TWGB: Words Mean Things

Here is Prof. Turley in 1998 arguing that President Clinton should be impeached because he had "deprived himself of the perceived legitimacy to govern" with his conduct. Turley thinks oral sex triggers impeachment but abuses of power involving national security don't. pic.twitter.com/O1mtOTYtC1

— Amee Vanderpool (@girlsreallyrule) December 4, 2019

I'm not supposed to sit here and lambaste Jonathan Turley for his 1998 opinions because, I, too, was alive in 1998 and had opinions, and man! Deep down I did not enjoy that I had a particular opinion regarding the legitimacy of, for example, Clarence Thomas's ability to sit on the highest bench in the land as an accused sex creep, and being convinced my President (the first one I ever voted for!) did in fact have an albeit consensual, but wildly inappropriate relationship with an intern and tried to cover it up. That, no shit, played with my mind. The significance of the office and power of the job meant that President Clinton could try to suborn perjury in a youthful and vulnerable person and manipulate her ability to answer to questions I also felt that, at that time, were not actually Congress's business to pursue, as I could not fathom how that particular abuse of office was specific to his job as president, and not just basic sex-creep shit. Men, I had already established in my roughly same-age as Monica Lewinski and first-time around married life brain, did gross shit. But at least Clinton was still handling business. I was entirely ready to defend what I saw as Clinton's attention to business. He was doing his meta-job in office of seeing to the economy and bombing the fuck out of Iraq so that they didn't have a WMD program for a future president to credibly lie about-heh (I have long had shitty-ass centrist leanings, and there is lots about the '90's that primed me for them).

So I just want to recall that back then, the argument was fixated on the meaning of "is". This is a thing that has, in its way, defined "Clintonism". For certain values of liberal, Clinton triangulated along law'n'order, business-positive, technocratic lines (watch yourself, young Buttigieg--it isn't Obama that you're emulating as a red state educated white wunderkind). But the concept that Clinton was slippery and not entirely truthful was summed up by the "meaning of is". This got trumpeted far and wide. To the best of my ability this far after the fact to parse the legalese and tv-friendly language upon which this argument rests, I am left with the bro-code's unwritten value that "Eating is not cheating.". This is something even the husband to the current ambassador to the Vatican, would very readily understand. Was oral sex even considered sex? (I effectively presume it is, as a person who does not in fact, mouthfuck people ad libitum. Extensive "verbal" contracts are, perforce, observed.)



Do words have meaning--they must! Law cannot function without definitions of crimes. How else could we understand what a charge was let alone whether an individual was guilty of it? This is why Turley defined himself as a man who voted for Hillary Clinton, but opened with the idea that criminal charges should be well-defined, and that the impeachment was not looking into the actual criminal definitions of what Trump had done. This is sheer "meaning of is" kind of thinking. Did Trump expressly hew to the legalistic definition of "Extortion or bribery"? Are we here to parse what "is" means? What "Extortion" means or what "bribery" means? Those things are well-established. It is like the interruption Nadler faced at the beginning of the hearing, when he was asked to expound upon the House rules for the benefit of people who should already know them. The members of the judiciary committee should already be presumed capable of reading rules, and have been a significant part of the prior proceedings to already understand how they are engaged. Words mean things. They are not distorted for partisan reasons.



Now, this does not mean people will not try to distort things for their own purposes, as Trump's own AG does. But sometimes despite all partisan obstruction, the truth will have inducements to come out. I believe words mean things and the law means things. And the time is exactly right, and how broad the mandate of the current impeachment is is not controlling--sure, the president may have any number of other reasons for which he might be impeachable. The field is rich. But the situation the Congress has chosen is the one we got right now, and the facts are not in dispute.



The House Democrats could take their time and publicly indict and try Trump for every forsaken thing he has done. Or expound upon his pattern of lawlessness with this one "perfect" example. I wish we had all the time in the world to try Trump in every which way, and I could offer reasons as long as I had breath. But so long as laws are made of words, yes, the "is" of Trump is lawlessness.

But yes, oh yesssss, how I champ to think his many obstructions of justice in the Mueller report and the reality of his campaign's outreach to Russia would be considered substantial predicates for presuming that Trump has a notorious habit of relying on other governments for his electoral help, and bears no sense of scruple about it, as fully entered-in to his current straits. Why yes! It would be wrong not to consider these things. His many counts of potential obstruction per the Mueller report, and the collusion for which he could not be specifically exonerated. His pattern of disregard for the law.

I would not at all mind our expansion of turning up Trump's dirt, and am glad it appears the GOP law person implied we should include these things. Very glad. A lot.