Yesterday I saw that 50 House Democrats have called for either the impeachment of Donald Trump or an “impeachment inquiry.” The latter is to impeachment what a match is to a fuse—you light it only if you are aiming for an explosion—but the softer term lends the process a tone of propriety.
Which leaves another 185 Democrats waiting to see from what direction the strongest wind will blow. Most of them are in thrall to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who continues to put politics ahead of principle when it comes to calling evildoers such as the U.S. President and his henchmen to account. (I had my Elizabeth Warren-inspired say on the politics-vs-principle issue in my two-weeks-old post, The Impeachment Dilemma.)
A welcome breath of fresh air was stirred by Robert Mueller’s long-awaited public statement to the effect that Donald Trump had committed a crime but there was nothing he—Mueller—could do about it because of the absurd (he couldn’t say “absurd” but you know he thought it) Department of Justice policy against indicting a sitting President. Therefore, he implied in the driest but most cutting possible language, it was up to another branch of government (i.e., the legislature) to go get the S.O.B.
Still, most Democrats in the House are strangely reluctant to proceed with impeachment or even its euphemistic proxy, “impeachment inquiry”—I say “strangely” because Bob Mueller has handed them clear, bright, screaming evidence of Donald Trump committing obstruction of justice. This reluctance can only be explained by politics. Which leads to a conclusion that . . .
Nancy Pelosi has cast a spell on them much as Donald Trump has on the Republicans. Implicitly, and on occasion explicitly, she invokes the specter of electoral defeat in 2020 if the Democrats were to be so bold as to exercise their Constitutional obligation. She has gone so far as to say that there was no point in impeachment if it would not lead to conviction in the Senate. However (sorry to repeat myself, but just in case you missed it the last two times), as Elizabeth Warren pointed out, the crux of the matter is to force members of the legislature to take a stand, either to support a criminal enterprise in the White House, or to bring it to justice.
There is only so long you can delay without appearing irresolute. Delay more, you ARE irresolute. If there’s a political price to pay for overreaching, there could be just as great a price to pay for underreaching. I hope Pelosi lets someone light the fuse before the public begins to see the House Democrats as a noisy bunch of wafflers.