"Brazen Bogusness"

As the Democratic accusations of horrific "impeachable offenses" wind down today, it's very hard to suppress a yawn. The trained hamsters in the media are all aglow at the "strong case" presented by the Dems, gushing that Adam Schiff's arguments were "brilliant" (WaPo) and "beautifully-wrought" (Time Magazine) and compared him to great lawyers of the past. Seriously? My guess is that unlike Schiff, Clarence Darrow could string together two or three paragraphs without lying, and that Mary Jo White could enunciate facts without straying into make believe, but whatever. It's also worth noting that the Dem's "strong case" can't find a single criminal or civil statute that has been violated, nor can it adequately explain why an off-hand request that never resulted in any action (unlike say, oral sex with an intern or a coordinated break-in of an opponent's office -- events that actually happened) can be construed as a "threat to democracy." Again, whatever.

James Freeman had a considerably more realistic view when he notes that"just because a [Democrat] prosecution’s case is boring doesn’t mean it can’t also be misleading."

In any event, the case that the Dems presented doesn't appear to be strong enough, since they're demanding "relevant" (this term has been added to their lexicon, edging out "cover-up" in recent days) witnesses. "Relevant" means that only those witnesses the Dems want should be called. The principals who precipitated this whole travesty and are at the center of corruption charges and the manner in which they were brought ... the "whistle blower/Democratic operative, the Bidens, and even Schiff himself are persona non gratia. I get it ... relevance!

Mark Steyn is his usual caustic self when he writes:

The left, being not terribly imaginative, always accuse you of what they're doing themselves. So, in this case, President Trump is charged with interfering with the 2020 election by men who have been interfering with the 2016 and 2020 elections for over three-and-a-half years now. Which is why we have the preposterous spectacle of four Democrat presidential candidates preparing to vote to remove from office the guy they're running against.

This is a joke. I gave up on it when, on the eve of the trial, the laughably named "Government Accountability Office" released its supposedly entirely separate conclusion that Trump had acted "illegally". Aside from the fact that that "finding" is flat out wrong, I wonder whether the permanent bureaucracy ever thinks, "Gee, maybe we should be a little more subtle about putting our Deep State thumbs on the scale."

But no. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? To whom is the "Accountability Office" accountable? Apparently nobody - just as with James Comey's FBI and Rod Rosenstein's DoJ and Lois Lerner's IRS and all the rest. If bureaucrats want to get political, they should do what politicians do and run for office. But why bother if, simply by being a "career public servant", you have a license to obstruct mere elected transients and their "policies"? The permanent state is one reason we have so many permanent problems.

Given the brazen bogusness of this impeachment, I take a dim view of anything that lends it respectability - such as, for example, defense counsel. I would love to have seen President Trump announce in Davos that he was flying back to represent himself in the Senate trial. Of course, that might result in a solemn and prayerful proceeding in the world's most august body descending into a complete circus.

Hey, works for me.

"Brazen bogusness" covers this whole circus rather nicely. It's an embarrassment for the Democrats for bringing a pathetically weak set of impeachment articles to the Senate. It's a further embarrassment to suggest that the "whistleblower," the Bidens, and maybe even Schiff aren't "relevant" to determining whether Donald Trump was justified in asking for a corruption investigation (if he was, the already weak accusations go poof) and/or whether the "concern" expressed by the "whistleblower" and choreographed by Schiff's office wasn't politically motivated from day one.

As one wag wrote on Twitter: "Trump's only impeachable offense was beating Hillary Clinton in 2016."

UPDATE:
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At the conclusion of the Dem's 24 hour impeachment rant, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee) illustrated how Trump Derangement Syndrome can lead to crazy talk. Nadler said: "He [Trump] is a dictator. This must not stand and that is ... another reason he must be removed from office."

Hmmm. If, in fact, Donald Trump were "a dictator," people like Nadler, his friends, his family and his colleagues would be buried in unmarked graves.

It's one thing to say you don't like a president's policies, his language, or his gruff tone, but it's entirely another to suggest that he is the equivalent of Hassan Rouhani or Bashir Assad or Kim Jong-un or Nicholas Maduro. The Dems have lost it ... they are now officially unhinged. They do NOT deserve to lead.