'Joe Biden falls victim to Democrats' special prosecutor delusion'

[Rob H.]

Good read at Salon today--article is here, excerpt follows.

Edit: I wish I could post more because the author's summation of Hurr's report is perfect, imho.

Joe Biden falls victim to Democrats' special prosecutor delusion
Special prosecutor is a Republican job, no matter what

By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON
Columnist

Perhaps someday Democrats will learn their lesson but I'm not holding out much hope at this point. They suffer from an inexplicable habit of allowing only Republicans to hold the job of a special prosecutor. This has been going on for decades now and the results have been predictable each time.

For Democrats, the idea is to prove how noble and non-partisan they are in comparison to the hacks on the GOP side but it just ends up coming back to bite them in the end. The habit goes back to Watergate after President Richard Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox, a Democrat, in the Saturday Night Massacre. Nixon had Cox replaced with one of his supporters, Texas Judge Leon Jaworski, whom everyone assumed would be sympathetic to the president. As it turned out, Jaworski was appalled by what he saw and issued subpoenas for Nixon's White House tapes, a case that eventually wound up in the Supreme Court. However, it was later revealed that Jaworski didn't agree with the Grand Jury's recommendation to criminally indict the president and resigned from the job just as the cover-up trials began. As we know, it all became moot when President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon.

When the Reagan White House came under investigation for the Iran-Contra Affair, a Republican judge named Lawrence Walsh was appointed by a three-judge panel under the new independent counsel statute. Walsh was a pretty zealous prosecutor and uncovered quite a bit of dirt but in the end, he was thwarted by President George H. W. Bush and his Attorney General William Barr, who pardoned all the possible defendants just before Bush left office in 1992. Funny how that worked out for Republicans again.:

During the Clinton years, Attorney General Janet Reno named Republican Robert Fiske as special prosecutor to investigate the Whitewater scandal and he was later replaced in the job by ultra conservative Republican judge Kenneth Starr after Clinton himself signed the reauthorization of the Independent Counsel Act giving a three-judge panel of right-wing partisans the ability to assign one of their cronies.

I'll never forget when Newt Gingrich and the House Republicans put the Starr Report, sight unseen, on the internet only to find out that it was a downright pornographic romance novel (partly written by the man who became Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh) which had as much resemblance to a legal document as a grocery store receipt. It ushered in a new era in right-wing hit jobs that ended up backfiring on the Republicans but not before causing massive damage to the lives and reputations of dozens of people. (....)

[dalton99a]

1. Because Republicans are arbiters of impartiality and truth

[FalloutShelter]

2. Because Republicans are liars and untrustworthy partners in our Democracy.

[hlthe2b]

3. I only wish that the handful of DUers who would most benefit from reading this piece...

WOULD.

[yardwork]

4. This is an excellent column.

This right here:

For Democrats, the idea is to prove how noble and non-partisan they are in comparison to the hacks on the GOP side but it just ends up coming back to bite them in the end.

Our delusion is that Republican voters mean what they say when they complain about bad morals, gridlock, the need for bipartisanship, etc. it's been proven over and over that Republican voters, for the most part, don't care at all about those things. They're just excuses for voting against Democrats. These supposedly deeply held beliefs get tossed aside when a Republican does them.

We need to stop falling for this. It makes us weak to keep willfully misunderstanding our opponents. And they are our opponents.

[getagrip_already]

5. The standing tradition is to appoint sc from the opposing party

So a repugnant to investigate a d, and a d to investigate an r.

Of course that's only observed by garland. Mueller was a very republican choice, and as it turns out, senile at the time he was chosen.

[mzmolly]

6. Excellent article

as others have stated. When will Dems learn?

[republianmushroom]

8. Maybe, someday, but, not today or tomorrow.

[mzmolly]

9. :(

Let's hope it doesn't' cost us our democracy.

[greblach]

7. Thanks for this article excerpt

Gonna have to read the whole thing, great summary!