"Pelosi promised a narrow, expedited impeachment, and that’s what the House will deliver: a targeted effort centered on a single act of malfeasance."

"It’s been a fast-paced process meant to satisfy liberal activists without alienating moderate members worried about support from swing voters. Once it’s completed, Pelosi can say that Democrats ran a sober investigation and found definitive evidence of wrongdoing. She can even say that this wasn’t an obstacle to getting things done — it was hardly an accident that after announcing the articles of impeachment, Pelosi also announced that the House would vote to approve the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, President Trump’s renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Pelosi wants to get to the bottom of the president’s wrongdoing and she wants to protect her moderate members. But a quick, narrow impeachment isn’t the way to go.... Individual Democrats might have run on health care in 2018 and other 'kitchen table' issues, but it was anti-Trump energy that put these districts within reach, and it will be anti-Trump energy that drives the outcome next year. If the president is unpopular — if he’s mired in controversy — Democrats will likely win. If it’s the reverse, if Trump can overcome scandal and recover ground with some voters, he’ll win re-election. And those vulnerable House Democrats? They’ll lose, along with the party’s nominee. The quick impeachment... hands the process to the Republican Senate and its majority leader, Mitch McConnell... The better alternative — the stronger alternative — is to wait.... If Democrats aren’t compelled by the reality of broad, pervasive corruption, then they should be compelled by the politics of a longer, more deliberate impeachment process."

Writes Jamelle Bouie — in "Two Articles of Impeachment for Trump Are Nowhere Near Enough/The House should take its own sweet time and investigate many more aspects of the president’s perfidious behavior" — openly discussing the impeachment in terms of electoral politics.

If the President's alleged action — pushing Ukraine to investigate Biden solely for his own political advantage — is "perfidious," then the House Democrats' political calculations around impeachment are perfidious.

I guess Bouie assumes only Trump haters will read his column, because it just doesn't make sense for anyone considering believing the Democrats' assertions about their channeling somber values from the Framers and earnestly striving to save the Republic.

Bouie goes on to say "There’s no reason for Democrats to end things now. They have enough material to keep the pressure through the new year." But the whole point of using impeachment rather than allowing normal electoral politics to play out over the course of next year is that it's intolerable to allow this dangerous, harmful President to remain in power. He's abusing his power, and the abuse must stop. If that's not true, and the Democrats are using the impeachment power to inflict political damage on the President, then the Democrats are themselves abusing power. Bouie seems to be advising the Democrats to lean into abusing power and get the most out of it.

Here's Bouie's last paragraph:

Democrats, in other words, can use the power of impeachment to set the terms of the next election — to shape the national political landscape in their favor. In a political culture governed by negative partisanship and hyperpolarization, restraint won’t save the Democratic majority. But a relentless anti-Trump posture — including comprehensive investigations and additional articles of impeachment — might just do the trick.

Does he not hear what he is saying?! He's telling Democrats to drop the pretense of principle and patriotism and go all out for political advantage.

ADDED: 2 afterthoughts:

1. Writing "advising the Democrats to lean into abusing power and get the most out of it" made me think of the famous Patrick Henry line: "If this be treason, make the most of it." Impeachment enthusiasts can say: If this be abuse of power, make the most of it. Speaking of channeling the giants of the Framer generation. But Henry was not one of the Constitution's Framers. He was their opponent. He thought they were up to perfidy.

2. "Perfidy" means "Deceitfulness, untrustworthiness; breach of faith or of a promise; betrayal of trust; treachery" (OED). Notice the syllable "fi" — Latin for "faith." What is the faith here that is being broken? Everything about electoral politics is antithetical to faith. Where is the faith? I think in many Americans there is faith. We saw it in the Tea Party movement, and Trump absorbed and echoed that faith. In his time, before the emergence of the Tea Party, Obama expressed that faith...



The last 2 winners of the Presidency understood and repurposed the people's faith. If they'd done anything more profoundly sincere, they would have been too naive to be President, but if they'd done anything less, they would not have won.

"All I hear and see all day are men speaking their opinions, and I give mine in the same exact manner, and you would have thought I had said something offensive."

Said Jennifer Lawrence, who only "spoke my mind and gave my opinion in a clear and no-[BS] way; no aggression, just blunt" and was met with the response (from a male co-worker): "'Whoa! We’re all on the same team here!' As if I was yelling at him."

Yes, I know, you're going to doubt whether the way she spoke was really "in the same exact manner" that she'd heard from males. We weren't there. We don't know. But it does seem that woman are expected to pad their statements for the comfort of others and when we don't, it can be disconcerting. You can leverage that power, you know! You don't have to take care of others. And of course, by talking about it, Lawrence is declining to serve in the role of caring nurturer.

At the link, a WaPo columnist named Alexandra Petri attempts some humor by translating famous lines into the form of speech supposedly expected of a woman in a meeting. E.g.:

“Give me liberty, or give me death.”
Woman in a Meeting: “Dave, if I could, I could just — I just really feel like if we had liberty it would be terrific, and the alternative would just be awful, you know? That’s just how it strikes me. I don’t know.”

It's not like men can just say “Give me liberty, or give me death” at a meeting, and, in fact, Patrick Henry had a lot of verbiage padding the remembered line. And even that sentence had a blabby intro clause easing the bluntness: "I know not what course others may take; but as for me..." That's not that different from Petri's "That’s just how it strikes me...."

How objective are we, really, about the bluntness of other people's speech in comparison to our own? Of course, we are subjective, but that brings us back to Jennifer Lawrence's point: Part of our subjectivity in how we hear others is our response to their gender. That's the texture and energy of human life. It will not be eradicated. But we can be more aware and make better music.

"Just because Justice Scalia has every right to say stupid stuff doesn’t mean it’s a responsible move for someone occupying high office."

"He should apologize," says Joe Patrice at Above the Law, who I suspect just never liked Scalia anyway. Patrice is (or is pretending to be) all exercised about what is one of Justice Scalia's stock responses to what is a predictable question as Justice Scalia routinely travels around giving essentially the same speech about his thoroughly well-known, deeply entrenched theory of constitutional interpretation. The wonder is that it even gets reported let alone a big, drama queen response like Patrice's.

Scalia is really just pointing out The Declaration of Independence, which lies behind the Constitution. Patrice bandies the word "treason" about — his post title is "Justice Scalia Literally Encourages People To Commit Treason" and he ends with "apparently Justice Scalia thinks acts of treason are justified..." — so you'd think he'd have paused at some point to remember Patrick Henry's response to the cries of "Treason!"

It was in the midst of this magnificent debate, while he was descanting on the tyranny of the obnoxious Act, that he exclaimed, in a voice of thunder, and with the look of a god, "Caesar had his Brutus - Charles the first, his Cromwell - and George the third - ('Treason,' cried the Speaker - 'treason, treason,' echoed fro every part of the House. - It was one of those trying moments which is decisive of character. - Henry faltered not an instant; but rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the Speaker an eye of the most determined fire, he finished his sentence with the firmest emphasis) may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.

I supposed if Joe Patrice had been there on the scene back in 1765, he'd have editorialized at length about the need for an apology.

ADDED: Patrick Henry had the best instant comeback to heckling in the history of the world, even before you add in that, in the end, quite a few years later, people took his advice and made the most of it.

"When I say that the article of religion is deemed a trifle by our people in the general, I assert a known truth."

"But when we suppose that the poorer sort of European emigrants set as light by it, we are greatly mistaken."

Patrick Henry, 1766.