From all sides of the Ukraine-impeachment controversy, the descent into puerility continues. The latest bit of juvenile behavior, wasting the time of the people’s House, comes from Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy supporting a censure motion against Democratic House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff.
A formal House censure is a very serious thing, adopted only five times in the past 53 years. Yet McCarthy and Schiff, both Californians, act as if they are vying for supremacy in a playground sandbox. McCarthy, however, is the one now having the tantrum.
McCarthy’s complaint is that Schiff dared to dramatize for effect what Schiff considers to be the implicit message President Trump was sending in the July 25 call with the president of Ukraine. “[Mr. Schiff] is so desperate to damage the president,” charged McCarthy, “[that] he literally made up a false version of a phone call.”
Well, no. In Schiff’s rather nastily tendentious opening statement at a hearing on the subject last week, the chairman wanted to stress a particular interpretation of the July 25 transcript. Here’s exactly how he introduced his summary (at the four-minute mark):
“Shorn of its rambling character and in not so many words, this is the essence of what the president communicated.”
Other than the stilted language (“shorn of its rambling character”), this is normal. This is how people talk when describing a conversation: They summarize it. As in: “Basically, what Joe said was, yada yada yada, he really wants Sue to go out with him, yada yada yada, because she rocks his world.” Joe may never have said “rocks my world,” but the person describing Joe’s conversation is accurately portraying the essence of Joe’s attitude.
Schiff was very clear that his version of the conversation was interpretive, not literal. Not only that, but except for one five-second portion of the 60-second summary, he actually stuck closely to what would be a rather common understanding of what Trump said. The only thing Schiff relayed that wasn’t a rather straightforward paraphrase of Trump was this: “I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? Lots of it, on this and that.”
Trump obviously never told the Ukrainian leader to “make up dirt.” Schiff was editorializing, following the lead of numerous news outlets in rushing to characterize allegations against the Biden family as “thoroughly discredited.” His point was that the effect of Trump’s request would be to “make up dirt” in the sense that there was no real dirt to be found.
One certainly can take issue with Schiff’s judgment on the Bidens. One can rightly criticize him for going beyond interpretation, into rather malicious editorializing, during those five seconds. But to formally censure a colleague for somewhat overblown political rhetoric, when the colleague openly acknowledged he was providing a political interpretation of a five-page transcript, is ludicrous.
And for McCarthy to say that Schiff “made up a false version of a phone call” is the exact same thing Schiff did, in the same words. Schiff said Trump wanted Ukraine to “make up” dirt,” and McCarthy said Schiff “made up” a false version. This is how careless people often describe what their opponents are doing: They accuse them of “making up” something that’s false.
If Schiff had pretended to be reading a transcript verbatim, McCarthy might have had a point. But Schiff instead was using mere political hyperbole while advertising it as such from the beginning. If that is the sort of thing meriting a formal censure, someone will have to introduce a censure resolution against McCarthy, too.
