You are so right about this ... and it's unfortunate that so many have it wrong. I was fuming listening to Ari Melber and his guests yesterday excoriating the house managers ... who are heroes! Lay the blame where it belongs--the Republicans!!! Those traitors were threatening to derail Biden's agenda, and the House managers had no choice but to pull back ... they still were able to read Herrera Beutler's statement into the record--which didn't change any Republican votes; witnesses wouldn't have either. We got GWB instead of Al Gore because of Ralph Nader and others with a holier-than-thou attitude and no strategic sense, and we got Trump instead of Clinton because of the same. I'm as far left as any of them, but being a principled progressive doesn't mean that one must be stupid about it--the first principle should be minimizing real suffering, which in this case means not delaying pandemic relief.
A couple of other things:
"McConnell refused to accept delivery of the article of impeachment before Inauguration Day"
This isn't technically true. What he refused was to join Schumer to call the Senate back into session. Had he done so, the article of impeachment could have been delivered and the trial started immediately.
"the question of constitutionality had been settled by a bipartisan vote in the United States Senate."
This is true, but it goes way beyond that. The arguments given by Republicans preceding that vote, given by Trump's lawyers, and given again by Republicans preceding their votes to acquit, were all blatant lies. First, Trump was impeached while in office. Second, there is nothing in the Constitution, in precedent, or in the historical record that these phony "originalists" claim to care about that supports their claims--totally to the contrary, as explained in depth at https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/02/11/donald-trump-impeachment-ex-president-founders-468769
After the vote, I had to check out for a while myself. It was just too much to continue to take in. I couldn't agree more with your explication of what happened and your conclusion that we not be distracted from identifying and calling out the real guilty parties. It's frightening how many people are willing to jump on a bandwagon with imaginary wheels. I'm now putting my faith in the New York attorney general as far as Trump is concerned. As for the Republic, I just have to hope we find a way to better educate people and help them learn how to identify valid positions from lunacy.
Do you have any thoughts about the issue of Graham, Cruz and Lee, jurors who swore an oath of impartiality, conferring regularly with defense counsel? It seemed to me to be an open invitation to move to disqualify them as jurors. At a minimum, it should have been debated so that there will be clear future guidelines for Senate behavior in the future. The status quo is that the oath Senators take to sit as impartial jurors in an impeachment case is meaningless. And yes, I know that there is no impartiality in such a political and politicized chamber, but not calling out that behavior legitimizes it for the future. It wouldn't have changed the outcome of this impeachment, but it might have improved conduct in the future.
So many politicians are self righteous and greedy. Those 43 republican senators certainly are. When they have to make a choice between truth and lies, they choose to lie if being truthful might threaten their reelection. It's not just cowardice, though it certainly is that. It is ignorance, immorality, and as you say it is treasonous and I'll add stupidity. It will be interesting to see if Mitch files a lawsuit of some kind against 45.
Nancy said it right when she said these 43 senators are afraid to lose their jobs, as if anybody is promised a lifetime job no matter how lousy they are at that job. I agree. They are afraid to lose jobs that they are particularly lousy at, but the people who are their voters are too lazy to take care that their representatives are indeed competent to do the jobs they sent them to Washington to do. They just look at the ballot and select the R name they are most used to seeing.
I was upset at first about the teasing of witnesses... but then I thought about how the first impeachment went. No, there were no witnesses at the trial itself, but there was plenty of excellent, compelling testimonies at the House Intelligence and Judiciary hearings. Guess what, though? It didn’t matter... not only to the eventual outcome, but also to the general poll numbers. Folks love to make the point that extended witnesses and hearings would change public opinion like what happened with Watergate, but that world just doesn’t exist anymore. I wish it were otherwise, but it ain’t so.
I think witnesses would have animated both political bases and produced no movement at all in terms of votes or public opinion, especially after the GOP ramped up the ratf***ing machine.
Passing a massive Covid relief bill and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act though... that might move some things.
