17 November 2019

Incompetence Is Not a Defense

Frank Bruni at the New York Times wrote a great piece on Friday (link here) titled "To Excuse Trump, Republicans Embrace Fantasy." He highlights how they ignore what's patently obvious and instead invent elaborate scenarios and theories to protect Donald Trump.

He focuses early in the piece on one of the major current GOP talking point defenses of Trump — that he was too incompetent to really extort Ukraine and that the military aide was not delayed by more than a few days without that country making any of the concessions that the President wanted to help his reelection campaign.

Bruni wrote the following to highlight the absurdity of that position: "I came to your house with a gun.... I tied you to a chair, took a step back and repeatedly fired. But my arm twitched; every bullet missed. Meanwhile, you slipped your knots and fled."

In Republicans eyes, that would not be a crime. But of course it is, several serious felonies, in fact.

If you intend to commit a crime and try to commit a crime, your failure really isn't that important. Because your intent and attempt demonstrate how you'll just try it again sometime soon if you're not punished in the interim.


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