Maxine Waters, in impeachment appeal, attributes dark-magic powers to Trump

Maxine Waters, in impeachment appeal, attributes dark-magic powers to Trump

While the New York Times obsesses over the gossipy “scoop” that President Trump watches TV in a bathrobe, Representative [score]Maxine Waters[/score] (D-CA) continues to flog her theme that Trump needs to be impeached, because she says so.

It’s hard to make head or tail of her thesis from a given rhetorical event.  Howard Portnoy stepped nobly into that breach in January, concluding from garbled clues that Waters wanted Trump impeached because Trump came up with calling Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary.”

Well, sure.  Obama should have been impeached for the “bitterly clinging” reference to the good people of rural Pennsylvania in the 2008 campaign.  While we’re at it, let’s impeach [score]John McCain[/score] for calling ordinary Americans “Hobbits.”  And an honorary impeachment of some kind seems in order for Hillary herself, for the uncalled-for “basket of deplorables” remark.

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

The “Crooked Hillary” atrocity is actually a more sensible proposition than Waters’ latest allegations.  Kyle Olson lays them out at American Mirror.  Waters got on a roll about Trump’s supposed offenses, and then called free-fire for the heavy artillery:

“And knowing that [Trump’s] responsible for supplying the bombs that killed innocent children and families in, um, in, um,” she said, forgetting the name before someone behind her murmured, “Aleppo.”

“Yeah, in Aleppo,” she said.

Waters continued, “And the fact that he is wrapping his arms around Putin while Putin is continuing to advance into Korea.”

Korea, Crimea, what’s the difference, besides spellings, cultures and continents?

I’m indebted to Olson for recognizing that Waters meant “Crimea” when she said “Korea.”  When you figure out what the arm-wrapping allusion refers to, Kyle, please let me know.

But back on that Aleppo reference.  Um, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?  Nothing remotely similar to Waters’ accusation has happened in Aleppo.

First of all, Trump took office 17 days ago, and couldn’t have done what Waters implies.  But second, “he” has “supplied” exactly NO bombs whatsoever to anyone who has bombed Aleppo, before or since.  That would be Russia, to whose armed forces the U.S. does not supply bombs.  The last time we supplied bombs to Russia was in 1945.  For the record, we don’t supply bombs to the Assad regime either.  (Its contributions to the aerial bombing are usually overblown in Western reporting anyway.)

If anyone had supplied bombs to the bombers of Aleppo, it would have been Obama.  Except that he didn’t, because see last paragraph.

The U.S. conducted airstrikes on an Al Qaeda cell in Idlib Province, some 30 miles west of Aleppo, on 20 January.  The timing of the strike indicates it was authorized by Obama, although the White House has not clarified that.  But our forces were not previously bombing Aleppo, did not bomb Aleppo on 20 January, and are not bombing Aleppo now.  Russia and Assad have the bombing of Aleppo to themselves.

The accusation that Trump has had anything to do with bombing Aleppo and killing innocent children and families is pure make-believe demonization — just picking awful mental images at random and trying to associate Trump with them.  Next he’ll be the Great Eye of Sauron, or a homicidal alien life form that for some reason gestates inside everyone around Sigourney Weaver, no matter where in the galaxy she goes.

It’s tempting to dismiss this garbled nonsense because it comes from Maxine Waters (who, as Howard reminded us, famously warned that the budget sequestration during the previous administration would kill “170 million jobs“).  But this sort of elided, impressionistic theme-burbling is all too common from the political left today.  It’s a big part of what is creating the impression in many Americans’ minds of a nation melting down, in chaos, coming apart at the seams.

It’s not harmless.  No sane person would cosign a loan for Maxine Waters after observing her latest performance — nor would a sane person, dealing with her on public policy, put a principle of compromise before a principle of avoiding dangerous idiocy.  The old kabuki dance of political rhetoric has itself gone idiot, and the worst illusion now is that it is a comforting path back to safety.

J.E. Dyer

J.E. Dyer

J.E. Dyer is a retired Naval Intelligence officer who lives in Southern California, blogging as The Optimistic Conservative for domestic tranquility and world peace. Her articles have appeared at Hot Air, Commentary’s Contentions, Patheos, The Daily Caller, The Jewish Press, and The Weekly Standard.

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