Am I the only one troubled by the triumphalism on the left about Fitzgerald's investigation? I felt something cold in my stomach when I saw the term "Fitzmas" on this site last week. I'm all for seeing these crooks go down, but I think this air of celebration isn't helping us - in fact, it reminds me of the Republicans before the impeachment process, and we know how well that went for them. Two main points below...
- Whatever the charges or eventual results of this turn out to be, it's not a happy day in our country if people at the highest level of government are committing crimes. We shouldn't celebrate it.
- If we, as Democrats/liberals treat this with festival gusto, we make the whole process look like a partisan gotcha instead of a criminal investigation. So far, Fitzgerald has been apparently professional, detail-oriented, and very terse with the press. Completely unlike, say, Ken Starr and his clown show. I like it that way.
This shouldn't be a Democrat/Republican thing, it should be an American thing. The more we act like the Republicans did with Clinton's impeachment, the more the public will see it in the same light - standard partisan politics - and the less chance we have of using this to highlight the flaws of the rest of the criminal, hypocritical, boneheaded, amoral Republican agenda.