You would think they would be happy to move on, but this week’s Liberal Media Scream features an ABC News analyst calling for the second impeachment trial in the Senate of former President Donald Trump to be more of a truth and accountability commission process.
“To me, the impeachment — we have to separate the parts of the impeachment vote. I mean, other countries have gone through this before, Germany, Japan, South Africa, and the thing before you get to reconciliation and healing, you have to have some element of truth and accountability in this,” said Matthew Dowd.
What happened in those countries? South Africa set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the end of apartheid, Japan had the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal after World War II, and Germany had the Nuremberg trials.
In calling for a Trump truth tribunal, Dowd suggested that without one, the United States could be in for a century of political trouble that he compared to racism.
Dowd during the roundtable on Sunday’s This Week on ABC:
“Well, to me, the impeachment — we have to separate the parts of the impeachment vote. I mean, other countries have gone through this before, Germany, Japan, South Africa, and the thing before you get to reconciliation and healing, you have to have some element of truth and accountability in this.
“And even besides those foreign country examples, we have an example in our country during Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War when we went through — we were supposed to go through a process of truth and accountability and changing the nature of what went on. And when Abraham Lincoln was killed and Andrew Johnson took over, reconciling — I mean, the idea of forming a thing and demanding truth was stopped. And what did they result in, George? It resulted in this country of Jim Crow laws, it resulted in this country of the KKK, and it resulted in this country of 100 years more of a fight for justice and truth and equality in our country.
“And so, we have to get to a situation where, yes, let’s have a discussion of what was the truth, what did Donald Trump do, what should be his accountability, and the final stage of that is: What should be his punishment?
“And to me, the only way to do that is to have a conversation in the trial in the Senate where facts and knowledge and data and information is presented in such a way that the American public can see exactly what went on, what was Donald Trump responsible for, what should he held accountable to. And then, ultimately, what should his punishment be?
“But we should not do what happened in Reconstruction. When Reconstruction was ended and we went through this huge, long, centurylong process when justice finally prevailed in the end. We have to have an insight into the truth before we get to reconciliation and healing.”
Media Research Center Vice President Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “To say anything Donald Trump has done is on par with genocidal regimes, or that he has left the nation in a condition anywhere similar to a segregated, race-based two-class system like the America in the decades after the Civil War, is just ridiculous. The other panelists should have laughed at him. Dowd needs his own accountability session to separate reality from his overwrought historic comparisons.”
Rating: 4 out of 5 SCREAMS.
