OPINION:
Impeachment is supposed to be a serious debate, a somber consideration, a process marked by deep analysis, solid reflection, big-picture thinking, and in the end, inclusive of the sort of grave decision-making that looks down the road to judge how it all might affect the republic, the American people, the fate of the Constitution.
But Democrats have turned it into a laugh track.
The latest is Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler’s near-midnight decision to follow the marathon of articles of impeachment hearings he just oversaw with, get this, a delay in the vote.
“It is now very late at night,” Nadler said, in the wee midnight hours, Fox News reported. “I want the members on both sides of the aisle to think about what has happened over these last two days, and to search their consciences before we cast our final votes.”
He set the time of the vote at 10 a.m. Friday.
What an ending.
That’s like walking 15 miles through snow to the grocery to buy ingredients for a birthday cake, walking 15 miles through snow home to bake the birthday cake, baking the cake, frosting the cake and placing the candles atop the cake — and then telling the birthday boy, eh, let’s do this tomorrow.
Let’s all go to bed and just think about the birthday.
It’s hard to believe that Democrats — the Democrats who’ve done nothing for the last nearly three years but insist on impeachment — it’s hard to believe they need more time to think. After all, impeachment was a promise of the left in the pre-inauguration days of President Donald Trump; that was January, 2017 — this is December 2019.
If three years isn’t enough thinking time, then three years and 10 hours isn’t likely to bring on any thunderbolts.
There’s something else going on here. There’s another reason Nadler didn’t want to hold the dark-of-night vote. And ranking Judiciary member Rep. Doug Collins nailed it pretty well.
“This is why [Americans] don’t like us,” he said, Fox reported. “They know it’s all about games. It’s all about the TV screens. They want the prime-time hit. This is Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and Adam Schiff and the others directing this committee. I don’t have a chairman anymore. I guess I need to just go straight to Ms. Pelosi and say, what TV hit does this committee need to do?”
Exactly. It’s all about the show. It’s all about the theatrics.
The impeachment circus has been nothing but a carefully orchestrated Democratic-media theatrical production from start to finish. From calling for impeachment before Trump even had time to warm his White House seat, to fabricating crimes using now-debunked dossiers and partisan FBI players, to bringing forth witnesses who say one thing in their openers and another thing in their actual testimonies and who move in rapid fire succession from insistences of quid pro quo and bribery to acknowledgements of hearsay of even the third-party kind — this entire Democratic-fueled process has been nothing but sham.
Where are the minions to pass out the bananas?
One thing for sure, it’s been an education on the shadiness of the left.
And maybe it’s the holiday season that’s dawning, and the feel-good vibe that’s settling over the country, on yes, even over Capitol Hill, where the charade, the “crock,” as Sen. Lindsey Graham calls it, continues — but in recent days, at some hard-to-define point, the “crock” has actually turned humorous.
Democrats have grown so outrageous, they’ve become the stuff of laughing stock.
Who’d ever think impeachment could be so hilarious.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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