Nancy Pelosi began the impeachment debate Wednesday afternoon with a wretchedly written speech proclaiming herself “solemn” and “sad,” and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
As unwoke as it is to recite the Pledge (probably racist by the Left’s current rules), what’s truly shocking is that Pelosi didn’t bother to prepare anything substantive or even any compelling rhetoric for her speech. If you literally begin your speech about impeachment by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, it means that you assigned your junior speechwriter to write this speech, probably the night before.
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Grave moments call upon leaders to make serious arguments — to make their oratory match the moment. That can be done in many ways. Lincoln did it at Gettysburg with honest gravity and brevity. Reagan did it at the Brandenburg Gate with directness. Churchill, Kennedy, and the other leaders of last century, who faced actually “solemn” moments, rose to the occasion by injecting poetry, originality, and eloquence.
Pelosi, in contrast, kicked off her supposedly grave impeachment with a string of half-relevant quotations and piles and piles of melodrama (at one point she uttered the words “dancing with angels”). Her party responded with forced applause.
It was a shoddy speech to begin a rushed and shoddy impeachment process.
There are tons of problems with the Trump administration, including President Trump’s use of the federal government to enrich his own business. But this isn’t about any actual misconduct. Democrats arrived for this Congress on Day One promising to impeach Trump. They failed in their first effort when the Mueller report came up empty, and ever since, they have been scrambling for another reason to do what they were going to do anyway. As a result, they find themselves in the role of the kid who had to do his homework assignment on the bus ride to school.
Pelosi’s wretched speech exemplified this.
