Tea at Trianon: Jeff Sessions and the Benefit of the Doubt

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, December 18, 2017

Jeff Sessions and the Benefit of the Doubt

From The American Thinker:

Jeff Sessions must keep his hands clean of this entire investigation, letting the OIG present its findings and recommendations. If I.G. recommends prosecution, A.G. Sessions can follow the OIG recommendations and unleash the cannons on the swamp creatures. Sure, the media and their Democrat allies will explode with rage, but it will be a politically independent organization making the recommendations, not the Trump administration, whether the president or his A.G.

Despite the left making this entirely political, for Trump to deliver a knockout punch, he has to let Lady Justice swing the axe. He has to keep politics out of his counterpunch. Will Rod Rosenstein be fired, as some fake news sources suggest? Or is he in on the OIG sting operation? Deliberately staying quiet so events can play out, as Sundance described? For now, I give A.G. Sessions the benefit of the doubt, that for optical and political reasons, he is lying low. For the OIG investigation to play out as desired, he has little choice. With the OIG report due early next year, this may indeed be the calm before the storm. Thousands of sealed indictments. Members of Congress retiring or not seeing re-election. Trump acting happy and confident, whether in speeches or on Twitter. (Read more.)