Friday, January 17, 2020

This Tawdry Impeachment Spectacle Must Run Its Course

Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 65 warned of the routinization of presidential impeachment. The danger, partly, is that impeachment could become a regular delaying and tainting tactic by the party out of the White House if it has the majority in the House of Representatives (as has been the case in 36 of the last 52 years in which three of the country’s four impeachment crises occurred, plus the Iran-Contra approach during Ronald Reagan’s administration). This is certainly not what the principal authors of the Constitution favored, and there is no reason to believe that it is what the public wishes.
Conrad Black  . . . "Under the circumstances, then, it is better to go ahead with a trial. If the Senate majority’s wish is for witnesses, the president can invoke executive privilege in some cases, but the confection of the false whistleblowing and its apparent guidance by Schiff and his staff should also be exposed.
"Since the legal case is nonsense and the outcome foreordained, it is only a public relations battle now. The farther the administration is seen to enable an airing of the facts, the better and more electorally valuable will be the result. The Democrats created this trap for themselves; they should be allowed to take the consequences when that trap snaps closed on them.
"It is unlikely the president will fail to gain some political ground. This is the Democrats’ nuclear option—the ultimate weapon—and it has been bandied about as a threat against Trump even before he won the presidency, as we learned from that pillar of disinterested jurisprudential sophistication, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas).
"For Trump-haters, there is nothing he is not guilty of; for his supporters, the entire subject is egregious and defamatory piffle. The opposition to impeachment has drifted gradually toward the president’s side, so the wall-to-wall Democratic bias of almost all the national media has failed to hold back the tide of perception that these charges are legal and constitutional nonsense.
"For any reader who has been in a submarine or outer space or Antarctica for the last six months, the charges are abuse of office and contempt of Congress. The first is not a ground for impeachment unless specified as treason, bribery, or another high crime or equivalent misdemeanor—and none such is alleged. As to the second charge, the only thing the president is actually guilty of is contempt of Schiff, Nadler, and Pelosi for running a rigged partisan mudslinging operation where the president received none of the protections accorded to defendants by the Bill of Rights; failure to be contemptuous of it would itself be contemptible.
"The president was only asking for the facts about the Bidens’ conduct in Ukraine, not for an indictment of the Bidens. Any application of pressure is denied by the Ukrainian president, and in any case, the allegedly withheld assistance to Ukraine was delivered and the investigation requested did not occur. If they weren’t so obnoxiously sanctimonious, Nadler and Schiff would be eligible for theatrical awards for deadpan comedy in presenting such bunk as grave adjudication." . . .

"A republic, if you can keep it"

Chris Wallace: Commemorative impeachment pens 'not a good look' for Nancy Pelosi
. . . “ 'I actually think she hurt herself,” Kilmeade said. “And that show yesterday looked so phony, that solemn march while handing out commemorative pens.”
“I completely agree with that point,” Wallace said in response."
I believe the appropriate word would be "gloating"


BBC commented on the use of so many pens by Pelosi
Perhaps the Queen will forgive us and take us back.

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