Paul Batura: Impeachment and Paul Harvey - Broadcast legend might say THIS is the rest of the story

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/paul-batura-paul-harvey-impeachment

As Paul Harvey’s biographer and a long-time listener of his ABC radio
broadcast, there have been many days over the course of the last decade
when I’ve wondered what the radio legend would have to say about the state
of American politics, especially now after two long weeks of impeachment
hearings by the House Intelligence Committee..

In times like this, I miss the Tulsa-born radio provocateur. Paul’s been
gone for over 10 years, silenced in February of 2009 at the age of 90. In
some ways, he was a precursor to Twitter, his style characterized and
punctuated by pithy commentary and reporting, often in 140 characters or
less.

America has changed in so many ways since Harvey’s heyday when radio news
reigned supreme. Although decidedly conservative in many ways, he wasn’t
swayed by partisan cheerleading, especially in his later life. He was
sage, a teacher who regularly encouraged listeners to look beyond the
“dark headlines of Page One.”

HARMEET DHILLON: IMPEACHMENT-OBSESSED ANTI-TRUMP DEMOCRATS WON'T LET FACTS
GET IN THE WAY OF THEIR CAMPAIGN

And that’s precisely how I think he would have approached these last few
weeks of impeachment hearings.

Paul would have reminded us there is more to every story than initially
meets the eye, and there are often more important matters than the media’s
self-selected themes.

Impeachment included.

“Page One,” he would often say, “is proof of nothing except that one
gunshot makes more noise than a thousand prayers.”

As Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and his fellow Democrats carried on in the
Capitol hearing room, Harvey would have reminded his listeners that the
nation’s most formidable battles are actually being waged in hospital
cancer wards and on the nation’s streets, patrolled by brave police “who
must be a minister, a social worker, a diplomat, a tough guy and a
gentleman.”

The hearing room table may be a site of high drama, but it’s at our
kitchen and dining room tables, he would have said, that the most
consequential conversations are taking place today.

Paul wouldn’t have bought into the exasperated headlines heralding the
impeachment hearings as “unprecedented.” He would have scoffed at such
hyperbole.

“In times like these,” Paul used to say, “it’s important to remember there
have always been times like these.”

In the summer of 1974, on the eve of impeachment hearings centered on
President Richard Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate break-in and cover-
up, Harvey -- a friend of the embattled president -- refused to call for
either his exoneration or removal. Instead, he referred to the whole
process as the “political A-bomb of press-pressured impeachment.”

I guess some things never change.

To critics of Nixon’s hard edge, President Trump’s supporters may also see
a parallel.

Harvey opined back then that Nixon’s record had been “torn, spindled and
mutilated” – but that the president should be “judged not by rebuffs but
by results, not by faults but by fruits.”

Paul then added, in exasperation reminiscent of President Trump’s
strongest defenders, “If it’s lovability you have to have in a leader,
elect my wife.”

The ascent and election of Donald Trump to the American presidency would
surely have intrigued, though not necessarily surprised Harvey. That’s
because unlike many of his media contemporaries, the newsman knew the
pulse of Middle America because his heart beat in rhythm with theirs –
even broadcasting each day from his Midwest Chicago perch, a geographic
location that allowed him to ideologically and emotionally see as far east
as west.

Harvey didn’t suffer political fools lightly, and I sense he would have
reserved his strongest words for the politicians who throughout this
process are – to borrow one of his many gems -- “hiding behind the same
Constitution they’re simultaneously setting fire to” in their quest to
impeach the nation’s 45th president.

After two weeks of hearings – ironically leading into Thanksgiving week,
no less – Paul would have urged caution surrounding not just partisan
rancor or activity, but also the attitude and the motivation and behavior
of those who are leading the charge.

“It’s not when citizens object, or correct, or reject,” Harvey once wrote.
“Men can flail their government with the ten-tailed lash of anger and make
it stronger. It is when they laugh that the end is near. When a government
is mocked by the snide snickers of its own citizens, that is the death
rattle with which empires die.”

On the verge of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I think Paul would have
us turn our gaze from the fractious spectacle of impeachment to the
blessings of our families – made stronger yet “with the soft strong bonds
of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh and reply with smiling eyes.”

So, what does President Trump’s future hold? What does ours?

Paul would have assured President Trump and the rest of us that in
America, “Tomorrow has always been better than today.” He’d also remind us
that the weeks and months to come will surely tell “the rest of the
story.”



--
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.

Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.

Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.

The Obama-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)
approved Uranium One in fall 2010. With a little luck, we'll see
compulsive liar Hillary Clinton in jail before she dies.

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp.

Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he was in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer
liberal democrat donors.