You are so right about this ... and it's unfortunate that so many have it wrong. I was fuming listening to Ari Melber and his guests yesterday excoriating the house managers ... who are heroes! Lay the blame where it belongs--the Republicans!!! Those traitors were threatening to derail Biden's agenda, and the House managers had no choice but to pull back ... they still were able to read Herrera Beutler's statement into the record--which didn't change any Republican votes; witnesses wouldn't have either. We got GWB instead of Al Gore because of Ralph Nader and others with a holier-than-thou attitude and no strategic sense, and we got Trump instead of Clinton because of the same. I'm as far left as any of them, but being a principled progressive doesn't mean that one must be stupid about it--the first principle should be minimizing real suffering, which in this case means not delaying pandemic relief.
A couple of other things:
"McConnell refused to accept delivery of the article of impeachment before Inauguration Day"
This isn't technically true. What he refused was to join Schumer to call the Senate back into session. Had he done so, the article of impeachment could have been delivered and the trial started immediately.
"the question of constitutionality had been settled by a bipartisan vote in the United States Senate."
This is true, but it goes way beyond that. The arguments given by Republicans preceding that vote, given by Trump's lawyers, and given again by Republicans preceding their votes to acquit, were all blatant lies. First, Trump was impeached while in office. Second, there is nothing in the Constitution, in precedent, or in the historical record that these phony "originalists" claim to care about that supports their claims--totally to the contrary, as explained in depth at https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/02/11/donald-trump-impeachment-ex-president-founders-468769
You are on point here. I feel Trump wasn't acquitted as much as excused.
After the vote, I had to check out for a while myself. It was just too much to continue to take in. I couldn't agree more with your explication of what happened and your conclusion that we not be distracted from identifying and calling out the real guilty parties. It's frightening how many people are willing to jump on a bandwagon with imaginary wheels. I'm now putting my faith in the New York attorney general as far as Trump is concerned. As for the Republic, I just have to hope we find a way to better educate people and help them learn how to identify valid positions from lunacy.
Do you have any thoughts about the issue of Graham, Cruz and Lee, jurors who swore an oath of impartiality, conferring regularly with defense counsel? It seemed to me to be an open invitation to move to disqualify them as jurors. At a minimum, it should have been debated so that there will be clear future guidelines for Senate behavior in the future. The status quo is that the oath Senators take to sit as impartial jurors in an impeachment case is meaningless. And yes, I know that there is no impartiality in such a political and politicized chamber, but not calling out that behavior legitimizes it for the future. It wouldn't have changed the outcome of this impeachment, but it might have improved conduct in the future.
So many politicians are self righteous and greedy. Those 43 republican senators certainly are. When they have to make a choice between truth and lies, they choose to lie if being truthful might threaten their reelection. It's not just cowardice, though it certainly is that. It is ignorance, immorality, and as you say it is treasonous and I'll add stupidity. It will be interesting to see if Mitch files a lawsuit of some kind against 45.
Nancy said it right when she said these 43 senators are afraid to lose their jobs, as if anybody is promised a lifetime job no matter how lousy they are at that job. I agree. They are afraid to lose jobs that they are particularly lousy at, but the people who are their voters are too lazy to take care that their representatives are indeed competent to do the jobs they sent them to Washington to do. They just look at the ballot and select the R name they are most used to seeing.
I was upset at first about the teasing of witnesses... but then I thought about how the first impeachment went. No, there were no witnesses at the trial itself, but there was plenty of excellent, compelling testimonies at the House Intelligence and Judiciary hearings. Guess what, though? It didn’t matter... not only to the eventual outcome, but also to the general poll numbers. Folks love to make the point that extended witnesses and hearings would change public opinion like what happened with Watergate, but that world just doesn’t exist anymore. I wish it were otherwise, but it ain’t so.
I think witnesses would have animated both political bases and produced no movement at all in terms of votes or public opinion, especially after the GOP ramped up the ratf***ing machine.
Passing a massive Covid relief bill and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act though... that might move some things.