Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: Bat-crazy congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is obviously a national disgrace who defaces democracy with every noxious utterance, but there’s no way that the current laudable effort to ban her from the ’22 ballot can succeed.
Yes, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does stipulate that “no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress…who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress…to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” And yes, the evidence is overwhelming that Greene comported herself as a fascist fellow traveler during the runup to the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection. But the Georgia citizens who seek to disqualify Greene have rolled the dice in a state law tribunal, and that’s a toothless move. Under the Constitution, only the House of Representatives has the power to determine the qualifications of its own members.
Nevertheless, Friday’s tribunal hearing was quite instructive. It was the first time that a MAGA hack has been forced (finally!) to testify under oath, and so it was, at minimum, perversely satisfying to see Greene beclown herself. Short of Merrick Garland actually indicting someone (insert joke here), maybe this was the best we could get.
What’s fascinating is that, on the one hand, Greene goes around claiming that President Biden is a drooling fossil who doesn’t know his own mind – last month she called him “a mentally incompetent, dementia-ridden piece of crap” – and yet, on the other hand, once she was put under oath, it appeared her feared Jewish space lasers had instantly zapped her mind.
Permit me to pose this question to you, the reader:
If in your recent past you had publicly called for a violent insurrection (if you’d said, “We aren’t a people that are going to go quietly into the night. We are not a people that are going to be thrust into socialism, without stopping it”), if you’d publicly opposed the peaceful transfer of power (“You can’t allow it to just transfer power ‘peacefully’ like Joe Biden wants”), and if you had endorsed executing the Speaker of the House for treason (“a bullet in the head”), and if you had encouraged Donald Trump to declare martial law in order to remain in power…seriously, aren’t those things you would remember?
If you’d recently gone to Target and bought toilet paper – OK, that you might not remember. If you’d recently changed your bed linen – that you might not remember. But if you’d publicly agitated for a coup d’etat? That would not likely slip your mind, assuming you have one.
But, lo and behold, Greene on the witness stand was miraculously rendered dumb.
Did she remember advocating for martial law?
“I don’t recall.”
Did she meet with other coup goons prior to Jan. 6?
“I don’t recall.”
Did you speak to anyone in government about the likelihood of such protests?
“I don’t remember.”
Was she aware of that the Jan. 6 Capitol rally could turn violent?
“I don’t recall.”
After Jan. 6, did you remove incriminating videos from your Facebook page?
“I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
And so on. But at least this particular exchange was delicious:
Q: “In fact, you think that Speaker Pelosi is a traitor to the country, right?”
Greene: “I haven’t said that.”
Q: “Put up plaintiff’s exhibit 5.”
Greene: “Oh, no. Wait. Hold on now.”
There it was, under oath, the MAGA toxicity exposed in the light of day. Sane Republican strategist Stuart Stevens said it well: “The full rot of the GOP is on display. It is a palace of lies erected by liars to use for one purpose – rise above their inherent weakness and mediocrity to obtain power. There is no place for the values a civil society honors – truth, decency, compassion, humility – in the GOP.” But it’s no comfort to know that nothing will likely be done about it.
If only Greene could’ve had an epiphany, like Burt Lancaster had when he played Nazi judge Ernst Janning in the film Judgment at Nuremberg. He took the stand and said: “It is not easy to tell the truth. But if there is to be any salvation, we who know our guilt must admit it – whatever the pain and humiliation…Ernst Janning, who made his life excrement.”
But that only happens in the movies.