Decency on Display at Hearing Today

Hint: Not from the President of the United States

Soon out here in the Pacific Northwest, the weekend will officially begin. The wife will come home from work, we’ll crack open a cold IPA and discuss a bit about what happened in Trumpworld today.

I hadn’t planned on weighing in because I didn’t know if I’d have the time. But something occurred to me and I wanted to briefly share it with you.

As you’re hopefully ready to enjoy the upcoming weekend, I’d like to leave you with a word that kept coming into my head as I watched Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch testify today: D E C E N C Y.

Why that word? Simply put, the current President of the United States does not have a lick of it in his body. We see it every day through his tweets or press interactions. We’re nearly three years into his term now and the fact remains: the President is a really, really bad guy. The Ambassador on the other hand, showed us what decency is all about.

Nothing epitomizes the rotten human being he is than his treatment of the former Ambassador of Ukraine. I say former because the President and his cronies, led by Rudy Giuliani, embarked on a systematic and despicable smear campaign to remove her from her post in Ukraine. For no other reason than to further his personal and political interests.

I watched her testimony today and concluded, as I did with Ambassador Taylor and Under Secretary Kent’s on Wednesday, that these individuals are what makes America great. They are what’s good about our country. The President of the United States, is not.

And I then turned my thoughts to what the rest of the country saw today. Let’s just say that about 35% of them do not count because they represent a cult. I know that’s strong language but I know of no other way to describe them.

But the other 65% I believe, are fair and reasonable people. I realize many weren’t able to watch. Others perhaps don’t care. But the ones who did watch saw a lady on the witness stand who was treated like crap by the President of the United States.

They saw intelligence, dignity, patriotism, and many of the same qualities we should want and expect our officials in government to possess. Unfortunately, even while she was testifying, the President couldn’t resist the temptation to publicly attack her on Twitter. Chairman Adam Schiff called it witness intimidation, and I couldn’t agree more.

What happened today gave me hope though. I realize that listening to a lot of the back and forth on much of the so-called ‘inside baseball’ aspect of foreign policy doesn’t resonate with a lot of people. But you know what does? Seeing a valued member of the foreign policy establishment railroaded by a narcissistic President who only cares about himself.

It’s about common decency isn’t it? Most of us know what that is, and most of us expect to be treated fairly. We’ve all had jobs where we may have thought our boss treated us badly. It doesn’t feel good. And to see how this all played out–to see how devastated she was, will go a long way toward moving public opinion in favor of removing this vile man from office.  Again, that’s my hope at least.

At the end of the testimony today Chairman Schiff thanked and dismissed Ambassador Yovanovitch. Soon after, a spontaneous standing ovation began from the crowd that had assembled in the room. I have to admit, I was moved. I’m not going to lie, because I felt the same way. If I were in that room, I would have done the same thing.

And then I saw the look on the faces of the Republican Congress members. You could see they were taken aback by what had just transpired. They know that social media would make the moment viral. All of their attempts to derail the Ambassador failed today. The ovation merely dug the knife in just a little bit more.

That’s all I have today my friends. I hope you all have an excellent weekend. But please remember that what we saw today reminded us that we do have wonderful and decent people working for the American people. Maria Yovanovitch is one of those decent people. It’s too bad that the most powerful person in the world is not.