3. That said, Bondi’s stooping to ad hominem insults is inexcusable. “You washed-up loser lawyer! You’re not even a lawyer,” Bondi said to Rep. Raskin, who is indeed disgusting, but that is not relevant to the hearing. She called anti-Trump Republican Thomas Massie “a failed politician,” and insulted Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) by saying, “You’re about as good of a lawyer today as you were when you tried to impeach President Trump in 2016.”
4. Again, the Democrats did not exactly cover themselves with glory either. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) snarked that “Our witness who somehow is a lawyer but does not understand how [testifying] works.” To be fair, that might be because the Democrats didn’t show any understanding of what their role in a productive hearing should be either. Ted Lieu of California showed a photo of Trump and Epstein at a party well before he was charged with any crime, implying that the photo was damning evidence. Bondi responded, “There is no evidence that Donald Trump has committed a crime,” “I’m going to put up another document from a witness who called the FBI national threat operation center because I believe you just lied under oath,” Lieu snapped back, displaying a document that summarized unverified allegations about Trump from a limo driver. There is, in fact, no evidence in the Epstein files that Trump committed a crime.
5. How desperate and silly were the Democrats? This desperate and silly: Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) waved a Bible and the “Harry Potter” books, blathering “Trump’s name appears more times in the Epstein files than God’s name appears in the book about God! By the way, this is the Trump Bible. Move over, King James,” Moskowitz said. “Trump’s name also appears more times in the Epstein file than Harry Potter’s name appears in the seven books about Harry Potter!” Wow: the Harry Potter standard of incriminating mentions!
6. Bondi’s repeated exultations of President Trump—she called him the greatest POTUS in history at one point, just a day before Abe Lincoln’s birthday—made her sound like a toady, and Trump’s Cabinet appear to be stuffed with yes-persons. Is anyone impressed by that crap in a positive way?
7. Finally, in the yuck, pooie, ick, yecchh, “Have you no decency?” category, the Democrats used Epstein’s victims as props, as if they hadn’t been abused enough. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) asked Epstein survivors in the audience to stand up and demanded Bondi apologize to them.
In sum, the spectacle was a gang of unprofessional partisan thugs spitting insults and unfounded accusations at an unprofessional, unethical lawyer who lowered the status of the Justice Department every time she opened her mouth.
Compared to them, the elected officials and Cabinet members Li’l Abner and Marryin’ Sam were singing about in the early Sixties seem like demigods.
Ethics Alarms 
“Nothing that occurred at today’s embarrassing (to everyone, including me) hearing altered any of that.”
The only part of this essay I will disagree with is the statement above.
The reason for my disagreements is that the spectacle that occurred is a mere reflection of the electorate. We are rapidly devolving as a society into an literal Idiocracy. We college students unable to read texts and must rely on videos to gain any limited understanding. We have others who only want to believe their lived truth which has been distorted by others who told them what to believe.
It is no wonder that the spectacle in Congress will be viewed favorably by some factions on each side. We will not regain decorum until both sides are held to account. I don’t recommend anyone hold their breath for that to occur any time soon.
For those young women that are clamoring for the release of the Epstein files; you are the eyewitnesses to any abuse you are claiming so name your abusers and file suit. Stop with being used as pawns. I become suspect of those claiming abuse but need to have the government provide them with a list of names.
The Democrats are ethically estopped from complaining about this since they sneered and laughed about George Galloway’s insulting treatment of Norm Coleman and laughed that he didn’t lay a glove on him. They are doubly estopped since “impeach the motherfucker” became their war cry. That doesn’t mean you are, of course, but I would like to point out that Democrats only give a damn about civility or decorum or things like that when it’s their person who’s getting attacked.
I for one think Bondi could have gone a lot further than she did. I think it is perfectly ok to call AOC Congresswoman Lipstick or Ilhan Omar a Muzzie inbreeder with a fucked-up doo-rag or Nancy Pelosi Nancy Bug Eyes, and it would have been ok to call Barney Frank a butt-dart player. Insults can’t flow only one way, and if only one side is shooting the other side will soon be dead.
I would take a slight edit to your “Democrats only give a damn about civility or decorum or things like that when it’s their person who’s getting attacked.” I think it is more in line with their thinking that they only care about civility and decorum when they find it useful. If it is useful to sacrifice one of their own to pretend they hold to some standard, like hanging Al Franken out to dry over his harassment problems, they won’t hesitate to do so. But in terms of Democrats crying about decorum in this embarrassment of a hearing, the thing to remember is the rule for radicals, “Hold them to their own standard.” Democrats have no objective standards up to which they live. The only “standard” is whatever is useful at that moment to push their cause. But they recognize that many in their opposition have standards, and the goal is always to point out and use as a cudgel whenever the opposition does not live up to those standards.
This is why complaints of Democratic hypocrisy are so ineffective, and why suggesting they are ethically estopped from complaining about anything doesn’t matter (to them). To a certain extent, if they can bog their opposition down on grousing about hypocrisy, that merely means they know they found sore spot they could keep poking. If that doesn’t seem to be effective at riling the opposition, they move on to something else. And then something else again. And something else again. It is nonstop pressure, from any angle they can find to apply it.
Don’t tell me you agree with progressive that words equal violence. Insults have no practical purpose.
I think they can be a tactic to make someone angry or throw him off his game. I remember calling my opponent an unmade bed during oral argument and he lost his place completely. Sometimes you really might believe it, like calling your opponent an asinine fool who obviously did not do the research, or another one a fat Polak with a face like a horse whose nose isn’t in the center of it, and just think you are pouring well-deserved contempt on the deserving.
OK, tactics I can kind of understand, but insults still don’t prove the facts of your case. If I was a judge or jurist, I’d look less favorably upon the case of a lawyer who resorted to name-calling, because it would indicate to me he couldn’t win on the case’s merits. That goes double for insulting someone’s physical appearance. Calling a person a fool who acts foolish is one thing, but going after a person’s features seems way below the belt. I was born with facial defects, and going after my looks will certainly not make me say, “Well golly gee wilikers, you must be right after all!” And if I saw someone do that to somebody else, even if the target deserved reproof for something they actually did, I would not hold the insulter in high esteem.
I also thought the performances at the hearing were childish and unprofessional. But I don’t share your opinion of Bondi, who whatever you want to say about her personally, has presided over a Department of Justice that has been consistently winning the lawfare battles that unethical federal judges and lawyers are waging against this administration. Incompetent she is not.
And while I reiterate that her performance at the hearing was unprofessional, it was certainly understandable. To put it bluntly, acting professionally and calmly in the face of insulting, partisan attacks from the Democrat representatives does nothing but encourage more of the same. This is the lesson of Mitt Romney and the 2012 presidential campaign, and it’s a lesson this administration has learned well. At some point, fighting fire with fire is the appropriate response, notwithstanding the fact that doing so means you have to suffer some burns. My understanding is that Bondi did not start the gratuitous insult game but rather was responding to it in kind. If I thought for a second that her exercising some restraint in her remarks would either create a favorable impression with the undecided electorate or cause the Democrat inquisitors to tone down their approach, I would be right with you in your criticism. But I don’t, and recent history seems to agree with me.
What I really wanted to see was the chairman cutting off all questioning and responses and dismissing the hearing, telling the Attorney General and the Congressmen that unless they could act with some decorum he would not reconvene the proceedings. But even such a basic move was apparently too much to ask. A low point in our legislative cultural history, for sure.
I can’t bothered to read all the posts here. Bondi spoke as exactly as an asshole would.
Perhaps someone here could convince me of the value of responding to an asshole
I’ll wait.