Swamp Rabbit and I went on the road yesterday to work a hick-town event and were
stuck in traffic for a long while before we got back to my shack to watch the highlights of the Mueller hearings.

“You were wrong, rabbit,” I said as the cable news recaps were playing. “Mueller clammed up, just like he said he would, but the fact that he’s a Republican had little to do with it.”

“OK, it ain’t politics that stopped him from answering all them questions,” the rabbit conceded. “It’s got more to do with him being old and worn out.”

I had to agree that the special counsel had seemed frail and befuddled; that Mueller the relentless, all-knowing investigator had turned out to be a mythic hero created by the media and embraced by those of us hoping for someone who would single-handedly bring down the most divisive and dangerously corrupt president in U.S. history.

But it was also clear that the hearings hadn’t been a waste of time; that House Democrats strengthened their case just by holding Mueller’s hand and coaxing him to repeat his team’s findings. He declined to answer about two hundred questions, but he did confirm that the Russians had interfered with the 2016 election; that their interference had helped Trump; that Trump had encouraged them to interfere; and that Trump’s cronies, some of whom are already in jail, had schemed with Russian officials on his behalf.

Just as important, Mueller’s testimony reminded viewers that his report documented multiple instances of obstruction of justice on Trump’s part, including the fact that he’d ordered former White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller and then, after McGahn refused, ordered him to deny he’d ordered the firing.

“And how about them fascist scumbags on the other side,” Swamp Rabbit said, referring to Attorney General William Barr and the Republican members of the Judiciary and Intelligence panels who’d attacked Mueller. “They all know Trump is a lying pig, but there ain’t a one of them didn’t get down in the mud with him.”

“History will remember them,” I replied. “Just like it remembers the the America First Committee.”

“I don’t know nothing about no America First Committee,” the rabbit said, reaching under the couch for the bottle of bourbon he’d stashed there. “But I know a scumbag when I see one.”