Stephen Bates

Whatever controversial topic (gender relations, foreign policy, epidemiology, manels, SCOTUS, gun violence, women's rights, systemic racism, wokeness, Ivy League, etc) is trending on Twitter.

Robert Mueller is the only FBI Director to be unanimously confirmed twice by the U.S. Senate and also be nominated by Presidents from two different political parties, 98-0 in 2001 for the George W. Bush Administration and 100-0 in 2011 for the Obama Administration. He died Friday at age 81. RIP

Robert Mueller died last night. He was 81 years old. He had a wife who loved him for sixty years. He had two daughters, one of whom he met for the first time in Hawaii, in 1969, on a few hours of military leave, before he got back on the plane and returned to Vietnam. He had grandchildren. He had a faith he practiced quietly, without performance. He had, in the way of men who have seen real things and survived them, a quality that is increasingly rare and increasingly mocked in the country he spent his life serving. He had integrity. And tonight the President of the United States said good! I have been sitting with that word for hours now. Good. One syllable. The thing you say when the coffee is hot or the traffic is moving. The thing a man who has never had to bury anyone, never had to sit in the specific silence of a room where someone is newly absent, reaches for when he wants the world to know he is satisfied. Good. The daughters are crying and the wife is alone in the house and good. I want to speak directly to the Americans reading this. Not the political Americans. Just the human ones. The ones who have lost a father. The ones who know what it is to be in that first hour, when you keep forgetting and then remembering again, when ordinary objects become unbearable, when the world outside the window seems obscene in its indifference. I want to ask you, simply, to hold that feeling for a moment, and then to understand that the man you elected looked at it and typed a single word. Good. This is not a country having a bad day. I need you to understand that. Countries have bad days. Elections go wrong. Leaders disappoint. Institutions bend. But there is a different thing, a rarer and more terrible thing, that happens when the moral center of a place simply gives way. Not dramatically. Not with a single catastrophic event. But quietly, in increments, until one evening a president celebrates the death of an old man whose family is still warm with grief, and enough people find it acceptable that it becomes the weather. Just the weather. That is what is happening. That is what has happened. The world knows. From Tokyo to Oslo, from London to Buenos Aires, people are not angry at America tonight. Anger would mean there was still something to fight for, some remaining faith to be betrayed. What I see, in the reactions from everywhere that is not here, is something older and sadder than anger. It is the look people get when they have waited a long time for someone they love to find their way back, and have finally understood that they are not coming. America is being grieved. Past tense, almost. The idea of it. The thing it represented to people who had nothing else to believe in, who came here with everything they owned in a single bag because they had heard, somehow, across an ocean, that this was the place where decency was written into the walls. That idea is not resting. It is not suspended. It is being buried, in real time, with 7,450 likes before dinner. And the church said nothing. Seventy million people have decided that this man, this specific man who has cheated everyone he has ever made a promise to, who has mocked the disabled and the dead and the grieving, who celebrated tonight while a family wept, is an instrument of God. The pastors who made that bargain did not just trade away their credibility. They traded away the thing that made them worth listening to in the first place. The cross they carry now is a costume. The faith they preach is a loyalty oath with scripture attached. When the history of American Christianity is written, this will be the chapter they skip at seminary. Now I want to talk about the men who stand next to him. Because this is the part that actually breaks my heart. JD Vance is not a bad man. I have to say that, because it is true, and because the truth matters even now, especially now. Marco Rubio is not a bad man. Lindsey Graham is not a bad man. They are idiots, but not bad, as in BAD! These are men with mothers who raised them and children who love them and friends who remember who they were before all of this. They are not monsters. Monsters are simple. Monsters do not cost you anything emotionally because there is nothing in them to mourn. These men are something more painful than monsters. They are men who knew better, and know better still, and will get up tomorrow and do it again. Every small compromise they made had a reason. Every moment they looked the other way had a justification that sounded, at the time, almost reasonable. And now they have arrived here, at a place where a president celebrates the death of an old man and they will find a way, on television, to say nothing that means anything, and they will go home to houses where children who carry their name are waiting, and they will say goodnight, and they will say nothing. Their oldest friends are watching. The ones who knew Rubio when he still believed in something. Who knew Graham when he said, out loud, on the record, that this exact man would destroy the Republican Party and deserve it. Who sat next to Vance and thought here is someone worth knowing. Those friends are not angry tonight. They moved through anger a long time ago. What they feel now is the quiet, irrecoverable sadness of watching someone disappear while still being present. Of watching a person they loved choose, again and again, to become less. That is what cowardice costs. Not the coward. The people who loved him. And in the comments tonight, the followers celebrate. People who ten years ago brought casseroles to grieving neighbours. Who stood in the rain at gravesides and meant the words they said. Who told their children that we do not speak ill of the dead because the dead were someone's beloved. Those people are tonight typing gleeful things about a man whose daughters are not yet done crying. And they feel clean doing it. Righteous. Because somewhere along the way the thing they were given in exchange for their decency was the feeling of belonging to something, and that feeling is very hard to give up even when you can no longer remember what you gave for it. When Trump is gone, they will still be here. Standing in the silence where the noise used to be. Without the permission the crowd gave them. Without the pastor who told them their cruelty was holy. They will be alone with what they said and what they cheered and what they chose to become, and there will be no one left to tell them it was righteous. That morning is coming. Robert Mueller flew across the Pacific on military leave to hold his newborn daughter for a few hours before returning to the war. He came home. He buried his dead with honour. He served presidents of both parties because he understood that the institution was larger than any one man. He told his grandchildren that a lie is the worst thing a person can do, that a reputation once lost cannot be recovered, and he lived that, every day, in the quiet and unglamorous way of people who actually believe what they say. He was the kind of American the world used to point to when it needed to believe the story was true. He died last night. His wife is alone in their house in Georgetown. His daughters are learning what the world is without him in it. And somewhere in the particular hush that falls over a family in the first hours of loss, the most powerful man and the biggest loser on earth sent a message to say he was glad. The world that loved what America was supposed to be is grieving tonight. Not for Robert Mueller only. For the country that produced him and then became this. For the distance between what was promised and what was delivered. For the suspicion, growing quieter and more certain with each passing month, that the America people believed in was always partly a story, and the story is over now, and there is nothing yet to replace it. That is all it needed to be. A man died. His family is broken open with grief. That is all it needed to be. Instead the President said good. And the country that once stood for something looked away 🇺🇸 Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

