If there's one thing these talking heads in the media love, it's using the issue of "bipartisanship" as a cudgel to beat Democrats over the head with as soon as any of them take power. We've just put up with two years of Rep. Devin Nunes acting as a mole for the Trump administration and making a complete mockery of the House Intelligence Committee, and before Democrats have even had a chance to begin their work looking into this corrupt administration that Republicans have been covering for since Trump took office, Chuck Todd is whining about whether they're going to play nice with the minority members.
On this Sunday's Meet the Press, Todd starts off playing the false equivalency game with Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, comparing the impeachment of Bill Clinton to the possibility of Trump being impeached now, helps Hutchinson conflate the Ken Starr witch hunt with the Mueller investigation, and then does his best to turn both of them into purely political exercises, which they're not:
CHUCK TODD: Governor, you said something interesting. You said you lamented the fact that there was -- you couldn't figure out a way to make the impeachment proceedings in the late '90s more bipartisan, which of course, on one hand, you think, "Well, of course you couldn't." But I understood what you meant. Meaning -- but you couldn't even get bipartisan cooperation for the mechanics —
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON: That's right.
CHUCK TODD: — of it. All right. How do you convince your fellow Republicans, today, that that was a mistake that Democrats made with you? Don't make the same mistake, if Democrats go down this road.
GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON: First of all, you have to try. And that's a big part of it -- is you have to have conversations as to, how should this be approached in a bipartisan way, how to deal with the Mueller report, both in terms of what should be disclosed, the timing of the disclosure, as well as, you know, what's the next steps? Of course, it all depends on what is there. And again, you know, this could be a, simply a report that does not outline any offenses against the president of the United States. Then you're going to wind up having investigations by different committees. It's going to wind up partisan, which is a disappointment. But I think you first have to try to say, "Let's communicate. What is the right thing to do here? What could be done in a bipartisan way?"
Which, of course, led to Todd asking Congressman Jim Himes why both sides can't play nice with each other. Himes, for his part, managed to get a few shots in on Nunes and the fact that he considered his job to be covering up for this administration rather than exposing their criminality.
CHUCK TODD: Congressman Himes, look, the House Intelligence Committee, to me, has proven pretty difficult to see bipartisan cooperation. We did see -- we've seen some on the Senate Intel side. Is there anything that has changed in the Intel Committee since the chairmanships changed?
REP. JIM HIMES: Well, one obvious answer to that question is that the chairman is no longer Devin Nunes. And Devin Nunes, as chairman, of course, very early on, in the last Congress, sort of turned over his activities to being the defense of the president. And Devin is part focus that group. And it's not a huge group, but part of that group in the Congress that is really fully dedicated, facts be damned, to defending this president.
And I sort of chuckle and Governor Hutchinson's optimism. And he's absolutely right. You know, we need to try to make this bipartisan in how we approach whatever comes out. It's more important today than ever. Because of course, today, facts are disputed. I mean, I remember the Clinton situation, in the '90s. There wasn't a lot of dispute about the facts. Now, each and every fact is disputed.
And by the way, I'd point out that we're going to get, sort of, a feel for the partisan warping of our system this week. Because there will be a resolution in front of the House, saying that the president's emergency declaration, that his decision to spend money, contrary to the will of the Congress, is not constitutional. And you know, it's going to be quite a spectacle. Because a lot of the Republicans who were in the Obama administration, who called him a king and a dictator, and the pen and the phone was such a startling damaging thing to our Constitution, I suspect, are going to vote to not hold President Trump accountable for going around the Constitution on the issue of his wall.
