Tea at Trianon: Burisma: A Double Standard

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

Friday, November 22, 2019

Burisma: A Double Standard

From Cheryl Chumley at The Washington Times:

On Biden, where the quid pro quo intent was obvious — where Joe Biden actually bragged about threatening to hold up $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine unless then-President Petro Poroshenko fired a prosecutor who was investigating, in part, Burisma Holdings, where Hunter served as a board member — it’s all conspiracy theory and tin hat crazy to suggest anything nefarious, to call for deeper scrutiny. Biden, we’re told, was simply rooting out corruption, taking a tough-guy approach, and after all, that’s what a good vice president who loves his country should do. Right?

But on President Donald Trump, where a quid pro quo with newly elected Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky is alleged but denied and unproven — it’s impeach, impeach, impeach. It’s automatically assumed Trump, by simply referencing “Biden’s son” in a July 25 telephone call to Zelensky, was making a not-so-veiled threat to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to an investigation of Hunter Biden’s Burisma dealings, and of Joe Biden’s influence in Ukraine. It’s automatically alleged that Trump was using his presidential position as a platform to bribe, for political gain. (Read more.)