Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

Much of the Republican time in the first session was simply 'poisoning the well' by attacking Mueller and his team.

And that is why I was disappointed that Mueller's responses were so hesitant, muddled and seemingly confused and unfocused.

it's hard for me to imagine that members of his own staff, who have seen him up close for two years, did not know he was not ready for prime time, that they didn't prep him to trust the Dems questioners' citing of chapter and verse so that he could avoid leafing through his briefing book. That was an optics failure.

It's as though he didn't have a full grasp of what he had lived with for those two years, or an appreciation of just how much Barr and Trump had muddied the waters since Barr's book report was presented.

I also expected to see forceful pushback on Nunes conspiracy theory bullshit.

I guess we can thank the focused, leading questioning from Schiff and Quigley in particular for redeeming Mueller's performance somewhat in the Intel hearing.

If that performance was a presentation against a Dem president we'd be all over Mueller for the reasons I've laid out, notwithstanding that we'd have no leg to stand on RE the facts in the matter.

Pains me to write it, but that's the impatience with which I viewed it.