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David and Sarah examine the decision to not prosecute Andrew McCabe, the eye-opening interview Harvey Weinstein’s attorney gave, and answer which novels have most impacted them.
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I appreciate Sarah’s mention of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES. I read it over the holidays for the first time, and I loved it. Every sentence is a delight to me. I listened to an audible version read by Rachel McAdams which was superb. Her renditions of Marilla and Matthew are so very enjoyable. I read TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES a few years back. Until the last 20 pages, I thoroughly liked that. But the ending left me depressed and wondering whether Hardy was an atheist. His novel THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE affected me in somewhat the same way: suggestive of an outlook that life is pointless, random, and tragic.
Why would someone be authorized to leak?
David French on one of the factors that might have gone into the decision not to prosecute Andrew McCabe for lying to an FBI investigation (ca. 23:00):
“This would be brought in the District of Columbia. And this is not the Trump-friendliest jurisdiction in the United States of America.”
French goes on to point out that Trump received only 4.1% of the popular vote in D.C.
The result of that would appear to be that Democrats are acquitted in spite of strong evidence, while Republicans are convicted on weak evidence.
That further implies that Democrats know they can lie with impunity, while innocent Republicans will plead guilty to avoid long prison terms.
But what’s the French Davidian take on this? Let’s go on listening.
My impression of The Mayor of Casterbridge was more positive than yours, though the details have faded with the years. The selfish man who sold his own wife and daughter is filled with regret, for all that he achieves material success; the cheerful sailor who takes him up on the deal comes out of it more content.
Also, the novel gives a vivid portrait of the burgeoning agricultural economy of England in the early 19th century.
Proceeding from #3, above: no, French and Isgur do not take note of the built-in bias — against Republicans and in favor of Democrats — of grand and trial juries in the District of Columbia.
This bias would tend to make an innocent Republican plead guilty, and a guilty Democrat go to court. (See Susan McDougal.)
Furthermore, if prosecutors take into account the likelihood of obtaining a conviction (as French and Isgur admit), then they will be more likely to indict a Republican than a Democrat on the same set of facts (as French and Isgur don’t say).
Following their defense of Andrew McCabe, French and Isgur proceed to an indictment of Gen. Mike Flynn.
In which they carefully avoid mentioning that Flynn’s FBI interview was clearly a perjury trap, explicitly designed to take advantage of a new and still naive administration. Flynn thought he was helping the FBI with its investigations; he did not suspect he was the target.
They never quite mention that the FBI had a surreptitious recording of Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador, so any questioning was virtually guaranteed to find inconsistencies which could be exploited for criminal charges.
P.S.: The C.S.Lewis sci-fi novel that David French says was a big influence on him is Perelandra, not Perelandria.
Funny, I saw the title of this podcast and thought it was the name of the publication that French writes for…