Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has run out of arguments and is now stooping to the lowest form of argumentation: ad hominem attacks on the president. The New American covered the “blow up” of Wednesday’s three-minute meeting between Trump and Pelosi at the White House. Pelosi initiated the firestorm by accusing the president of a coverup before a left-wing group just hours before the meeting.
On Thursday, she added fuel to that firestorm by telling NBC News that Trump’s actions were “villainous” after earlier suggesting that Trump’s family and/or staff should “intervene” in order to remove him from his position as president.
Naturally, the president struck back, telling reporters Thursday afternoon that “she’s a mess.… I watched Nancy and she was all crazy yesterday.”
Pelosi is determined to get the facts to the American people: “We do believe that it’s important to follow the facts. We believe that no one is above the law, including the president of the United States. And we believe that the president of the United States is engaged in a cover-up.”
The problem is that the facts have already been revealed, and what’s more, the American people are tired of the whole mess and want Congress to get back to work.
That the facts have come from the conclusions of a study headed by an obvious partisan with a sketchy background makes them even more persuasive. Representative Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) issued a 48-page report on Robert Mueller’s shady background last year: “Robert Mueller has a long and sordid history of illicitly targeting innocent people that is a stain upon the legacy of American jurisprudence. He lacks the judgment and credibility to lead the prosecution of anyone. I do not make these statements lightly.”
He explained, “What I have accumulated here is absolutely shocking upon the realization that Mueller’s disreputable, twisted history speaks to the character of the man placed in a position to attempt to legalize a coup against a lawfully-elected President.”
In other words, if dreadfully corrupt and partisan Mueller could not — after spending millions of dollars and investing hundreds of hours with his partisan staff to ferret out Trump’s misdoings — find anything, there was nothing to be found.
Which means that Trump can’t legitimately be charged with covering up something that didn’t happen.
The American people see it even if Pelosi and her four staff members pushing for impeachment don’t. A Harvard-Harris poll just released finds that 65 percent of Americans say that Congress should NOT begin impeachment proceedings against the president while 60 percent agree with Attorney General William Barr that “the facts and public actions of President Trump did not amount to obstruction of justice, especially since there was no underlying collusion.”
And 58 percent of those polled believe that “Given the Mueller report … we should turn the page on investigations of President Trump.”
For Pelosi, the news couldn’t be worse. Eighty percent of those polled want their “congressional representatives working more on infrastructure, health care and immigration [than] investigations of President Trump.”
Yet she persists. Completely disarmed, she now reverts to the lowest form of argumentation: argumentum ad hominem, a fallacious argumentative strategy that attacks the character, motive, and personal attributes of Donald Trump.
It could very well prove to be a losing strategy for Pelosi and the Democrats. They will find out next November.
Photo: AP Images
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American, writing primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at [email protected].
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