Mary Katharine Ham appeared on Bill Maher's show Saturday evening, and she took the opportunity to say what most conservatives are thinking.
While sparring with Sam Harris (and Maher at some points), Ham laid out the double standard surrounding the Biden family and its various scandals.
HAM: The standard of evidence used for the Russia thing for three, four years vs. the standard of evidence used now in media for Biden and Hunter Biden's shenanigans and fairly obvious influence peddling is worlds apart, worlds apart, and voters deserve fairness in how these two people are treated. They do not get it, and they sometimes don't get it from law enforcement.
HARRIS: Yes, there's a lot to untangle here, but I'll completely grant you that if Hunter Biden had been Don Jr., if it had been Don Jr.'s laptop everything would change in terms of the reception, and that seems like an unfair asymmetry, but the background reality is that we have never had a person like Trump in our politics, certainly not in the lifetime of anyone in this studio, and he has violated, he has shattered every norm. We didn't even know how much we relied on norms. We are a nation of laws, but more important than the laws are the norms. Like committing to a peaceful transfer of power. I mean, that was the most shocking violation of normal democratic principles I think in our history.
HAM: I agree with you about the norms, and here's the problem. A bunch of people, including in the justice system, looked at Trump and said, "He's going to bust all the norms, and you know what we need to do? Bust all the norms to stop him!" And that was a very unhealthy decision.
HARRIS: It's unhealthy, I'll grant you that.
MAHER: Alright, time to stop.
That response to Ham may be the dumbest, most self-serving explanation of the noted double standard I've ever heard. According to Harris, it's fine for the press to pass over blatant corruption involving the Bidens because of Donald Trump. That's an argument completely devoid of any logic or principle.
Either influence peddling and enriching one's self via political power (perhaps criminally) is bad or it's not. The fact that Trump was a disrupter doesn't mean that special rules should apply to him whereby no burden of evidence is needed to make salacious charges while the Bidens must have a signed check with "bribe" in the memo to be criticized.
It's incredible. Even after conceding Ham's point, Harris falls back on the "muh norms" line as if that somehow justified the targeting of political opponents by the federal government. Never mind that the "norms" were first busted in pursuit of Trump, not by Trump himself. The Russia hoax tracks back to 2015 before he was even president.
Harris is a tyrant even though he pretends to be all about protecting democracy. He is fine with the government being weaponized to take down those he disagrees with. Worse, he admits that he values "norms" over the rule of law as an excuse to accomplish that end.
What an insane thing to say. The norms are "more important" than laws? Really? Because I'm pretty sure that laws are tangible while "norms" are just whatever some far-left hack is feeling that day. After all, Harris has had nothing to say about the norm-busting going on with Democrat attacks on the Supreme Court.
What's frustrating is that it was conservatives who helped raise Harris' profile some years back by touting him as a member of the "intellectual dark web." How many times do we have to do this before the right learns to stop elevating rabid left-wingers for short-term clout?
Returning to Ham, she didn't get much applause because Maher's audience is overwhelmingly liberal, but she was spot on. There is a double standard and normal Americans see it. Whether anything will ever be done about it is another question.