Yesterday was a headline-grabbing newsday. But there have been so many before.
We learned more grave ethical and legal concerns about the President, which added extra resolution to a picture that has been coming into focus for years.
We heard new lines of worthy inquiry, to add to the countless more that already exist.
We saw the Republicans try to bury a witness with no interest in the facts presented, thus marching to a tune composed long ago of fealty and protection for their party's leader.
Was I shocked by what I heard? Was anybody? I doubt it if you've been paying attention. But then I stepped back, and was shocked at how little I was shocked.
Michael Cohen was credible, but more importantly his accusations were so credible that the only defense the President's apologists and protectors could muster was to ignore the facts presented and attack the credibility of a man that the President had put in charge of his most sensitive business.
Michael Cohen has his own motives, and they are not pure. But he was careful in how he spoke and deliberate in what he would and would not say. This did not seem to be the unhinged ravings of a man bent on revenge.
And yet, as I took in the spectacle and the grandstanding and the honest outrage at what we were hearing, I felt mostly a profound sadness for my nation. I have seen many triumphs and setbacks for the United States, but I have not seen before such widespread embarrassment at what we have become.
The tawdry shame that hangs over our government is dangerous. There can be no illusions as to what kind of man our President is. But one senses that the journey to the truth is continuing, even accelerating, to a moment of even greater national reckoning.
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