Script Rejected
If you wrote it in a Hollywood script – no one would buy it. No one would buy the impeachment of the President, rocked by the secret book laying bare the criminal actions of the President himself. They wouldn’t buy Lev and Igor (that’s not Boris and Natasha), spending dollars like water in the Ukraine, working for “America’s Mayor” Rudy Giuliani, but financed by a Russian oligarch.
No one would believe an entire television network, not just dedicated to protecting the President, but supplying his spokespeople, his staff, and even his legal defense team. And who could imagine that the lawyers who got the most infamous child sex purveyor of the century a sweetheart prison deal, would appear in the “well” of the Senate to intone solemn legal defenses for the President.
No, no one would buy it. It’s not believable the producers would say, it couldn’t happen. Yet here we are. By the way, while all of this is going on, the President himself is announcing his son-in-law’s new Middle East Peace Plan, with the criminally indicted Prime Minister of Israel at his side. Yeah, it wouldn’t even make it as a comedy.
Can’t Shoot Straight
They defense team can’t shoot straight. Monday, their “big day” in front of the American people, they buried the lead. They started off with a long lecture by Ken Starr, the man who drove the impeachment of President Clinton for lying about a blowjob. Starr lamented the “frequency” and “pettiness” of recent impeachments, as if he had nothing to do with it. His performance was like a blanket and a warm fireplace: it made it hard to stay awake.
And if they were smart, they would have spent the rest of the afternoon on Constitutional issues. But they dropped their “bomb” a four in the afternoon, instead of saving it for “prime time”. They launched their attack on Joe Biden, the leading Democratic candidate for President, while America was finishing up work and heading home to dinner.
After all, this is what the entire crisis is about. Trump wanted to attack Biden, and he wanted the President of Ukraine, Zelenskiy, to do it. Trump was willing to leverage American national security to get a Ukrainian investigation into imagined Biden corruption there.
And even though Trump got caught and couldn’t get that exposure, he had a second chance. It was yesterday, when the former Florida Attorney General Pam Biondi, dressed provocatively in what looked like a prototype “Space Force” uniform, launched her attack on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Not Ready for Prime Time
It should have been in prime time. If you’re taking the shot; then take it, don’t hide it. But they blew that chance. Instead of trashing Joe Biden in front of the a watching nation, they gave the prime time slot to wizened Alan Dershowitz, former legal prodigy and Harvard Law Professor. Dershowitz dropped us all into a lecture from his old classroom, Constitutional Law 506. You know you’ve got your audience when you are describing the legal acumen of the Justice who dissented to the Dred Scott Case in 1857. That, for sure, cements the deal with the American people.
Oh yeah, did I forget the guy who wanted to go back and impeach President Obama? He was after “Space Force” woman and before dinner. I don’t think he earned much respect from the Senators, or the American people.
So here we are today, the last chance for the “gang that can’t shoot straight”. What looked like a sure “win” for them, with a Senate majority firmly behind the President, is now getting shaky. Senators know that President Trump can damage them politically, they know their “…heads could end up on a pike” if they cross him. But they also know that the truth is out there, in the pages of John Bolton’s new book, in the SDNY evidence for Lev and Igor, and in the unspoken testimonies of Pompeo, Mulvaney, and the rest.
Naked and Afraid
The President’s defenders have spent their time handing out “fig leaves” for Republican Senators to hide behind, giving them cover to vote to end the Trial. But those same Senators can see the future, and that future will make them look naked and foolish. The defenders will have to give them a “bigger leaf” today, if they want the trial to end this week.
Of course if you are a “swing” Republican Senator, there are no good choices to make. If you vote with the President, you keep a core base, but lose the middle. If you vote against the President, even just to allow witness testimony in the trial, you risk a Trumpian attack that takes you base. And the Democrats in your state aren’t going to thank you with their votes; no matter what you do they are voting for someone else.
The most improbable ending: Bolton testifies, twenty Republican Senators are moved, and the removal of Donald John Trump from the Presidency becomes a real possibility. But don’t hold your breath for that.
It couldn’t even happen in a Hollywood script.
