Special counsel Robert Hur's obviously partisan report on President Biden has raised a question: why are special counsels always Republicans?
And they really are all Republicans. In the past 30 years not a single Democrat—or even someone with "Democratic ties"—has been a special counsel or independent prosecutor.
It's no mystery why this is. Democrats appoint Republicans to show they're bending over backward to be fair. Republicans don't care about that, so they appoint Republicans too. Result: it's always Republicans.
See also FBI directors. No Democrat has headed the FBI since the day it was created.
Without bad faith…..
Republicans would have no arguments at all…
Exactly.
The Republican Party is the party of law and order, that's why.
I'll be here all weekend. Please tip your wait-person on your way out.
This is one of those bringing a knife to a gunfight things, isn’t it?
"Republicans don't care about that, so they appoint Republicans too. "
That is incomplete. It is another case of projection: Since Republicans in general don't have integrity, they don't believe that a Democrat can have integerity to handle the issue fairly.
Democrats still have integeirty, and hence believe that Republicans can have integerity. After the Hur report, maybe they will stop believing it.
Honestly, though, I really don't think there is a good way out of this dynamic. Democrats bend over backwards to demonstrate fairness and a care and concern for institutions because their voters value these things and expect their leaders to value them as well. Republicans are responding to a much different set of desires from their coalition. I really don't think Democrats can just willy nilly start acting like Republicans on this stuff without paying a price among their own voters, and persuadable centrist voters (who also generally care about these things). One of the prices that we pay is that we get sandbagged on stuff like this. But, it is February, not October. There is plenty of time to manage the fallout of this particular report. The bigger issue regarding Biden's age? It depends on whether he's capable of holding his own (i.e., with some of his usual gaffes, but a generally good grasp on things) out in public. If he can, and he does it, he'll be fine. If he can't, he won't.
See also: names of aircraft carriers.
Interesting!
U.S.S. Harry S. Truman? U.S.S. John F. Kennedy?
JFK carrier decommissioned, though new one being built.
Active carriers named after presidents (from Wikepedia):
Eisenhower
Teddy Roosevelt
Lincoln
Washington
Truman
Reagan
G. H. W. Bush
Ford
Starting with 20th century presidents, 1 Democrat, 5 Republicans (4 if going from post WWII)
I'd think of it a different way - of the presidents from Truman through Bush I, who's missing? JFK, Johnson, Nixon, and Carter. There's a JFK carrier being commissioned, and Carter does have a submarine named after him, which makes sense as he served aboard one in the Navy. That leaves Johnson and Nixon without namesakes, i.e. an even split.
Per Wikipedia: "USS Lyndon B. Johnson is the third and final Zumwalt-class destroyer built for the United States Navy. The contract to build her was awarded to Bath Iron Works located in Bath, Maine, on 15 September 2011." The ship entered sea trials in 2022.
Also: "USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) is the second Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier built for the United States Navy. The ship was launched on 29 October 2019, and christened on 7 December 2019." It is not "under construction," it is in service.
Sorry to be carrying on about this, but these things are really easily looked up. Yes, Carter's name went to a submarine because his service was spent on subs. I don't know why Johnson's name didn't get hitched to an aircraft carrier -- maybe they just didn't have one available to name.
Nixon -- such a sleazeball! -- will hopefully never be honored with a ship's designation. Ditto for Drumpf.
And having said all that, I otherwise completely agree with Kevin's lament about the dearth of Democrats appointed as special prosecutors (and FBI chiefs). It sucks. As to why, several comments up thread -- like from ColoradoDenverite -- seem to explain it well.
The tradition through 1945 was to name them for famous ships or battles. Then FDR died in office, and one was named for him. Then James Forrestal died in office . . .and then JFK.
So the Dems were three up, and that was too much for Nixon, and he started naming them for dead Republicans, and the floodgates opened--segregationist senators, Harry Truman (whose administration advocated against aircraft carriers), etc.
The prospect of a USS Clinton seems to have stopped the flood.
The FBI has always had a Republican director and its members are right wing types by a huge majority. And yet, Republicans get to blame the FBI as part of the “deep state” that is anti-Trump and part of a conspiracy to “get” him.
And it still amazes me that military types and veterans support him even though he sees them as suckers and losers.
You can't trust without making yourself vulnerable, but trust is all there is holding civilization together. So, choose your poison.
The answer is to destroy the MAGA Republican Party in November. How? By demonstrating that Democrats are the only ones worthy of the electorate's trust and votes.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Let's also say an unkind word for Merrick Garland, who has spent his entire tenure as AG doing a bad imitation of Star Trek's wussiest captain self-righteously staking out the moral high ground even if it destroys his ship. (And if you can't guess, it's the ludicrously faux Frenchman with the British accent.) His dithering (and even that may be charitable) for a couple of years over January 6 is likely to keep Drumpf out of prison and his disastrous appointment of a lifelong politically connected Republican lawyer and Drumpf appointee as special counsel may put him back in the WH.
+1 for the Trek reference.
Isn't Jack Smith a special counsel? He's not a republican, as far as I know.
Law enforcement has always had a conservative authoritarian bias.
"OBEY THE LAWS"
"OBEY MY COMMANDS"
The answer is to destroy the MAGA Republican Party in November. How? By demonstrating that Democrats are the only ones worthy of the electorate's trust and votes.
Exactly….
And each day it gets more obvious that republicans can’t be trusted….
"No Democrat has headed the FBI since the day it was created."
A bunch of agents would resign.
(A good thing.)
Let's not forget Robert Mueller and Ken Starr. 100% agree with Drummy here.
I think another issue not stated by Kevin is that Democrats generally think they are innocent and that there is nothing to see here. That, for example, it doesn't really matter who conducts an investigation into Biden's records, there will be nothing nefarious to find.
Which, even if technically correct, completely misses the point of how politics works in the age of Starr, Comey, Mueller, Durham, and now Hur.
The point isn't what actually happened. The point it how it is spun. And as long as Democrats turn the spin over to partisan Republicans they are going to get the spin that we see today. Guaranteed.