By Dan FitzPatrick
I am of course referring to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s July 24th testimony before Congress. I also read “the book” (see my “Cliff Notes” version entitled “A Tale in Two Volumes” at greenwichsentinel.com/2019/04/25/column-a-tale-in-two-volumes/). If the book was bad, the movie was really awful. Awkward, painful, biased, contentious and divisive. I really, really hope this week will mark the beginning of the end of “Mueller Mania.”
In my opinion, apart from the very real and valuable exposition of the role that Russia intentionally played in interfering with our electoral process (Volume 1), this entire exercise has been a colossal waste of time, money, energy and emotion. It has been a massive distraction that that has been extraordinarily damaging to the proper functioning of our government. Congress and the Administration have multiple pressing concerns to deal with, most of which have been placed on hold during the pendency of this political circus. Apart from the (almost miraculous but still problematic) bipartisan agreements on the budget and extending the September 11th Victims Compensation Fund, you can pick just about any major legislative issue you like, and it will not have received proper attention before the August Congressional recess.
None of us would ever accept performance (or the lack thereof) like this in any business we owned or had a role in managing. As citizens, we are the “owners” of our country, and as voters we constitute the “board of overseers” of our government. Next fall we get to “attend” the quadrennial “annual meeting” of the country’s owners and vote for its management. That will be our chance to send a message to Congress, the Administration and the media – get back to work, and work together to seriously and honestly address the needs of this nation; you are running out of time, and “we the people” are running out of patience.
