Keller @ Large: Has Dishonesty Been Legitimized?
BOSTON (CBS) - Amid the utterly predictable posturing, bloviating and partisan sniping in the morning session of the Michael Cohen show on Capitol Hill, there was a moment of accidental honesty.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee, was rolling out a key element of the day's GOP spin - that it was somehow "unprecedented" for a congressional committee to hear testimony from a convicted felon and admitted perjurer like Cohen – when he blurted out this gem: "When we legitimize dishonesty we delegitimize this institution. We're supposed to pursue the truth."
Legitimized dishonesty – what an apt phrase for Washington in general and the Trump era in particular.
South Boston's own Rep. Stephen Lynch stuck a pin in the Republicans' effort to disparage the committee process a few minutes later. Rattling off a list of convicted Trump cronies – Papadopolous, Manafort, Gates, Flynn etc. – and noting that "for two years - you want to talk about an agenda - my friends on the other side of the aisle refused to bring any of these people up before the committee…. Your side ran away from the truth."
Fact check: true. But one of the most important questions posed by the entire Trump debacle is – does the truth really matter anymore in American politics?
It didn't seem to matter much to Democrats who closed ranks behind then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her dishonest account of the Benghazi fiasco, then proceeded to nominate her for president. And it certainly hasn't mattered to Republicans who've rallied behind the president's reflexive falsehoods.
We know where much of the professional political class stands – ethics are purely situational. But what about the voters?
While jobs and the economy are major concerns, there's one national issue that boomers, Gen Xers and millennials all think is more important right now: honesty in government.
A poll from last October by AARP and the Association of Young Americans found almost nine out of ten respondents felt honesty in government was crucial, more important than any other issue.
But a more recent survey was less inspirational. The Washington Post found that while roughly seven in ten Democrats and independents placed high value on honesty, the percent of Republicans who felt the same way had plummeted from similar levels to below 50 percent.
We could (and probably should) go on at great length about why this is happening. Surely the internet-enabled flood of fake news and hot takes has played a prominent role, along with the incessant marketing of ideologically-branded cable news.
The truth still mattered in 1974 when the Supreme Court forced President Nixon to turn over the incriminating Watergate tapes. After the public heard the truth, Nixon's poll numbers collapsed, and with them, support from Republicans in Congress. He was gone within a month.
Michael Cohen's testimony likely won't produce a similar effect, unless one of his infamous tapes includes the president's voice ordering up criminal behavior. And forcing the release of incriminating evidence might not come as decisively to this Supreme Court as it did in 1974 (an 8-0 ruling).
But if and when the truth does emerge, it will be up to the public to decide if they care. Impeachment is a political process; it won't happen unless public support for Mr. Trump collapses the way it did under Nixon.
And then we'll find out if dishonesty has been legitimized, not just inside the Beltway, but on Main Street as well.
