Article by Paul Curry in "Townhall":
Watching cable news and surfing Facebook this past Wednesday, an
outside observer might be excused in thinking that the Democrats won
something. There were the members of the mainstream media lauding what
they repeatedly referred to as an indelible mark on Donald Trump’s
presidency. Facebook and Twitter users lit up in some misperceived
triumph. Collectively the left cheered when, finally, after three long
years of trying, President Trump was finally impeached. Perhaps it was
the excitement of the moment, the culmination of a three-year vendetta,
but Democrats far and wide seemed so jubilant in their perceived
victory, that they displayed an absolute ignorance of the reality in
which they were living. That being, absolutely nothing has changed.
Just
as when they woke up on November 9, 2016, and just as they sat
stoically on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump is still their president,
and Democrats still don’t like him. Quite literally, nothing was changed
by the House Democrats’ formal vote to impeach the president, a formal
vote to say nothing more than, “We don’t like him!” Nothing has changed
except for the fact that Democrats have a fresh opportunity to lose with
some dignity intact, an opportunity that they thus far have been
reluctant to embrace.
If a tree falls in the woods, and there’s
nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound? What if the House voted
to impeach a president, but failed to send such impeachment to the
Senate, does the impeachment even matter? Yes, House Democrats have
formally voted in favor of two articles of impeachment against the
president, yet Speaker Pelosi has yet to deliver those articles to the
Senate. The Speaker feels, quite incorrectly, that by withholding the
articles from the Senate, she somehow gains leverage over what she
erroneously believes to be an unfair process. As juvenile as it is,
threatening to take your ball and go home, only ever works if the other
side really wants to play. To believe, as Speaker Pelosi evidently does,
that withholding the articles could somehow compel the Senate to cater
to her partisan demands is to overlook the fact that the Senate never
wanted this impeachment farce in the first place. Mitch McConnell,
President Trump, and Republicans throughout the country could be just as
content to see an entirely partisan impeachment fall apart simply
because the champion of such impeachment is afraid to bring it to an
open trial. A loss for the House Democrats to be certain, but not one
with any semblance of dignity.
Speaker Pelosi, her allies in the Senate, and Democrats
throughout the social media universe have charged that Mitch McConnell,
and any Senate Republican who does not sign off on the demands of Chuck
Schumer, is a hopeless partisan and somehow unfit to be a “juror” in any
would be trial. Are we then to accept that, by implication, Adam
Schiff, Jerry Nadler, and the rest of the House Democrats who have been
on a three-year quest of impeachment in search of a reason are impartial
purveyors of truth? Are we to forget the Russia collusion narrative and
Adam Schiff’s fraudulent claim to have proof of such collusion? Should
we overlook the baseless claims of obstruction of justice towards the
Mueller investigation? A fair “juror” would, necessarily, keep in mind
the “prosecutor’s” demonstrated history of vindictive and fraudulent
prosecution. And are we to overlook the fact that other “jurors” would
include Kamala Harris, who just weeks ago tweeted “See you at your
trial” before the House even voted on impeachment? Or what about
Elizabeth Warren who famously lied about her ancestry to advance her
career and falsely claimed to have been fired over pregnancy to advance
her presidential campaign? Are these the examples fair and impartial
jurors the left would like to populate a Senate trial?
Democrats have been on an endless three-year quest to
arrive at this point, regardless of reason and in absence of merit, a
partisan driven vendetta whose promulgators now charge their opposition
with hyper-partisanship. This is eerily similar to the classic fairy
tale movie,
The Princess Bride, when the conniving crime boss
Vizzini decries, “You’re trying to kidnap what I’ve rightfully stolen!”
Having nothing left to advance their hopes of removing Trump from
office, Democrats now accuse Republicans in the Senate of the very
immoralities they themselves are guilty of. That sounds a lot like a
phrase Speaker Pelosi has popularized, “beneath the dignity of the
office."
To be sure, the articles of impeachment will fail if they ever reach
the Senate. The first article, alleging abuse of power, is not only
unsubstantiated, but an act House Democrats have openly committed by
spending all of their time and exerting all of their influence to harass
the president and his family through endless, and baseless,
investigations. The second article, accusing the president of
obstruction of Congress by exerting executive privilege and challenging
subpoenas has already been taken up by the Supreme Court with regards to
the subpoenas for his tax returns. The very fact that the Court is
looking at the question means that it is a valid question and not
sufficient grounds for impeachment. The ill-advised impeachment is
rightfully dead on arrival in any body that is not partisan.
Democrats wanted to put an indelible mark against Donald
Trump’s name and an asterisk next to his presidency. What they have done
is placed an indelible mark against this Congress and a permanent
asterisk next to this impeachment. They have lost and there exists no
way for them to change that. Still, they can lose with dignity by
dropping this charade now before they do any further damage to the
institutions they claim to be defending.
https://townhall.com/columnists/paulcurry/2019/12/24/the-democrats-need-to-lose-with-dignity-n2558471