“Trump has never tried to be the president of all Americans. That deficiency was on grotesque display again as he celebrated the death of someone who devoted his life to the country Trump now leads” theatlantic.com/politics/2026/…

Bob Mueller was one of the finest directors in the history of the FBI, transforming the bureau after 9/11 and saving countless lives. But it was his relentless commitment to the rule of law and his unwavering belief in our bedrock values that made him one of the most respected public servants of our time. Michelle and I send our condolences to Bob’s family, and everyone who knew and admired him.

@elliotackerman I remember that Jody Call.

When I get to Heaven, St Peter’s gonna say, “How’d you earn your livin’ boy? How’d you make your pay?”

By the time Trump's photo was taken in 1990, Robert Mueller had graduated St. Paul's School as the top student athlete, earned a B.A. at Princeton (varsity lacrosse) and a Masters at NYU, served valiantly as a Marine in Vietnam, was awarded the Purple Heart, and graduated UVa Law

JD Vance in September 2025: "If you celebrate Charlie Kirk's death, you should not be protected from being fired for being a disgusting person."

Be France: Among best high speed rail in the world 4th largest wheat producer God tier wine and cheese Civilian nuclear superpower Serving duck pate on your aircraft carriers Have generals on telly telling Donald Trump to ‘fuck himself’.

Statement by President George W. Bush on Robert Mueller: "Laura and I are deeply saddened by the loss of Robert Mueller. Bob dedicated his life to public service. As a Marine in Vietnam, he proved he was ready for tough assignments. He earned a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart before returning home to pursue law. In 2001, only one week into the job as the 6th Director of the F.B.I., Bob transitioned the agency mission to protecting the homeland after September 11. He led the agency effectively, helping prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Laura and I send our heartfelt sympathy to his wife of nearly 60 years, Ann, and the Mueller family."

Years ago, I assisted in tracking down Mueller's military records, looking to fact-check and verify what was publicly known. More details are here: washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoin…

The FBI Agents Association statement on the passing of Former FBI Director Robert Mueller: “The FBI Agents Association (FBIAA) mourns the passing of Robert Mueller, who served our nation as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2001 to 2013. A lifelong public servant—a decorated Marine, a Vietnam veteran, a Department of Justice prosecutor, and FBI Director in the years following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks—Director Mueller led the Bureau during a period of significant change and played an important role in strengthening its ability to confront evolving national security threats while maintaining its core criminal investigative mission. The FBIAA extends its condolences to Director Mueller’s family and honors his commitment to public service and to the FBI’s mission.”

I expect every Republican who was outraged at people for celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death to immediately condemn Trump for saying “I’m glad he’s dead” about Robert Mueller. This is disgusting.

@C_3C_3 Frankly, Elon could also spend his money electing people who know how to fund the government, pass legislation, and govern responsibly. How’s that for a novel concept?

What Elon has offered to cover… ~65,000 TSA Employees. Average weekly gross pay is ~$1,000 per employee. Add in benefits and total taxpayer cost is ~$155 million per week. I never want to hear another Leftist talk about Elon’s money and what he should do with it ever again.

Going to war with a country, then immediately floating the idea of lifting sanctions on its oil to prevent your own economic collapse, is the definition of strategic failure

@20th_Centurygal Plant

Some screams aren’t just loud, they’re legendary. In your opinion, who delivers the most powerful scream in rock?

A vitally important decision that cuts through to the core of the Pentagon’s aimes with its new rules: to creat a compliant press corps that will not challenge the statements of defense officials, independently report out evidence of strategic success or failure, or provide evidence so readers can assess whether the United States is living up to its laws and values . But mostly the judge reaffirmed in the strongest words possible that there is a reason, as our former executive editor Bill Keller used to say, that the First Amendment is first. And that means that the government has no control over the kinds of questions asked, the kind of information sought, and the editorial decisions that follow. As the judge noted, that’s where our true national security lies.

We just published my swan song for The Post: Congress nears tipping point of irrelevance. It’s been an amazing 19-plus-year run, especially last decade of this @PKCapitol column. The Post has been family, giving me this perch to cover Congress. So lucky … washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/…

🚨U.S. to allow Iran to get ~14 billion dollars (!!!) in oil revenue 🚨This is a huge financial concession to Iran by the U.S. 🚨It is the first time U.S. is buying Iranian oil since 1996 🚨It's all happening in the middle of a war against...Iran

Short business trip coming up, making "the bookings".