu (D-CA) questioned Mueller that caught my ear.  After laying out a methodical case, Lieu noted that the minimal threshold for an obstruction charge had been met.  Mueller responded something to the effect, “In a general sense, but I would not proscribe to that which you characterized it,” or something to that effect.

This was typical of his entire testimony: “Yes, you’re right, but not really right.”  Yet go to any MSM or Leftist website and you would think that the absolutely final nail had been secured in Trump’s presidential coffin.  You would think that the Democrats achieved their goal, often described as a “slam dunk” performance by Mueller on the more Leftist sites, and that their venerated saint had convinced America of Trump’s heinous misdeeds.

Except they seriously miscalculated.  Miscalculation is a hallmark of Democrat strategy these days.  They miscalculated with the faux outrage over Trump’s tweet, just as they did over the Helsinki Trump-Putin summit, just as they did over Charlottesville, just as they did over his candidacy and prospects of winning the general election.

The fact is, you can only be called a criminal and a racist so many times before people stop listening.  Eventually, you end up talking in a bubble chamber where very few people, relatively speaking, confirm one another.  But to a vast swath of America, the accusations are falling on deaf ears and the number of deaf ears grow with every accusation and miscalculation.

My ex-neighbor- a wonderfully nice woman- had a habit of using the “F” word as a noun, verb, adjective and adverb in practically every sentence.  At first cringeworthy, you became used to it after so many times and paid it no mind.  Such it is with the Democrats.  People- real people, not those talking heads on television- have moved way beyond 2016, Russia and Robert Mueller.  But like the mythical phoenix, they keep resurrecting a man who is starting to literally look like the crypt keeper from that old television show, “Tales From the Crypt.”

One FP writer here noted that Mueller on 198 occasions would not or could not answer a question because of whatever reason.  One wonders how many times, in response to rather specific questions, he answered, “Generally so.”

“Generally” when there is smoke, there is fire.  In this case, there is not even smoke; it is a foggy haze like a hot, humid LA morning at sunrise.  The only smoke apparent is the smoke in the skulls of Democrats and The Resistance.  So they write and they pontificate and they spin and make grand declarations that fall on deaf ears- those that count, those that will be going to the polls in 2020.  They flail and they grandstand and at the end of it all, what do they have?  Those who think “OrangeManBad” think “OrangeManBad.”  There is no reasoning with these people because they have that smoke in their head which they see through foggy eyes; there is nothing to reason with.  You are not going to undo the three year investment of hatred thus far expended.

Likewise, to many here and elsewhere who have called this three year witch hunt for what it is, Mueller’s testimony did not move the needle either.  It was the big story yesterday that will likely be forgotten in two weeks.  When you lose the likes of a website like Vox and a behemoth like Michael Moore, you know you are on the losing side in this charade.

What might actually move the needle is the ever-impending Inspector General’s report and the result of Durham’s investigation into this whole mess.  One hopes that when they are inevitably hauled before the cameras by a Congressional Committee, their answers will be more definitive, less “general,” and more supportive of the underlying findings.  Of course, those findings and reports may fall with a thud also, but one suspects not.

The only thing we learned from Mueller’s testimony is that the man is a doddering old fool which history, if told correctly, will place him among history’s fools.  He is a man who lacked control of an investigation that bore his name and a report that did the same.  And anyone who thought he would clear up the vagaries or distance himself from them is also acting foolishly.  He looked more like a trapped, stuttering rat.

If this is what the Left holds up for sainthood, then Republicans should have little problem in 2020.  Should they proceed with impeachment, then the odds look even better.  Between Mueller and the new face of the Democrats- the squad- the task became easier.  This is one time they should listen to some of those echo chambers and clear the fog from their eyes.