⏩ D.C. Buzz: Himes proudly rides impeachment wave,

WASHINGTON — Sometimes politics is like surfing: You catch a wave at the right time and it propels you to the ride of a lifetime. But if you don’t, you wipe out … tumbling end over end as the swirling water engulfs you.

In the world of impeachment, to carry the analogy a little further, Rep. Jim Himes may be the champion by default. After all, he was the only one out there patiently waiting for the wave to arrive. He decided all the way back in June that the time had finally arrived for him to join the limited ranks of Democrats advocating removal of President Donald Trump from office.

“During my career, I have learned that there are moments for calculation, prudence, compromise and the careful weighing of competing interests,” Himes said in announcing his decision. “And there are moments for clarity and conviction. This is such a moment.”

For the rest of the delegation, that moment came three months later — amid revelations about Trump’s July 25 phone call to armtwist Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy into ordering up an investigation of Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden and board member of a Ukrainian gas enterprise with a sketchy CEO.

With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, DCalif., set to announce House Dems would go forward on impeachment, they fell into line one by one.

“I love my colleagues,” said Himes when asked how he felt about getting on board the impeachment express months ahead of the others. It was a phone interview, but I’m fairly sure I heard a sardonic laugh go with that.

Among the late arrivals was Rep. Rosa DeLauro, no one’s idea of a middleroader shrinking violet.

“We must not lose focus of the kitchen table issues that matter to working families,” DeLauro said around the time Himes came out. “That is why I am not in favor of an impeachment inquiry at this time.”

By Monday, DeLauro was changing her tune.

“I have been reluctant to call for an impeachment inquiry because it would further divide the country, be perceived as overturning the 2016 election, and go to the United States Senate, where Republicans would acquit President Trump regardless of the evidence,” she said.

But “an impeachment inquiry may be the only recourse Congress has if the President is enlisting foreign assistance in the 2020 election.”

Sen. Chris Murphy was hedging his position on impeachment Monday because, he said, senators shouldn’t be giving House members advice on a process that starts at their end of the U.S. Capitol.

By Tuesday morning, as the trickle was turning into a cascade, Murphy was all in.

“I had resisted calling for the House to begin impeachment proceedings, choosing instead to allow the House to consider its options free from senatorial advice,” Murphy said. “But circumstances have changed.”

It's not like they’re going to add another chapter to “Profiles in Courage” for Himes. But catching the wave and riding inside the barrel will get you stoked, whether it’s Capitol Hill or Redondo Beach, L.A.

(Full disclosure: I’ve never been surfing in my life but I did like the Beach Boys at an early age.)

Those oldies but goodies

Chris Shays can be forgiven if he feels a touch of PTSD in reading the headlines this week on the whistleblower’s complaint emanating from Trump’s July 25 phone call. Shays, it will be remembered, had his Hamlet moments during the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton. As a Republican, he felt loyalty to his party at a time of national turmoil. But as a moderate, he found the case against Clinton a bit underwhelming and he worried about blowback in his increasingly leftturning Fairfield County district.

My colleague Emilie Munson reached Shays by phone at his eastern Maryland retreat. Shays turns 74 next month and lives in comfortable retirement even though he’s only an hour or two away from D.C.

He expressed admiration for House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, DCalif., whom he called masterful.

His recommendation to Rep. Jim Himes, who will be stage center as a member of the committee?

Emulate Schiff, he said of the lawmaker who unseated him in the 2008 election.

Republican backing of Trump is “totally, in one sense, unexplainable, given that Donald Trump’s conduct is the very thing Republicans used to abhor,” Shays said. “The list is long and every one of those, if it was a Democrat, Republicans would be up in arms. And the Christian community supporting him — wow!”

Shays is now working with former Rep. Richard Swett, DN.H., on an effort to persuade the U.S. Department of Defense to change its strategy regarding teens and young adults recruited by ISIS, he said. He wants the DOD to focus on connecting potential recruits with people who have escaped ISIS and been rehabilitated and can use firsthand experience to deter them from joining.

“We think it would be very successful,” Shays said.