There is no dearth of opinions about what is at stake in the 2024 presidential and congressional elections.  Democracy versus autocracy.   The rule of law. A woman’s control over her own body.  Unfettered individual freedom versus community responsibility.  Let me add one more–not just the First Amendment, but the volume at which it is practiced.

Two events last week clearly demonstrated the contrast between the tone of communications represented by the front-runners in the two major parties’ respective nominations for president. At one extreme was Joe Biden’s assessment last Friday of the August jobs report at a briefing on the White House lawn.  You knew it was coming.  It was just a matter of time.  In what has now become a trademark of any Biden speech, especially when he wants to emphasize a point, the president leaned into the microphones and whispered, “You’ve heard me say many times: Wall Street didn’t build America; the middle class built America, and unions built the middle class.”  This mannerism, like his regular use of the word “malarky,” is both endearing and cringeworthy.

At the other extreme was Mark Meadows’ ill-advised decision to be his own witness at a federal court hearing at which he tried to convince the judge his role in the alleged RICO violations to overturn the Georgia presidential election should be held in a federal versus state court.  Under direct examination by his lawyers, Meadows claimed that his arranging phone calls and meetings for the president, despite the substantive content of those proceedings, was what a White House chief of staff does.  Therefore, his guilt or innocence depended on a determination whether he was “just doing my job” as a federal employee.

During the prosecution’s cross-examination, just as predicted in the August 26 post, “Legal TRAPpings,” District Attorney Fani Willis’ team provided several emails and phone conversations in which Meadows explores ways Georgia election officials might reconsider the results of the November 3, 2020 vote count.  They pointed out each instance was a violation of the Hatch Act as proof Meadows was operating outside the legal boundaries of his job description. More damaging was the possibility Meadows committed perjury when prosecution lawyer Anna Cross asked him if he had any role in coordinating the fake electors plot.  “No I did not,”  he asserted. Cross then showed Meadows an email he sent to Trump campaign advisor Jason Miller in which he wrote, “We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for the states.”

On redirect, the defendant’s lawyers then tried to address this damaging inconsistency.  But as is so often the case in MAGA-verse legal circles, Meadows’ team chose not to quit while they were ahead.  In hopes of rehabilitating their client, Meadows’ lawyer asks him about the motivation for the email.

Meadows:  It was mentioned to me that there was litigation going on, and that you had to have a provisional or conditional elector, and what I didn’t want to happen was for the campaign to prevail in certain areas and then not have this.

Defense Counsel: Why did you not want that to happen?

Meadows:  Well, because I know I would get yelled at if we had not.

Defense Counsel:  By whom?

Meadows: By the President of the United States.

If Meadows had only cared about his own interests as much as he claimed he was doing so  to protect Trump.  The Final Jeopardy answer would have been, “Mr. President, you should ask someone from the campaign to coordinate the electors for the states.”  The Final Jeopardy question? “How do you gently remind the commander-in-chief he is asking you to violate the Hatch Act and risk indictment for interfering in a state election?”

Not that it is the most important or objective criterion for selecting the nation’s chief executive, given a choice between the “Hoarse Whisperer” and “Old Yeller,”  I’ll take the former.

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP