Congratulations America, we are now into the second year of the greatest Witch Hunt in American History…and there is still No Collusion and No Obstruction. The only Collusion was that done by Democrats who were unable to win an Election despite the spending of far more money!
@realDonaldTrump – via Twitter – 4:28 AM – 17 May 2018
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Inigo Montoya – from The Princess Bride
witch-hunt [wich‘ huhnt]
noun
- a search for and subsequent persecution of a supposed witch (literal sense c. 1630)
- a rigorous campaign to round up or expose dissenters on the pretext of safeguarding the welfare of the public (figurative sense c. 1930)
- a campaign directed against a person or group holding unorthodox or unpopular views
- an intensive effort to discover and expose disloyalty, subversion, dishonesty, or the like, usually based on slight, doubtful, or irrelevant evidence
What POTUS does not seem to understand is that the investigation into the Russian interference in the 2016 election is not a witch-hunt in any sense of the word. This is no unfounded effort to expose disloyalty nor is it an act of suppressing dissent or unorthodoxy! Every intelligence source we have has said that the Russians meddled in, and tried to influence the outcome of, the presidential election. This was an attack on US Sovereignty. As a man who took an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” POTUS must stop undermining the attempt to assess what actions those enemies might have taken.
The fact that this investigation has uncovered a number of people who actually did collude with foreign agencies against the integrity of the US Elections. Five of these have admitted to doing so. POTUS, in saying “There was no collusion…” is being very limited in his use of that phrase. A number of people directly associated with his campaign have admitted to crimes that are (if not directly classifiable as collusion, are at least) collusion-adjacent. POTUS needs to think of the optics. Innocent people do not go around proclaiming their innocence before they are actually accused of something. As Queen Gertrude puts it “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” from Hamlet (Act III, Scene II) by William Shakespeare. As with that example, the protestations out of the White House are too frequent and to fervent to appear credible.
Finally, in his taste for hyperbole, the president has once again claimed the superlative. Really, Mr. President? Really!? This is the worst witch-hunt in American History, ever? He may not have learned this in school, but in the schools I attended, we learned about the source of the phrase “witch-hunt.” The infamous Salem Witch Trials (colonial Massachusetts – February 1692 and May 1693) resulted in the deaths of twenty innocent people. All but one of these were hanged to death for crimes that they did not commit and of which they were later exonerated. All because a mean spirited, superstitious, and ill-informed hysteria gripped the colony. Unfounded accusations were flung and innocent people suffered and died because of it. Compare that to a legitimate investigation into interference by a foreign power into our election that has uncovered a number of legitimate crimes that the perpetrators have admitted to. Nobody has died and nobody is likely to be put to death.
So, no, Mr. President, this is NOT the worst witch-hunt ever! You are not being persecuted. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, you have not even been implicated! Thou doth protest too much, methinks. Please do your job and quit undermining the legitimate investigation. Our government works this way – if you did not want to see the sausage being made, you should not have gotten a job at as a butcher!
Wherever you are today, I hope that you are celebrate the fact that this is how American Justice is supposed to work – regardless of what POTUS thinks.
Don Bergquist – May 18, 2018 – Lakewood, Colorado, USA
