I continued my survey of the Bluegrass’s print journalism in late September 2019. The Ukraine story was developing by the hour and dominated cable news. The (Elizabethtown) News-Enterprise, a regional daily, approached the story unconventionally. By picking up an Associated Press story by Dmytro Vlasov and presenting no other coverage, the only news its readers received was that the Ukrainian president was miffed by the release of the written record of his conversation with President CrowdStrike. The accumulating substance of the affair wasn’t mentioned. Welcome to the “news” in Red State America, I suppose. To The (Elizabethtown) News-Enterprise’s credit, it printed my critique of its news judgement.
Dmytro Vlasov, “Ukrainian Leader Bristles at Release of Trump Transcript,” The (Elizabethtown) News-Enterprise, 27 September 2019, A6; Associated Press, 26 September 2019 (https://subscriber.thenewsenterprise.com/node/426409/, ). The above link leads to the e-edition of article in The (Elizabethtown) News Enterprise. Access to this is likely limited by the newspaper’s paywall. If the paper posted an online version of this article, its search engine is unable to locate it. The following link is to the Associated Press’s online version (https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-international-news-joe-biden-politics-6454968c0e3642b59ffbece30abeefd4).
“Questions Selection of Ukrainian Story,” The (Elizabethtown) News-Enterprise, 7 October 2019, A6 (www.thenewsenterprise.com/opinon/letters_to_editor/letters-to-the-editor-oct/article_0ef65466-8050-5176-8371-7cb1944d53f4.html).
By the time I departed for the biannual hajj to the Bluegrass, The Gaslighter in Chief’s conduct had become so egregious that Nancy Pelosi could no longer temporize on doing something about it. I had my customary I-64 sleepover in Lexington and bought a copy of The Lexington Herald-Leader. The paper had picked up The New York Times’ reporting by Nicholas Fandos on the speaker’s announcement of the opening of an impeachment inquiry regarding President Perfect Conservation’s alleged shakedown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. I did a riff on Representative Adam Schiff’s soliloquy regarding what is “okay.” The Lexington Herald-Leader was not sufficiently amused to print it.
Nicholas Fandos, “House Opens Impeachment Inquiry of President Trump,” The Lexington Herald-Leader, 25 September 2019, 1A, 2A (www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/us/politics/democrats-impeachment-trump.html). If Lexington Herald-Leader posted an online version of this article, its search engine is unable to locate it. The link above is to the version that appeared the The New York Times.
This past week’s torrent of events demands an updating of Representative Adam Schiff’s litany of questions to his colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee on 28 March. The GOP members of the House and Senate should ask themselves whether it is okay that a president’s personal attorney dabble in foreign affairs outside of official channels. Is it okay that a president pressure a foreign head of state to gather and perhaps even to concoct damaging information on a domestic political opponent? Is it okay that a president, whether tacitly or explicitly, dangle the provision of congressionally appropriated assistance as a carrot or the withholding of it as a stick to compel the head of state to bow to his wishes? Is it okay that a White House flout the whistleblower statutes and stonewall Congress in its performance of responsible oversight of the executive branch? Would any of this be okay if done by any Democratic president or White House, past or future? The nation waits and watches. It is a sad reality that the GOP’s answer may already be easily enough guessed.