Gabriel Schoenfeld commented on California Congressman Adam Schiff’s book, “Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could.” It was published in The Bulwark on November 17, 2021. Read the full article here.
Vilification is one of the primary weapons in Donald Trump’s political arsenal. Over the four years of the Trump presidency, perhaps no one was subjected to more of it than Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and—more pertinently—the lead manager of the House impeachment team during Trump’s first Senate trial. Indeed, Schiff’s name was almost never mentioned by the former president without the accompaniment of some juvenile taunt: “pencil neck,” “Shifty Schiff,” “Little Adam Schiff,” “crooked Adam Schiff,” and even “Adam Schitt.”
Of course, such crude appellations tell us far more about the appalling character of Donald Trump than anything else. But Trump is not alone. Surprisingly, even some ostensible anti-Trumpers have been furiously dumping on the congressman. To Eli Lake, Schiff is a “showman playing the role of statesman,” and for leveling various allegations against Trump that he could never prove, he’s “the boy who cried collusion.” To Jonah Goldberg, Schiff is a “dishonorable and dishonest hack” with a “gift for flinging hyperpartisan innuendo while seeming to be a studious and serious legislator.”
Is any of this right? Even if Schiff is not the villain of Trump’s nightmares, does he nonetheless deserve some of the incoming that has landed on his head?
Read the rest of Schoenfeld’s commentary on The Bulwark’s website.
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