The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for March, 2018

It's time once again for that exercise in futility known as the biweekly announcement of an Ass Clown Award winner.

I must admit to you, Dear Readers, that I'm starting to regret having begun presenting this award. Not because there are individuals and groups out there worth the distinction, but because it's become such a depressing exercise in wading through the miserable, reeking cesspool in which those individuals and groups bob to the surface in horrifying numbers. When I can no longer present the award to an individual because he's won it so many times that I decided to give him a lifetime "achievement" award and remove him from future consideration ... and when that individual is the President of the United States ... and when he works overtime to merit additional awards ... I have to shrug my shoulders and mourn for the future direction of the nation.

But regardless of how much our embarrassing leader continues to make our once-great nation an international laughingstock, ignored by allies and enemies alike, I have to hold to my decision and find another nominee ... and so I have.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, it is with a sigh of sadness and a toast of milk of magnesia that I announce

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for March, 2018

And the award goes to

The Republican Members

of the

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI)

This past Monday, the Republican members of the HPSCI unilaterally announced that they had found no evidence that Donald Trump or members of his campaign had colluded with Russian officials to sway the 2016 election, or that the Kremlin sought to help the Trump campaign. As has been very widely noted*, this conclusion is, at best, premature, and is at odds with the opinions of the committee's Democratic members** and with what appears to be the building consensus of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation***.

The work of the committee has been woefully undermined by partisan rancor, and by the evident refusal of the Republican members to do any investigating that might reflect poorly on the GOP in general and on Donald Trump and his the legitimacy of his election in particular. Rather than conducting a serious, open investigation to determine the truth, the HPSCI's GOP members have conducted a brazenly obvious whitewash that reflects badly on them and on their regard for the truth.

It remains to be fully determined whether or not there was any formal collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian entities, or whether the Trump supporters were duped and used by foreign elements a lot smarter than they were. That determination will not be made on the basis of a willfully incomplete GOP "investigation," but on the basis of professional work done by adults in the Senate and on the staff of special counsel Mueller who care more for the security of the nation than the bruised ego of a thin-skinned chief executive.

The GOP members of the HPSCI are presented a group award as the Left-Cheek Ass Clown for March, 2018. Nothing more need be said.

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. We all need it.

More thoughts then.

Bilbo

* Except, of course, on Faux News.

** Who were, of course, not consulted before the announcement was made.

*** And with the unanimous judgement of the entire US Intelligence Community.