Last week's encouragement that there might be more witnesses and documents in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump proved fleeting.
That hope had been fostered by revelations from John Bolton's forthcoming book.
Bolton, who was Trump's former national security adviser, could have linked Trump himself to the withholding of American security aid to Ukraine for personal political reasons, according to reports from the leaked manuscript.
But a majority of the Senate, which has been trying Trump on two articles of impeachment approved by the House of Representatives, didn't want to know more from Bolton or anyone else.
Bolton will have his say eventually. That book will come out, as should all the other evidence and testimony that Trump has ordered his administration to withhold from the House investigations.
It just won't happen before Trump's likely acquittal, which is expected to happen today in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate.
Instead of holding this president accountable for what he has done, the Senate may have sacrificed its ability ever to be a check against a president's abuse of power.
The two articles of impeachment the House brought against Trump accuse him of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
If holding up critical U.S. aid to an ally at war to coerce a political favor isn't abuse of power, what is? Or ever will be?
The Senate's refusal to gather all the available evidence made the situation all the worse.
A single vote last week separated senators who would have called more witnesses and documents from those who wouldn't.
The motion failed on a 49-51 vote.
All of the Democrats and independents and two Republican senators -- Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine -- wanted more.
The other 51 Senate Republicans, including the two from Arkansas, did not.
Both Sens. John Boozman of Rogers and Tom Cotton of Dardanelle had signaled how they'd come down on that question. They didn't change their minds or their votes.
In a statement, Boozman said the House investigation was "hasty, flawed and clearly undertaken under partisan pretenses." He said it is not the Senate's responsibility "to do the work the House was unwilling to do."
Cotton told a national television audience the Senate didn't need "to prolong what's aleady taken five months of the American people's time."
Given the way Trump carried Arkansas in 2016, maybe the state's senators satisfied a majority of this state's voters by defending the president, shortcutting the trial and favoring his acquittal.
But the Senate's failure to call Bolton or other witnesses who could have brought new information to light went against the wishes of 75 percent of Americans.
That was the finding in a national poll released last week by Quinnipiac University, representing the views of 49 percent of Republicans, 95 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of independents polled.
Granted, the poll may or may not reflect how respondents in Arkansas might have answered. We don't really know if support for President Trump continues here without question or if Arkansans expected their senators to at least hear all the witnesses and demand the release of critical documents.
But we should get a better idea when Boozman and Cotton come home to explain their votes at the inevitable town halls to come.
Commentary on 02/05/2020