What is the "shocked, shocked" moment? It is when an official who has long been aware of wrong-doing, or should have been, announces that he's "shocked, shocked" to discover the activity he's known about. The phrase comes from the WWII movie "Casablanca" starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.
The corrupt French police chief of colonial Casablanca, having been told by his Nazi masters to find a reason to shut down Rick's cafe, announces that he's "shocked, shocked" to find out there's illegal gambling going on in a back room. Of course, he's known all along, and the script-writer couldn't resist having an employee approach with the chief's crooked winnings at roulette.
In other words, the plain truth hides behind squiggles of evasiveness and lies.
This moment came to mind when Republican Senators such as Lindsay Graham decided they were shocked shocked by Trump's acquiescence in the Saudi cover-up of the murder of the journalist Khashoggi in their Turkish embassy. This is a country that beheads people regularly, some of whom may be political prisoners, a country that is killing people in neighboring Yemen, using bombs an other weapons supplied by the U.S., and that continues to accumulate billions by exporting oil that, when burned, emits greenhouse gases that lead to global warming.
We are still waiting for the "shocked shocked" moment (SSM) about the Trump circle's wrong-doings, and separately, for the SSM about global warming, which meanwhile is said to be a "Chinese hoax" or a plot by climate scientists fishing for grants. Will they ask, "how could we possibly have known?" and "did you expect us to support an energy transition based on computer models?" They will be shocked shocked.
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