Truth Chasing Facts

Reading “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa

Now after two Presidential impeachment attempts, an insurrection and a trove of leaked memos, Woodward and Costa reckon our flirtation with the end of democracy. In a way their recent tome is a case of ‘too much, too little, too late:’ Peril tells us not only what we feared but also what we knew when. It’s a book as much about 45’s last days as it is about our last days as 45’s accomplices.

And what we have to deal with, looking at ‘our democracy’ in the mirror, is not a ‘pretty picture:’

1.Congress has ceded too much power to the Executive Branch.

2.Democracy was subverted on January 6.

3.The two party political organizing principle has been subsumed by a country divided.

4.One President claims executive privilege in breaking the law; another claims executive privilege in searching for law breakers.

5.Believers and dupes are one: the ‘Big Coverup’ succeeds the ‘Big Lie’

6.Truth chases facts.

The phenomenon of Peril is a struggle for evidence of corruption, of malign influence.

Yet, Peril is not a moral tale for its argument is amoral: trust what you can show, indeed, what you can replicate.

The phenomenon of Peril is more an uncovering of the process of revelation than a ‘it could happen here’ assessment. And therein lies the book’s strength and its weakness. Once again we are chasing evidence, turning up institutional rocks.

America must protect its ignorance even if it’s citizens go unprotected.

September 26