House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signed the articles of impeachment with a tedious series of tiny marks from several pens that were then handed out to Democrats as souvenirs.
Then the articles of impeachment got carried to the U.S. Senate where Chief Justice John Roberts administered an oath of office in which senators swore to consider impeachment with impartiality.
In the interim, the White House press secretary said the White House is not concerned about new information against President Trump because it remains confident of "fair" treatment by the Senate.
All the while, failure by the Senate to convict is the known certain outcome regardless of the evidence. The only question is whether the Senate acquits perfunctorily without witnesses or four Republicans join Democrats in requiring witnesses that would make Republican acquittal more uncomfortable and politically risky, if no less pre-determined.
And Republicans are threatening that, if four of their members defect to Democrats on witnesses, then, by gosh, they'll call Hunter Biden, who knows about as much about Trump's behavior on these particulars of impeachment as he knows about personal ethics, which is to say not much.
From all of that, I would suggest that the nation--or at least the part of it not blindly lost to one crazed extreme or the other--joins me in asking: Are y'all kidding me?
Those are intelligence-insulting personal affronts. Each and every one.
Pelosi has asserted she finds no pleasure, but only solemnity, in the impeachment to which House Democrats rushed so that it would not interfere too much if at all with campaigning.
Ideally, the House would still be building a case, aided by these new revelations.
But, when finally signing the rushed-up articles she held up tactically, Pelosi fashioned a celebratory occasion. It was like LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act, except not historic for the nation as in that case, but adrenaline-pumping for Democratic colleagues.
She may as well have brought in cheerleaders and played "Happy Days Are Here Again."
And then wiped a tear, of course.
Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took his oath solemnly promising impartiality days after he made a public comment that of course he wouldn't be impartial.
That's different from nearly every other senator only in the blatant clarity of his particular malarkey. We know how 95 of these senators are going to vote, no matter what kind of damning detail John Bolton may be permitted to relate. Those other five don't make a darn.
In vowing "impartiality," senators of both persuasions invoke situational ethics and define impartiality as no more impartial than the other side.
When the White House press secretary says she remains confident amid new revelations against Trump because she knows the Senate will be fair, she is really saying that she is confident McConnell will run the trial in close consultation with the defendant and by whatever charade the White House prefers.
That Trump has no defense against the plain uncontroverted facts of his misdeeds--that his only excuse for a defense is that either his misdeeds aren't quite impeachable or that Hunter Biden did something irrelevant--was never made more clear than by news that Republican senators were intending to try to head off defections on witnesses by promising not to rebut, but retaliate. They say they'll call Hunter Biden, and maybe even Joe, if the Democrats are permitted to call witnesses.
From the beginning, I have called this kind of thing a plea of "not guilty by reason of changing the subject."
Let us be clear on two things. Keeping them in mind will protect our sanity.
One is that Trump committed impeachment-worthy acts in holding up congressionally authorized military aid to Ukraine while sending Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to leverage trumped-up trouble there for Biden, who might be his re-election opponent. But impeachment-worthy is like pornography--you know it when you see it, but somebody else might see it differently.
The other is that Democrats never considered that impeachment would bring Trump down, so they have designed this process purely for hoped-for political and electoral advantage.
Their objective is to build a case damning enough to Trump--in the impeachment articles and in the public square--to cause direct political damage to him and his re-election chances while also causing residual damage to Republicans for enabling what he's done.
That's particularly so in regard to Republican senators with tough races this fall and as control of the upper chamber hangs in the balance.
And that's mostly about who gets to nominate and confirm federal judges starting next year.
What kind of judges get to consider all these state anti-abortion laws, Medicaid work requirements and the Trump administration's anti-refugee policies--that's what all the racket is really about.
The stakes are important. The racket is mind-numbing.
Our chore, a hard one, is to tune out the racket while staying attuned to the stakes.
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John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at [email protected]. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 01/19/2020