Credibility On Trial

Ad hominem
     Appealing to feelings or prejudices rather than intellect. -- An ad hominem argument.
     Marked by or being an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the contentions made. -- He made an ad hominem personal attack on his rival.
                                                                                                    Merriam-Webster
     
     In presenting your case, if the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If both the facts and the law are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.
                                                                       Various versions attributed to various sources


     

     Somewhere in the distant mists of my school years, I received lessons in debate tactics.  Among them was counsel against ad hominem argument.  It isn't proper or smart, the teacher said. It's a dead giveaway of weakness on your own side: You can't keep up with your opponent's game, so you're trying to change the subject.
     This is one of the many lessons never absorbed by our incumbent president. Plagued by detailed accusations of wrongdoing, he has assailed the character, competence and mental health of his accuser, former FBI Director James Comey. Comey has in turn called the president himself a liar, but in this he has not added new notes to ongoing controversy.  The table-pounder-in-chief's penchant for mendacity is well known to sentient observers above the age of 10.
      Thus are the two squared off in a swearing contest for the time being. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, former FBI Director Robert Mueller is assembling a team to search for facts within the fog surrounding relations between presidential intimates and Russian leaders.  Reports say he is amassing major firepower, in the form of top-flight experts in criminal law.
     The medieval monk William of Occam propounded a principle of logic colloquially known as Occam's Razor. Roughly speaking, it holds that the simplest explanation of a matter is often the best. By this rule we would conclude that the president behaves as though he has something to hide because he does, in fact, have something to hide.
     This line of thinking begins with his refusal to release his tax returns.  It runs through his abrupt firing of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose investigative interests included Russian money laundering through Manhattan real estate deals, and fishy stock trading by incumbent Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. It continues through the firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who tattled on then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn for lying about contacts with Russian officials. It has now reached an apparent climax in the firing of FBI Director Comey, who says the president urged him to go lightly on the Russian issue.
     William of Occam also would permit us to conclude that Mueller is recruiting experts in criminal law because he feels his investigation may uncover criminal behavior.  At a minimum, perjury and obstruction of justice come to mind. One key recruit is an expert on fraud, and led the Department of Justice's prosecution of Enron's wrongdoers.
     Mueller has a reputation for ability and probity. The wheels of justice do grind slowly, but they are grinding.  The president has not been able with bullying and  bluster to make the entire system of our government dance to his tune.
     The rest of us will have to live for now with the bullying and the blustering. And in the credibility contest between the president and James Comey? The known record does not favor the career chiseler who insisted for years that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.