To conservatives, and I suspect to most open-minded Americans, the ceaseless Democrat harangue about January 6th is like a nagging toothache — not debilitating but supremely annoying, an indication of an underlying problem that needs to be understood and corrected, but that at this point is just a pain.

Without a doubt, January 6th was a very bad day, an out-of-control riot targeting the U.S. Capitol. President Joe Biden describes it as the most harmful assault on our Republic since the Civil War. But for perspective, keep in mind that the Civil War consumed four long years and claimed over 600,000 American lives; the January 6th riot lasted for about three hours, took one life (a rioter’s), and delayed 2020 election certification until later that evening.

It’s certainly worthwhile to learn how it came about. But as a cold-eyed examination, the ongoing congressional inquiry fails miserably.

The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack was empaneled in July 2021, six months after the fact. But curiously, just five days after that infamous riot, those same House representatives had already concluded that they knew exactly what had happened, with enough certainty to proceed with their second impeachment of then-president Donald Trump — who had already been voted out of office.

No matter. With midterm elections looming and the administration in deep trouble on every front, congressional Democrats deemed it necessary to re-dredge the entire matter, this time via massive investigation with riveting wall-to-wall television coverage. Politics, anyone?

For the past year, the panel has been unearthing minute-by-minute details of that day. Their findings are now being spoon fed to the public in eight televised doses. As a result, we now know … pretty much what we’ve known all along:

• Riots are always harmful, and this one was no exception — but neither was it dramatically different than others that have plagued the nation in recent years.
• Donald Trump was a raging bull, understandably infuriated by what he considered to be an unfair election. He pursued all possible avenues to contest the results. Losing candidates do so frequently, calling for recounts (sometimes successfully), challenging the disposition of questionable ballots, etc. In 2000, we debated for weeks whether hanging chads should count as votes.
• Trump called for a loud, raucous rally on January 6th to demonstrate support for his position. He always calls for loud, raucous rallies.
• Trump ignored input from his advisors — he’d spent four years doing exactly that, operating on instinct, not advice.
• Once the riot started, Trump’s reluctance to use his considerable influence to call off the rioters, was reprehensible — something that voters must consider should he run for office again.

But have we seen any evidence that Trump, as alleged, intended to “prevent the peaceful transfer of power”? No. Clearly, his objective that day was to circumvent certification of the election results — a quixotic, last-ditch quest that would have triggered more political in-fighting, in all likelihood ending in the courts. That’s hardly a coup.

Despite the polished marketing and media blitz, the House investigation strikes me as far from convincing — primarily because it has been flagrantly partisan. All of the committee members were selected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and all had minds made up beforehand. The televised “hearings” were not hearings at all — they were packaged presentations and pre-screened testimony supporting the committee’s conclusions.

Moreover, as investigations go, this one has been glaringly incomplete. The committee briefings showed brief video snippets presumably representative of the violence that day, but the committee blocked release of 14,000 hours of other available video from that day. It deftly avoided any consideration of the role of FBI operatives who penetrated right-wing organizations and quite possibly encouraged and enabled the events that followed. And it ignored completely the fatal shooting of an unarmed, diminutive female trespasser by a Capitol Police lieutenant.

Many assume that the Democrats’ intent in their January 6th extravaganza is to prevent Donald Trump from running for president in 2024. If so, it may already have backfired, since the ever-combative Trump now seems less likely than ever to bow out gracefully. A more likely (and Machiavellian) explanation of the Democrats’ strategy is just the opposite: They want to face a badly damaged Trump as their best chance of winning in 2024.

They’re probably right. But either way, it’s all pure politics.

Eighteen months after 1/6/21, the insurrection narrative is no more plausible than it ever was. The mere idea that a ragtag mob of unarmed rowdies could overthrow the government of the United States of America is nonsensical, as is the notion that open challenge to an American election result is somehow treasonous. But if we believe that, DOJ should start with those who planted the 2016 Russia collusion hoax.