When is Over, Over?

Some of you may not want to hear this from me, but I’m not entirely disappointed that the Senate’s Republican majority voted down having witnesses during the presidential impeachment trial. I think the Republican majority vote would have been exactly the same if there were 50 witnesses, with the trial lasting many weeks. It might have given the Republicans a chance to say that the procedure was fair. A parade of witnesses doesn’t make fairness. That’s a matter, in this case, for each individual senator.

The problem is, there’s no flexibility on the sentence. The fact that a guilty vote of two-thirds of senators is a political death penalty is exactly the reason why it may never happen. But it’s not supposed to be easy. The Democrats have an open-and-shut case, and even Lamar Alexander of Tennessee thought they had proved it. He just wasn’t ready to remove Trump from office.  I do have a little sympathy for any senator who agrees that crimes have been committed, but who is also reluctant to put the country through a Presidential removal, replacing him with Mike Pence, especially with only a few months left before an election. And Mr. Trump is at least the "devil we know."

I’m getting tired of the assertion that Trump’s crimes were not impeachable. That’s a misuse of language: he WAS impeached by the House, that cannot be erased, and will be a permanent asterisk next to his name. The impeachment has NOT been a waste of time.

The end of this trial, next Wednesday or whenever it happens, is not the end of the story. There still is the option of a censure vote, which would make it impossible for Mr. Trump to truthfully claim he was exonerated, and might give some Republican senators something of a moral off-ramp. They all have a chance in the coming week to give us an insight on what led each of them to their vote on impeachment.

After that, a senator who voted for acquittal can still be asked a follow-up question constantly for the next nine months: “You voted not to remove Mr. Trump from office, but does he deserve another four years?” A “no” answer may risk political suicide for a Republican senator, but could still be one of those moral off-ramps.

In the end, Friday’s vote was just another in the series of calls-to-arms to voters who want to make changes in November. Witnesses may not have been allowed in the impeachment trial, but much new information will find its way to the light, thanks to investigative reporters, book authors, interviewers, and maybe new whistle-blowers. Changing minds already made up is a difficult prospect, but new or previously inactive voters can make their voices heard, and send those signals that the Senate should have sent to future Presidents.

In Other News

The holidays have been over for a while, and I bet some of us are not eating as much. Not necessarily because of a New Year’s resolution. Maybe we just can’t. It’s almost a natural cycle of over-indulgence followed by abstinence.

I’ve been thinking about our news consumption over the past couple of weeks. The impeachment trial got underway in earnest. It’s something we’ve done only three times in history, so naturally, that’s just about all our major domestic news media, especially the cable news channels, were serving up, for days on end, in great big heaps.

Now, this is a terrible thing to say, but it took a tragedy to bring relief from the ubiquitous impeachment story. I found myself focused on something else: the death of Kobe Bryant and eight others in the Sunday helicopter crash north of L.A. Grief took over as the dominant feeling, replacing the outrage and/or boredom produced by the happenings in Washington. But then the Bryant story took over everything.

The major news media scramble to fill our plates with as much of what is top-of-mind at the moment, and often that item obliterates everything else. Nobody  would argue that these mega-stories aren’t worthy of the attention bestowed on them. They are.

 Is there anything wrong with this picture? If there’s a problem, it maybe unbalance, not just for the media covering such stories, but for the consumer. There are remedies: the plain-vanilla network news shows on local TV channels do tend to cover at least a couple of more things than just whatever elephant of the day is in the room, under the heading, In Other News. Another strategy for escape is to find the BBC or some alternate major broadcaster from an English-speaking country with an online stream, some locale where our own wall-to-wall stories don’t get that kind of play. Or, try something like – dare I say it – radio, or a newspaper (remember those?).

There is also the nuclear option – unplugging. I know people who go cold turkey on news consumption, but I also know it doesn’t last. Even if we tune out, there is always something to bring us back and feed our variety of appetites. This weekend, it will be the 

Super Bowl.

But hey, I shouldn’t complain too much. We all need these shared experiences to bring is out of our bubbles and silos, even temporarily – places where many of us spend entirely too much time.

The "We" in "Team"

It’s that time of year, and the right year. We’re hearing a lot about teams. First, there was the Super Bowl. Later, it will be the Olympic team. The impeachment trial had prosecution and defense teams. Why can’t candidates for office do it?

Take the Democratic presidential candidates. As individuals, they are far from perfect. Warren and Sanders are too radical; Klobuchar is too forceful; Bloomberg and Steyer are too rich; Buttigieg is too…uh…white; Yang is too geeky; and Biden is too Joe.

I am oversimplifying for a little fun here, but each of these folks also has great qualities. Too bad we just can’t take a little DNA from all of them and create the perfect specimen. Somebody who thinks and speaks as clearly as Buttigieg, is as experienced as Biden; as committed to big ideas as Sanders, Warren, or Steyer; as forward-thinking as Yang, or who knows how to craft legislation as well as Klobuchar.

At some point, it will be clear who the Democratic presidential nominee will be. Thanks to Super Tuesday, it could be sooner rather than later. That individual will be selecting a running mate. Can he or she go beyond that and start lining up Cabinet prospects and going public on the shape of the potential new administration?

I thought there was a law against that. There isn’t, and there is so much talent in the Democratic field. Elizabeth Warren would make a perfect Secretary of the Treasury if she isn’t a presidential or vice-presidential candidate, assuming she would accept a Cabinet post. Andrew Yang could be Secretary of Commerce and Tom Steyer would be a natural at Energy. Joe Biden is a known quantity around the world and would be a great Secretary of State. Even those who have dropped out of the presidential race could be factors. Kamala Harris would be impressive as Attorney General. How about Bernie at HHS? Julian Castro has previous Cabinet experience. Every time I’ve seen Cory Booker, I think there has to be a role for him. All of these folks have, or did have, followings, and if the whole group ran as a kind of team, couldn’t this pull the party, and perhaps the electorate, together?

I am not really a sports fan, but have learned from watching football that while a great quarterback is the star, he needs receivers. Then there is the defense and the kicker.

For the Democrats to win the Presidential race this year, the keyword is  “overwhelming.” They need to massively get out the vote to overwhelm the limitations of the Electoral College and any artificial barriers to voting created at the state or local levels. If the current occupant of the White House is to be defeated, it will take a lot more than just that one person scoring points on an October debate stage to do it.