The right’s Loretta Lynch freakshow
by digby
I wrote a piece for Salon this morning about the Loretta Lynch circus hearings yesterday in which the Democrats called law professors and colleagues to testify about Lynch while the Republicans called cranks and kooks from the depths of the fever swamps:
The first person to testify was someone who had never met or had any knowledge of Loretta Lynch. This was former reporter and current right-wing icon Sharyl Attkisson who told a harrowing story of harassment, including her questionable allegation that the government bugged her computer, obviously shocking the likes of Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch to the depth of their souls. It’s one thing for the government to relentlessly pursue reporters like James Risen who report serious and important stories. They wholeheartedly support the Justice Department in such cases. Attkisson, however, resigned from CBS News because she felt the entire network was biased in favor of the Obama administration and refused to allow her to pursue the scandals she just knew were there. (These were scandals like Benghazi and Fast and Furious — scandals that have been investigated approximately 756 times under every committee in the Congress and have turned up zilch.) Somehow they’ve managed to morph this professional dispute into a story of Attkisson being victimized by the authoritarian police state.
It would have been interesting to hear testimony about the government’s pursuit of leaks and reporters over the past few years, which really is a scandal and which should form the basis of questioning for the new attorney general. But since both parties are generally in favor of this practice, that wasn’t to be. Instead the Republicans called one of their celebrity martyrs to testify about how hard it is for a conservative to live in this world.
Read on for the rundown on the rest of the freakshow.
It’s clear they’re flexing their very rusty muscles for the upcoming Clinton scandal fest. They are so out of shape they’re going to have to go on the political equivalent of The Biggest Loser.
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