Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday she is caving to pressure from her own party members. She decided to play hard ball will Mitch McConnell and she lost. She refused to send the Articles of Impeachment over to the Senate until Republicans disclosed their trial plan, but she didn’t have the leverage anymore after the House’s trial was over and she blew it.
Considering her sanctimonious utterances on how she wants to protect the Constitution, she forgot to read the part where the Senate has the sole power in conducting impeachment trials. So, insisting on having a say or getting a look at the Republican plan was a nonstarter.
She may have been hoping for something, anything, to fumigate that odiferous piece of excrement disguised as Articles of Impeachment.
She has won absolutely no concessions from Mitch McConnell. Even her fellow Democrats have turned on her. Democrats on both sides of the Hill are letting her know what everyone else knows: it’s time to get on with it and take their lumps.
Take what Rep. Adam Smith (D-DC) said for example. Rep. Smith recognized that “just like we control in the House, Mitch McConnell controls the Senate.” He certainly agreed that the Speaker tried to get a better deal, but at this point “it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.”
Oops. Later that morning, Smith reversed himself. Sorry, folks, he tweeted, “I misspoke.” What he meant to say was that the House needs to do everything it can to “force the Senate to have a fair trial.” (Yeah, sure, Adam. We get it. Nancy called you and forced you to retract your earlier statement)
Unfortunately—yet predictably—Smith’s revised opinion is based on the false premise that the House charges are fair. The process was a classic railroad job. The outcome is not backed up with a modicum of reliable, first-hand and believable evidence. Mitch McConnell and the Senate won’t clean up that mess.
That’s what holding the articles hostage was all about. The Democrats have a really bad work product on their hands, and even some Democrat Senators are beginning to gripe:
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), “The longer it goes on, the less urgent it becomes. So if it’s serious and urgent, send them over. If it isn’t, don’t send it over.”
Democrat Senator Chris Coons piped in, “I respect the fact that (the Speaker) is concerned about the fact about whether or not there will be a fair trial. But I do think it is time to get on with it.” (Yes, Nancy, it is time to get off the pot and admit that you don’t run this half of the show.)
Without completely caving, Pelosi told the press that despite winning no concessions to her demands, she will be sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate “soon.”
“”I’m not holding them indefinitely,” Pelosi said during a press briefing in the Capitol. “I’ll send them over when I’m ready, and that will probably be soon.”
But in her typical imperious fashion, she had to add, “We need to see the arena in which we are sending our managers. Is that too much to ask?… “It doesn’t mean we have to agree to the rules, or we have to like the rules. We just want to know what they are.”
Apparently, it was “too much to ask.” She and her group of rabid partisans will experience the Senate arena soon enough. They will discover the rules when they send your henchmen to that unfriendly place, and it is pretty much certain that Shifty Adam Schiff will definitely will not like them.
