Democrats and the art of the parse

OPINION:

There must be a special place in hell for politicians and political operatives who dance and spin and pirouette around truth with such expert movement that only trained polygraph examiners and skilled behavioral analysts can discern the fact from the fiction.

And mark these words: That place is going to be filled with Democrats. Lawyers for the Democrats — and Democrats.

It’s this grouping of peoples who are largely responsible for the utter chaos that’s allowed the false Russia-Trump collusion narrative to go on this long. Even after Robert Mueller’s testimony, what do we have to show, but more confusion and chaos?

“My personal view is that [President Trump] richly deserves impeachment,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler during a recent CNN interview. “He has done many impeachable offenses. He’s violated the law six ways from Sunday.”

What impeachable offenses, you ask?

What violations of law, you wonder?

Shh, shh. Tsk, tsk. As Nadler himself said, it’s not so much the impeachable offense as it is what impeach-worthy clouds can be generated.

“The question is,” he went on, USA Today reported, “can we develop enough evidence to put before the American people?”

Enter the art of the parse.

If Democrats can create enough confusion, then surely, certainly, impeachment can prevail. So goes the logic. Nadler himself put his propensity for parsing on display on CNN when he spoke of impeachable offenses and violations of laws — “six ways from Sunday” is how he put it — without naming the impeachable offenses or violations of laws. No need to name when nobody in the media is going to press for naming.

It’s ye olde Democrat playbook, the one that says if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it as truth.

Then there was Mueller’s whole testimony — nay, his whole investigation, then report. Title it, “The Power of the Innuendo.” For years, it’s been sparking ideological right-left disputes like the one just played between acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Fox’s Chris Wallace.

Mulvaney: Mueller testified he would “absolutely not” have indicted Trump if Trump weren’t the president.

Wallace: “No, that’s not what he said.”

So go back to Mueller’s House Judiciary Committee testimony, and when asked by Rep. Ted Lieu if he would have indicted Trump if it weren’t for that Office of Legal Counsel prohibition against indicting a sitting president, the special counsel answered: “That is correct.”

What’s correct? The double negative — or the double-double negative with the reverse swoop of positive?

Parse, parse. Doesn’t matter. After lunch, Mueller said Lieu’s claim to impeachable fame wasn’t quite correct.

“We did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime,” Mueller said.

Oh, but in the minds of the left, what Mueller really meant is that investigators did not reach a determination as to whether Trump didn’t commit a crime, either.

And that goes for his daughter, Ivanka, and son-in-law, Jared, too. There’s a chance they maybe committed crimes, or at the very least, maybe did not commit crimes but almost wanted to — or, at another very least, that they maybe did not commit crimes and did not almost want to, but very nearly did.

Or not.

But either way, there may have been crimes and there most certainly should be impeachment.

Memo to Democrats: Truth is a pretty straightforward yay or nay. The parsing of language alone is an indicator of truth versus deceit.

It really shouldn’t require all this verbal contortion just to arrive at impeachable offense.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter @ckchumley.