Consider this a desperate plea on behalf of the American people to members of both parties in the House and the Senate: Please, please, with regard to the Trump-Ukraine impeachment mess, stop acting like partisan hacks and start acting like sober, thoughtful, fair-minded statesmen.
This whole thing shouldn’t be about partisan advantage and not about next year’s elections. This is about something virtually sacred. This is about the health of the American constitutional system itself. Please start acting like it.
Please reserve judgment. Please examine evidence. Please play fair. Please stop attacking the other side for long enough to clean up your own side a bit. Democrats, please admit that, at the very least, both Joe and Hunter Biden showed bad judgment in dealing with Ukraine. Republicans, please admit that if a president takes the utterly unprecedented step of asking a foreign government to investigate a particular U.S. citizen who is under no U.S. investigation, the request is at least more than a little disturbing on its face.
Republicans, please have the guts to tell your voters that there is plenty more testimony to come, plenty of facts still to be examined, and serious issues at stake. Even without the quid pro quo, Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to probe his political rivals is worrisome, and if the quid and quo were tied together, it would be a very significant abuse. And please admit that the evidence already shows that implications in that direction are strong enough that the jury, so to speak, is still out.
Admit all of that, because you know the paragraph above is a rigorously accurate assessment of what we know so far.
Democrats, please have the guts to follow well-established precedent by voting to formally launch an impeachment inquiry. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems a fan of merely “deeming” things into existence, but who made her the queen? Further, more important than the formal vote is the formal adoption of equitable, consistent, understandable rules to govern the inquiry. You are talking about possibly removing from office the president of the United States, a man who earned the vote of 63 million Americans. How dare you consider doing so without affording him a clear guide to the proceedings and a real ability to defend himself throughout the process?
And, my gosh, this whole idea of holding hearings in secret — hearings that are not on classified material, but that you don’t want the president or public to, well, hear — it’s downright insulting. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff specifically said he wants public figures, such as ambassadors, to testify behind closed doors so as to “not give the president or his legal minions the opportunity to tailor their testimony.” Come again? Schiff wants the American public to accept that the whole process is serious business done in the public interest but he won’t let the public know what the evidence is and, worse, won’t let the president know what he is supposed to respond to?
Schiff wants to tailor the case against Trump but won’t allow Trump to tailor his defenses. This is so patently unfair as to be an affront to every sentient being with a sense of decency.
Come on, people! The leadership of the free world is at stake. The American people have entrusted great responsibility to you, but they are at your mercy for the next year as you exercise it or abuse it.
Please, please rise above partisanship and nasty sound bites. Please remember you have a sacred civic duty. Please don’t despoil the republic. It’s a precious inheritance but an increasingly vulnerable one.
