Among Shakespeare scholars, there is a unity of opinion on who of all his characters is the most venal: Iago, Othello's nemesis.  Iago is hatred and jealousy personified; he represents evil and cruelty for its own sake and he is unrepentant about the misery his manipulations cause others.

Sound familiar?  Iago's vile personality traits are strikingly similar to the Democrats in Congress, at least those on the Judiciary Committee.  The Kavanaugh hearings were just the opening act of their performance theater that erupted out of their shock and outrage over Trump's victory.  Their attempted abuse of William Barr on Wednesday was Act II.

Edwin Booth as Iago (photo credit: Library of Congress).

The usual suspects made complete and utter fools of themselves: Mazie Hirono, Sheldon Whitehouse, Kamala Harris, Richard "DaNang" Blumenthal, Chris Coons, Amy Klobuchar, Dianne Feinstein, Cory "Spartacus" Booker, Dick Durbin, and Patrick Leahy.  They are a congregation of Iagos, artists of evil; they relish their perceived roles as powerful enough to destroy the lives of persons they loathe, with or without reason.

Unlike Iago, however, who was actually quite clever in executing his evil schemes, this bunch of slanderers are none too bright.  They are all too dim to realize that A.G. Barr is the smartest guy in the room.

Harold Bloom wrote of Iago that "[h]e does it [evil] with a sense of craftsmanship ... he appreciates the elegance of his scheme as much as the final result: incredible suffering for the people he has chosen [to destroy]."  Our Trump-hating Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee bared their rotten teeth at Kavanaugh and lost in the end.  Their badgering of A.G. Barr was both contemptible and cringe-worthy.  Unable to accept the result of the Mueller Report, they have forgotten the First Rule of Holes: stop digging.  They will lose this fruitless battle as well.

The curious thing about Shakespeare's Iago is that we never learn the specific motivations of his plan to destroy Othello.  He comes up with at least two possible reasons: being passed over for promotion by Othello or Othello's suspected affair with his wife.  But in the end, we must conclude that he is just plain evil.  Samuel Coleridge explains Iago's behavior as "motiveless malignity."

Our vicious Democrats have made their motive abundantly clear — they cannot abide Donald Trump as president, no matter how successful he is at the job.  The more successful he is, the more they hate him.  So, on the question of motive, they are more transparent than Iago.  They are less clever and infinitely more immature.

Like toddlers who may howl when they don't get what they want, this bunch has been screaming like banshees since the night Trump won the election.  Their childish intransigence is an embarrassment to our two legislative bodies.  Given the obvious ineptitude of these Democrat members of the Senate, it is difficult to grasp how so many of them keep getting elected, especially the long-haulers like Blumenthal, Whitehouse, Feinstein, Durbin, Leahy, and Hirono.  Each of them has proved his incompetence and disingenuousness over and over again.

It is clear to all Americans who have been paying attention to the "investigation" of the wholly fabricated "crime" of collusion with Russia by President Trump and/or members of his campaign, that this ongoing travesty is the most serious political crime against the nation in U.S. history.  It was devised and carried out by higher-ups in the CIA; the DOJ; the FBI; the Obama administration; the leftist media; and, of course, the Clintons.

From the outset, it was an exercise in pure evil.  These persons set out to destroy many, many good and innocent people in order to undo the election.  Many of the witnesses they called lost everything they had to legal fees only to find they are not even mentioned in the Mueller Report.  This bunch of traitors conspired, schemed, and colluded with one another to destroy a man sixty-three million voted for because they objected to his victory over the deeply corrupt Hillary Clinton.  This happened!  In America!  These criminals must be brought to justice.

The Founders who drafted our Constitution valued honor, loyalty, reverence, and fidelity.  These were to them the virtues of humanity.  To Iago, these are commodities to be bought and sold.  He is a denier of all things spiritual.  He has no conscience, no ability to perform good deeds.  He feels no guilt.  He is driven by evil.

Similarly, our Democrats are driven by their lust for power and their desire to abrogate the Constitution.  They are our Iagos.  As the young socialists gain power in the party, the dinosaurs seem to just meekly follow suit.  They are ungrateful for all this country has to offer, least of all their own success, and are filled with a terrible resolve: to destroy the president who has accomplished more good in two years than any other in history.

Albert Einstein wrote, "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."  Indeed.  Our cackle of Iagos must be defeated, the criminals among them brought to justice.