California Democrat Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has excelled in his handling of Trump’s impeachment hearings, and the television media has zeroed in on him and his allies in the Washington Democratic Media Complex, urging him to participate in this wholly unnecessary farce.
But from where he stands at the auditions, with that long neck and those pursed lips, I think Schiff could at least wear a black robe trimmed with fur. He presides over this absurdity like a medieval priest in a bad movie, determined to burn all the witches and win the adoration of all the little people he finds beneath him.
Wasn’t it just yesterday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi thought the full impeachment of President Donald Trump was a political mistake? But now she’s determined to take him down. And Lord High Inquisitor Schiff is indeed grateful. But what has that really accomplished?
It has already caused collateral damage for former Vice President Joe Biden, a moderate left Democrat who once openly boasted on video that he had put his thumb on the scales of Ukrainian justice while his son Hunter ran questionable gas deals in that notoriously corrupt country. Every day that Democrats push for impeachment, Biden is weakened in the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
You think the Schiff impeachment hearings aren’t hurting Biden? OK, tell that to Michael Bloomberg, the New York billionaire who is running afoul of Biden. Another is former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, an African-American born on Chicago’s South Side. He wants to cut Biden’s last remaining barrier among black voters in South Carolina. Patrick doesn’t do that without a wink and a nod to Biden’s beloved boss, former President Barack Obama.
Impeachment theater tells us that moderate Democrats have been overwhelmed by the left, which is now a lively force in their party. It was inevitable. Years ago, the Republican establishment collapsed under its own weight after all those jobs were shipped overseas and all those unnecessary wars cost American blood and money. The Bushes hoped to employ Trump to suck up all the media oxygen and then slide in. They misjudged. Trump was never the cause of the GOP establishment’s decline, only a symptom of it. And now they hate him.
But back to Schiff and the farce in Washington. The hearings were full of Washington-speak, actors mumbling in what seemed like forgotten languages about the sacred rights, feelings and prerogatives of federal bureaucrats who were irritated by the fact that they were serving at the pleasure of a president many of them hated. Trump angrily tweeted at one diplomat who was there as a witness of feeling, not a witness of fact, but did the Americans get any traction on the testimony? I don’t think so.
Bureaucrats’ feelings matter, yes. Feelings are incredibly vital to the left right now, and the tears are even better, especially on TV, as they prefer not to talk about the economy or the Democratic presidential candidates who want to impose government health care and strip private insurance from union workers in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.
The president sets foreign policy, not unelected diplomats. Trump is accused of withholding aid to Ukraine unless Ukraine investigated the Bidens and reported Democratic intrigue in Ukraine before the 2016 election. Democrats now argue that this is bribery and that foreign aid should not serve domestic political interests. But presidents have always played the game, and their deputies have detoured around the foreign policy bureaucracy in Washington.
Truman had his Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. Billions of US dollars were given to Egypt so it wouldn’t attack Israel. Obama gave Iran millions of dollars in cash on pallets to sweeten the mullahs. One of his top foreign policy advisers, Ben Rhodes, famously boasted in The New York Times how simple it was to manipulate American journalists on the way to Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.
Obama halted deliveries of anti-tank missiles promised to Ukraine. Why? Because he was the president. He was elected to set foreign policy, even if that meant leaning into a sizzling microphone in 2012 and telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to tell Russian boss Vladimir Putin that “I’ll have more flexibility after the election.” Was that sharp? No.
Was Trump sharp to call the Ukrainian president and mention the Bidens? No. But he did.
Is this impeachment? Is impeachment the orange hill that Democrats should die on since the election is less than a year away? No.
Many of you will disagree. Many have and will present reasonable counterarguments. Some of you may believe that the Schiff Show was a worthwhile exercise in saving the republic, only to allow Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, or the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, to impose their will on it and the economy.
Trump’s bombastic personality has been a problem ever since he defeated the unpopular Hillary Clinton and sent the Washington establishment and their Beltway media palace guards into absolute hysterics. They were absolutely hysterical for three years.
You want to get rid of Donald Trump? You want to keep him? Here’s what you need to do: Go to the polls in November and vote. That’s what we do.
This won’t satisfy Adam Schiff, but he’s always wanted to be a screenwriter. And maybe write himself into another movie and play the hero, once again.
