2/27/2019

CONGRESS/MICHAEL COHEN/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The witness slumped a bit, digging his dress shoes into the blue diamond carpet pattern, mouth sagging at the sides like a hound who knows he has defied his master. From the start on Wednesday [2-27-19], Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, had been willing to concede quite a bit: Yes, he was a criminal. Yes, he was a fool. Yes, he was a stooge, until he wasn’t…It stands to reason that a democracy gets the leaders it deserves. And Mr. Trump’s Washington has carried the premise to its logical end: In Mr. Cohen, the Capitol welcomed a star witness to meet the moment — a hangdog avatar of New Yawk hucksterism, delivered from central casting to revisit the questions that have defined this presidency.”

Matt Flegenheimer, “At Cohen Hearing, a Fixer and Washington’s Problems on Display,” The New York Times online, February 27, 2019