Early reactions to the Horowitz report foreshadow how the Democrats will handle it from this point forward: deny that it says what it plainly says and claim that it says something else entirely. The Horowitz report clearly exposes the unprofessional and heavily biased handling of the FISA applications, which contained 17 errors of omission or commission. Former FBI director James Comey admits to "sloppiness" but refuses to take responsibility for the mess or to apologize to President Trump or the country for the past three years of fake news that has basically accused the president of treason.

We can expect this kind of nonsense to continue with ever bigger lies, ever farther out inventions, and ever more outrageous claims. Adam Schiff, the liar extraordinaire who has ramrodded the impeachment hearings to date, can be expected to continue to say what he wishes the evidence showed and to downplay what it does show. He will color white as black, up as down, and in as out rather than admit that the Democrat machine tried to pull off a coup to remove this president from office.

The major thing for the Democrats now is to insulate Barack Obama, who may well have run the entire enterprise from his home in Washington that has a tall privacy fence surrounding it. If Obama is shown to have been involved, as every honest person by now can guess he was, it will set the Dems back a good many years, possibly wrecking the party altogether, and ruin their electoral chances for decades into the future. Politics will have to realign, new coalitions will coalesce and rip apart, and the parties will have to find ways to re-establish trust and confidence in the system.

This will be the chance to get things back on the right track in America. We can expect that a good number of Republicans were as dirty as the known Democrat crooks. It remains to act quickly without freezing government up entirely in bringing the scoundrels throughout the Washington establishment to justice. The guilty will fight to the death to evade that end state, hurling epithets, counter-charges, invective, and counter-allegations of conspiracies, sabotage, sedition, and treason.

We're used to all that at this late date. Follow the evidence. There is plenty of it.

We must also be alert to these criminals seriously trying to overthrow the legitimate government by force. They've made it clear that they do not feel bound by the rules that have obtained for over two centuries in American electoral politics and that they intend to rule whether they win or not. They stand exposed as outlaws and can be expected to behave even more lawlessly than they have so far. The proof will come when the effort is made to lead them away in cuffs, to establish appropriate bail bonds and put them in ankle bracelets, and in other ways put them through the actual procedures of holding them to account. They will do anything to avoid such humiliation for their crimes.

Yes, crimes. They were not casual, innocent mistakes made by honest public servants. They colluded, conspired, and coordinated together to pull down the government. Their treason and sedition must be reckoned with and accounted for. They must pay the penalty for the arrogant recklessness that moved them to disregard their solemn oaths of office and spit on the Constitution. They deserve lengthy terms at hard labor rather than rich-kid pretend prison. To borrow one of their own haughty phrases, their kind must be utterly destroyed so that they may not rise again.

America expects, and deserves, no less.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.