DD-Tech wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2019 8:01 am
cradleandshoot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 25, 2019 7:58 am
Yesterday was an embarrassing fiasco for all of America. After the whole sheepdip show was over... nobodies opinion was changed. The only thing I learned yesterday much to the chagrin of MD was that Robert Mueller never read his own report either. The only good thing that happened yesterday and this is selfish on my part my little grandaughter came in to this word at 6 PM last night.
Congrats to you grandpa!!!! Cheers!
I'll join with that congrats!
The snide remark about Mueller, no so much.
I'm of two minds about his performance.
On the one hand, it was entirely in character. Always hyper-careful to be sure to understand the question before answering it (which sometimes was frustratingly slowly) in order to be sure his answer was directly on point and no more. And scrupulously careful to not violate the strictures imposed by the DOJ (with which he appeared to have no issue) meaning unwilling to characterize his team's findings with regard to criminality of the President in any way substantially expanding upon what was stated in the Report. He was clear as to why he would go no further, but only in terms that those who actually wanted to understand could comprehend. Scrupulously avoiding any impression that he himself was anything but right down the middle.
In character, so if you think his character is actually laudable and essential to the credibility of the Report, a positive, albeit frustrating confirmation of the very careful fellow he is.
On the other hand, Mueller failed to recognize and/or employ the essential elements of communicating in a TV arena. To the extent that his command, character, and conclusions were being impugned, the moment required a forceful communication style. He could have been just as terse with his responses affirming the critical findings of the Report as he was, and stayed tightly within his imposed bounds, but when the GOP flamers spent all their time impugning him and his team, and quite wrongly characterizing the work and conclusions, etc, he allowed them to filibuster any objections to such he clearly had. The heck with the Congressmen claiming that "my time is short" each time he tried to interject that what they were seeing was wrong, Mueller should have said, "Sir, MY time here is short, and I WILL answer your question". And if that meant that he did so once the GOP Congressmen had exhausted their 5 minutes, I'm sure Nadler and Schiff would have given him the courtesy of responding directly to any GOP diatribes. But he did not.
I also think that
some of the Dems did him no favors in not being clear, upfront, as to exactly where they were quoting from, which meant that he had to ask for that reference so as to be sure that what they said indeed went no further than how the Report stated their findings. When a questioner gave him the citation upfront, he was able to focus solely on the actual question and had no difficulty coming across quickly to affirm the point being made. But when no citation upfront, it made him appear to not know the words in the Report when he was actually just trying to be sure that nothing was being stated incorrectly.
He was most effective under the clear questioning by Nadler and Schiff, and he showed a little, though not enough emotion, when defending his employee selection process (this called for a more forceful statement each time the process was impugned), and he was quite good when discussing the nature of the threat imposed and the ethical dimensions, not just the legalities (which he was so careful to parse). When speaking about the threat and the ethics about the various actions of the Trump crew detailed in Volume 1, he was powerful.
But perhaps only to those who were bothering to listen.
. PottyMouthMarcy can analyze this :
.
That's what we're afraid of
