Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer
"Skinny Love" by Justin Vernon
Peggy Noonan has written a masterpiece in her article, "The Left’s Rage and Trump’s Peril," in which she correctly observes that the Democratic base is even worse-tempered than the president. For the next several weeks, the public will likely be continually reminded that House Democrats sat angrily during the State of the Union, and refused to stand for, among other things, lower minority unemployment rates, victims of gang violence, and even a child putting flags on the graves of Veterans. All but die-hard partisans will be forced to ask if there really is much difference between the character flaws, real and imagined, of Donald Trump, and the character flaws, real and imagined, of the Democrats?
Ms Noonan warns that impeachment, though, is still a possibility if the Mueller investigation finds Trump wrong-doing.
Perhaps. But, it is also possible that the Democratic Party will not survive a skinny impeachment of the President. Despite the hysteria of some in the Party chanting the impeachment mantra, the Party's skinny love affair is becoming harder to nurture, and threatens to burn down the love shack.
At this point in time, absolutely everyone who has any knowledge, including the Senate Democrats (e.g. Feinstein) and the people most likely to actually know, e.g., former acting CIA chief Michael Morell, and the always willing to embrace plausible fiction, James Clapper, are on record as saying there is no evidence of Russian collusion.
Even if there was evidence, there is no "crime" in "colluding" with a foreign agent or government so long as the campaign does not knowingly solicit or accept foreign donations or commit some other crime, like lying to federal agents. Campaign finance violations, even if they exist, are unlikely to merit a charge against Trump. Campaign finance officers exist for a reason; they create plausible deniability. Candidates rarely know who all their contributors. More, when was the last prosecution of a Presidential candidate for a campaign finance crime? Does the Democratic Party really want to remind the public that is trying hard to forget their distaste for Hillary Clinton, that the last Presidential candidate charged, the Democratic Party darling, John Edwards, was convicted for using campaign funds to support his paramour, with whom he bore a child while having an affair, while his wife was dying of cancer?
There is also the nasty fact that the the Mueller investigation turned against the Democrats. That fact doesn't absolve Trump, but it is as likely that Podesta and company will be ensnared by the Mueller investigation for finance violations/money laundering. There is a stinging irony in the fact that if the whole collusion charge had not begun with the fabricated Steele dossier, Podesta and company would never have been investigated.
Because the "collusion" charge is looking thin, Clapper, embracing a plausible fiction, and the rest of the Democrats in the know, are now beating the drum of obstruction of justice for firing FBI Director James Comey [ pregnant pause], a man almost every single major Clinton supporter is on record stating should be fired. Aside from the Comey firing, it appears that the obstruction effort consists of a twitter campaign attacking the the Justice Department, and such additional damning evidence as Trump asking Justice employees if they are on his team, and whether he could count on their loyalty.
The skinny hope of impeachment is now threatening the FISA program, as we await competing House memorandum suggesting that either the FISA program was or wasn't abused by Justice in spying on U.S. citizens, members of the Trump campaign or transition team, for political purpose. The Democrats love for the collusion charge, first coming from the Steel dossier, and then spread by the Obama Administration as its final gasp of relevance before returning to private lives (see "18 questions for Obama on Trump-Russia collusion,") is threatening a program every justice and intelligence expert tells us is necessary to combat terrorism.
Is it possible that the love affair is threatening to literally burn down the house of government, creating a constitutional crisis in which a sitting President might be impeached for obstruction of justice for engaging in the supervisory management of members of the Executive Branch, in order to obstruct an investigation into a baseless charge, while simultaneously exposing Americans to greater risk of terrorism by eroding confidence in the government's ability to wage war? This is a fair characterization of events.
The Clinton transition team removing the "Ws," from the White House keyboards, almost appears juvenile compared to the Obama transition team removing constitutional protections in order to spread evidence of a contrived and manufactured impeachable offence. If true, the love affair threatens the legacy of Democrat national governance. One can imagine a public refusing to consider even an eminently qualified national candidate for fear of the corrupt Party once again "upping the ante" on outgoing "mischief."
The Democratic Party will not survive Trump impeachment. The Mueller investigation is prima facia evidence that justice was not obstructed, and while the attempt is a crime, technically, firing a Director is not destruction of evidence or bribing a witness. Mueller is unlikely, to create a constitutional crisis on such thin grounds. More, the public is unlikely to accept the result.
Democratic Senators should take the more hysterical members of the House to the woodshed with the political realities of an impeachment charge on specious grounds given that a sitting Democratic President was not impeached despite having committed perjury. The political winds of rage will consume Democrats in all but the precious few "locked" states (Cali and New York), if the Party knowingly removes Trump from office for less than clear and palpable violations of the law. The party is threatened with being seen as the party that weaponizes governmental institutions in the pursuit of political power, willing to "fix"national elections to extract vengeance against opponents and the people for opposing them.
Yes, Trump won the election. But it was widespread ire with Clinton that was the real flame that burned down the Clinton bid to be President. If the the Democrats are wise, they will snuff that ember of disgust with Clinton, and let it die, rather than giving it new air by pursuing a skinny impeachment effort.
As the Talking Heads warned in their 80's new wave hit:
Watch out you might get what you're after
Boom babies strange but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
Burning down the house
"Burning Down the House," by David Byrne Chris Frantz Jerry Harrison Tina
Wymouth, Talking Heads
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