President Biden's Inspired Answer to the Far Right

1.  What are your reflections on President Biden's State of the Union address last night?

Answer:  He offered an inspired answer to those on the far right who wish to divide our country into partisanship and rancor -- and that answer was a vision of America that emphasizes possibility in its many forms:  education, mutual respect within civil discourse, climate preservation, infrastructure investments, health care access, safe communities, prosperity, democracy, the highest principles, and the rule of law.

2.  What was your favorite moment of his speech?

Answer:  Because the soul of this nation is strong, because the backbone of this nation is strong, because the people of this nation are strong, the state of the union is strong.

3.  Did you relate to this passage personally?

Answer:  Oh, yes.

4.  In what way?

Answer:  My soul is strong, my backbone is strong, my personhood is strong -- and so my nation is strong.  I harbor a profound belief that all Americans matter in defining our nation's future.  When we insist on speaking the truth, when we insist on defending the civil liberties of others, when we insist on manifesting the highest principles in our conduct toward one another -- we shape our country's character.  And that's an exciting realization.

5.  You believe that President Biden's gifts render him uniquely capable of overcoming the challenge to our democracy currently being posed by the far right.

Answer:  I do.  President Biden perceives the attempt of the far right to seize totalitarian control over the American electorate.  But his courage, his integrity, his intelligence, his resilience, and what I call the "fire within" allow him to reclaim America's identity as cohesive, united, and insistent on preserving the self-determination that has been so central to our nation's character over these last two and half centuries.

6.  What do you mean by the "fire within"?

Answer:  President Biden is unwilling to relinquish this nation's future to those who seek unearned power over the American people -- those who are unelected, untested, and unmeasured by their contributions.

The "fire within" is really found within the strength of a person's soul.

President Biden will not yield to autocracy.

Instead, he insists upon the sovereignty of the American public.

7.  President Biden has repeatedly stated that our democracy is at an inflection point.

Answer:  Yes, as all democracies are at an inflection point.  Our surveillance capabilities have advanced so rapidly that national security agencies have begun to hold the American electorate hostage through a combination of their own private information and, in cases like mine, aggregated material that is falsified.

We need to illuminate this attempt to subvert the democracy by far right factions of those very agencies entrusted with defending it.

8.  You have resisted the temptation to discredit the FBI as a whole, despite the malfeasance of far right segments of the agency toward your family and toward you yourself.  Why is that?

Answer:  Because I genuinely believe there are many men and women of high character and integrity who work within the ranks of the FBI and who wish to treat the Constitution with the honor it deserves.

Certain norms of transparency and accountability need to be re-established within the agency, clearly.

But we also need to recognize that there are individuals within the agency who are determined to contribute to our peaceable democracy.

9.  In other words, in recognizing that some within the agency have strayed from their vows to uphold the Constitution, it is critical not be reactionary.

Answer:  Calm, steady, determined gathering of evidence represents the wise approach.  And, to our country's great good fortune, investigators within the OIG Hotline are doing exactly that.

10.  You believe they have the full support of President Biden in these investigative endeavors.

Answer:  I do.

11.  How do you characterize President Biden, the Director of ODNI, and OIG Hotline investigators, given what you know about their efforts.

Answer:  Heroic.

12.  You hope you can articulate to the American electorate the reasons why this is so.

Answer:  I certainly do.

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The FBI is a deeply divided agency.  There are many FBI employees who view their vows to the Constitution with the utmost seriousness and honor, and who strive to defend the fundamentals of our democracy with courage, fortitude and commitment.  The fact that some segments of the FBI appear to have embraced a lawless course is not a justification to assail the FBI in general.  The safety of FBI agents should be protected, just as the safety of the American citizenry should be protected.  As President Joseph R. Biden has so rightly expressed, violence is never justified in any circumstance.  The rule of law must always be honored and upheld.  It is our shared determination to preserve the civil liberties and human rights of ALL AMERICANS that renders the United States a democracy.  We must never abandon this promise.  All of our most cherished freedoms depend upon it.