OPINION:
The House, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership, with progressives’ and far leftists’ pressings, and to Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s glee, passed a resolution this week that lays out the rules for the impeachment process against President Donald Trump. But it was a vote that came minus two Democrats.
Dub them The Last Of The Sensible Democrats.
And in a field filled with leftist loony losers, that’s no small title.
Fifteen-term Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota had this to say about the impeachment madness: “This impeachment process continues to be hopelessly partisan. … I have some serious concerns with the way the closed-door depositions were run, and am skeptical that we will have a process that is open, transparent and fair.”
Freshman Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey chimed in with this: “Collin would always kid. He said, ’It’s just going to be you and me,’ and I said, ’No, it might be more people.’ But it was just him and me. He’s been around a long time. He knows what’s going on.”
Old and new; experienced and fresh-faced. Peterson and Van Drew may be far apart on ye olde knowledge scale of the downs and dirties of actual politicking, but their one assuredly shared trait is this: They represent a dying breed of common-sense Democrats.
They’re the last gasps of what used to be a party that portrayed itself, however falsely, as — in the words of its latest, greatest White House commander-in-chief, Barack Obama — the keeper of the transparency key, the bastion of “openness,” the standard-bearer of “rule of law.”
The left, with a vote of 232-196, a vote that was completely partisan except for Peterson and Van Drew, has abandoned all pretense of those “rule of law” lines.
It’s impeach at all costs. Impeach by hook or by crook. Impeach by gosh, by God, by heck or high water, with, without or whatever may be on facts and crimes and misdemeanors and offenses.
Peterson, to his credit, said he “will not make a decision on impeachment until all the facts have been presented.”
That would seem the normal course of doing impeachment business.
But this Democratic Party’s become corrupted by progressives-slash-socialists.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is real.
Democrats care little for looking down the road or for concerning themselves with the cares of the country — for considering the long-term ramifications of their actions. They’re in it to win it, and the bloodier the better. Even if it means bludgeoning their own.
“Rep. Peterson of Minnesota and Rep. Van Drew of New Jersey are the two Dems who voted against impeachment,” tweeted Elizabeth McLaughlin, CEO of the Gaia Project for Women’s Leadership, as USA Today noted. “Vote them out in 2020.”
That’s how the Democratic Party now rolls.
Vote in lockstep — or prepare to be steamrolled.
Dub Peterson and Van Drew the Loneliest Democrats On Capitol Hill.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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