"It feels like people are getting a little exhausted from all the impeachment coverage and the hearings haven't even begun," the NYT podcast begins today.

"But I actually found someone this week who was excited to hear more," says the show's producer in a cute, coy way.

The show's host, Michael Barbaro, says "Really?" (with comical suspicion).

The coy producer offers to play a phone call with this presumably very interesting person. We hear the phone ring, so wait for it... then.... it's a kid. A third grader. They found a kid who's still interested, and I guess that's why they think we the listeners are ready to put up with another episode about the impeachment. There's a kid. Isn't that sweet? They get him to write out his 10 questions — see the photo of his handwriting with cute misspellings like "presidient" and "ceniters" — and they take him to the NYT office to get answers from NYT reporter Michael S. Schmidt.

It's a nice move, in terms of entertainment, but it's a clear demonstration of the problem anti-Trumpers have with the impeachment. They're only now getting around to the public hearings, and it should be an exciting threshold, but it all feels like very old news, and we're too bored to pay attention. I think there are millions of Americans who'd like to imagine an eject-the-President button Congress could push, but I don't think there are many who want to sit through hours of questioning low-profile characters about how they felt and what they thought about a telephone call for which we have a transcript.

How many people will tune in and watch these hearings? We'll have ratings soon, tangible evidence of how interested people are. I suspect most of us will wait and see what parts are clipped for our delectation. The most interesting thing about watching for me — and I'm not saying I will watch — would be to monitor the congresspeople to detect when they're trying to make a tweetable sound bite happen. Or maybe I could find something idiosyncratic and bloggable — something that no one else will clip because it doesn't serve either partisan interest.

Or maybe I could find a cute little kid to watch along with me and appropriate his adorable mutterings for our entertainment. That's the level the NYT is reduced to.

But they have to cover the impeachment. Me, I do what interests me, within the limits of my sense of morality, which excludes using children in politics. There's a link on that phrase because it's one of my tags. This is my 98th post with that tag.

ADDED: Meade reads the post out loud. When he gets to "Or maybe I could find a cute little kid to watch along with me and appropriate his adorable mutterings for our entertainment," he says, "Me!"