Where’s The Beef?

The new impeachment inquiry lacks protein (or evidence). It's not a Double-Double, or a Quarter-Pounder, but it is a Whopper.

The famous Clara Peller query on behalf of Wendy’s was memorable both for her age and tenacity. In addition to becoming an instant star of the popular culture, she challenged other fast-fooders to show evidence that their burgers were meatier.

Throughout American history, we’ve celebrated those who brought it, and dismissed the empty-handed grifters who hoped to take us for a ride. P.T. Barnum said of suckers, there’s one born every minute. In 1926, Chicago columnist H.L Mencken wrote, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.” A cynical but supportable thesis.

Now we have the speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, willing to sacrifice the important work—currently the only work of Congress, paying the bills—to keep his caucus’s far-right rabble-rousers from eviscerating him publicly. One wonders what kind of job is worth one’s self-respect, but that takes a backseat to wondering why certain Republican politicians continually put party over country, or in Kevin’s case, job over country.

With the noose dangling over his expensively coifed hair, Speaker McCarthy has started an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, without a scintilla of evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors, making me ask in my best Clara Peller voice, “Where’s the beef?”

Bill Clinton was impeached on the evidentiary record of a stained blue dress and lying under oath. Donald Trump was impeached twice (he can’t stand to be outdone) on the evidentiary record of a “perfect” call on which he threatened Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy with withholding American aid (that Congress had already authorized and paid for) unless he dug up dirt on his anticipated political opponent, Joe Biden. The second time was for January 6^th as he sat in an Oval Office anteroom eating cheeseburgers and watching on TV as his minions attacked the Capitol, threatened to “Hang Mike Pence,” and letting police officers be beaten with flagpoles flying his banner (and the American flag).

Party of law and order, anyone?

So far, the nine month investigation seeking to link Joe Biden with his son’s activities has yielded bupkis. The Speaker got his coveted job—after many, many embarrassing rounds of voting by promising his mutinous faction that he’d allow them to bully him. So when Matt Gaetz (R-Floriduh) threatened McCarthy the other day by saying he had “failed to comply” with his deal with the devil, the game was up, and Kevin had to comply, agreeing to further sacrifice his manhood, and our country in the process, by starting impeachment inquiries.

The game here is nakedly exposed, and they don’t care who knows it. The goal is to flood the media zone with unsupported accusations in the hope that they’ll achieve a kind of whataboutism victory in support of the effort to create a false equivalency between Biden and Trump. They want us to believe that Biden is Trump, and that what Trump did and represents is really quite normal, figuring this kind of funhouse logic will get The Former Guy elected, and push us further into the autocracy they crave.

As with any other person, if Hunter Biden is guilty of breaking the law, he must be prosecuted in the appropriate legal venue. So far, his accusers are using the court of public opinion to vilify him and his father, but as The Donald refuses to learn, the court of public opinion is not a court of law.

Conservative columnist Bret Stephens: “Ron DeSantis was right when he said at the debate that America is a nation in decline and that decline is a choice. He just wasn’t right in the way he meant it. We’re in decline because a spirit of lawlessness, shamelessness and brainlessness has become a leading feature of a conservative movement that was supposed to be a bulwark against all three.”

And in case they can’t square that circle, they’ll continue to declare Biden too old and unfit to be president. Fox has run that clip of him tripping over a sandbag more than ESPN made us watch Washington quarterback Joe Theismann’s leg being snapped like a dry twig. I still can’t unsee that. Repetition is a time-tested persuasive device.

“Conservative” has become a particularly incorrect description of the current Republican Party. “Authoritarian” or “radical” seems more apt.

Actual conservative, Mona Charon, wrote, “There is just no way to watch Biden’s Hanoi press conference and not recognize that his brain is working fine. He responds to questions in appropriate fashion. His words are diplomatically chosen, and his thoughts follow in logical order. He remembers what he just said a few minutes ago and doesn’t repeat himself (or not more than the average politician).”

Remember, she’s no fan, but also no liar. Like me, actual conservatives are wondering, “Where’s the beef?”

©2023 Jon Sinton