Wednesday Afternoon

I gave up on the Michael Cohen hearing after about an hour, then checked back a few times and it was more of the same. Republicans interrogating him kept saying over and over, "You're a convicted liar, you're a convicted liar" and didn't allow Cohen much opportunity to say much more than to confirm that yep, they're right — he's a convicted liar. A few Democrats (and Chris Christie, in a brief comment I caught) noted that an awful lot of people have gone to prison in this country based on the testimony of some liar who flipped. It's the main way that folks involved in organized crime get convicted.

I didn't hear this but I suppose someone pointed out that if Cohen was lying in his testimony today, he was risking turning three years of prison into many, many more. They kept harping on whether he was going to get a lucrative book deal because, I guess, they couldn't come up with a better reason for him to lie now. (I did hear one exchange where he was asked to promise he would not run for public office. I'd have loved it if he'd said, "Well, you know, I wouldn't have thought a guy who was known as a serial liar could get elected in this country but Donald Trump's proved me wrong.")

Where all this is going, I dunno. He did deny some of the charges that have been made against Trump and I suppose the Republicans think we should believe this "pathological liar" on those statements but no others. All in all, I suspect Cohen's testimony will do damage to Trump's reputation with all those Americans who haven't made up their mind on whether Trump is a good man or a bad man. Unfortunately, there are only about eleven of those in the country…maybe twelve if you count Ivanka.