In Washington, Robert Mueller put out information on two of the main culprits he is going after, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort. Are they guilty? More important, did they spill the beans on Donald Trump?
Suppose you went to a college football game between two rivals. The next day you read newspaper reports from the home cities of both teams. Amazingly, you wonder if the writers watched the same game.
Well, it’s the same with this “Mueller game.” Of course, President Trump claims there was no connection between the charges against those two and Russian influence in his election. Trump’s opponents claim the charges show a clear path to immediate impeachment.
Former FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress behind closed doors. Even though it was not public, he refused to answer a lot of interesting questions. The transcript of his answers was released, with whole sections blacked out. So we still don’t know his role (or President Obama’s role) in deciding who’s phones would be tapped during the Trump and Clinton campaigns in 2016.
George H. W. Bush took a final train ride, from Houston to his final resting place at Texas A&M University. His family had a great history with railroads and he enjoyed train rides. In the week since his death, everyone, especially media folks, was heaping praise on him, as a gentleman, a warrior, and for his life time of public service.
I read an interesting statistic about media coverage during Bush’s 1992 campaign. Even though the economy was rapidly recovering from a downturn in1990, over 90 percent of stories on the economy were negative. Then miraculously, in the month after the election of Bill Clinton, almost 90 percent of similar stories were positive.
Here’s an interesting question about the Bush presidency. How might it have changed if Republicans had controlled Congress those four years? As it was, Democrats had solid control of both the House and Senate.
Historic quote by Will Rogers:
“At the great San Diego World’s Fair yesterday [former president Herbert] Hoover received a tremendous ovation.
There is no country in the world where a person changes from a hero to a goat, and a goat to a hero, or vice versa, as they do with us. And all through no change in them. The change is always with us. It’s not our public men that you can’t put your finger on. It’s our public. We are the only fleas weighing over 100 pounds. We don’t know what we want, but are ready to bite somebody to get it.” DT #2768, June 19, 1935