The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
COLIN MCENROE
Impeaching the boss? Better call Ross
In 1974, the philosopher Thomas Nagel published a paper called “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” It’s probably the most famous philosopher paper of the last 50 years, not that that’s saying much.
People often misrepresent Nagel’s argument as: Nobody knows what it’s like to be a bat. People mean well. Nagel’s point was more like: For a bat to have consciousness, “what it’s like for a bat to be a bat” can’t be nothing.
Never mind. The point is, I would have a better chance of figuring out the whole bat thing than I have of figuring out what it’s like for Donald Trump to be Donald Trump
Take Wednesday. That’s when the White House released its summary of notes taken on the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukranian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Ahead of the release, Trump tweeted that the Democrats would be under pressure to apologize to him when they saw the summary of what Trump called “a perfect call.”
Instead, the summary read like an episode of “The West Wing” ghostwritten by Mario Puzo, with Trump saying, “I would like you to do us a favor” and “whatever you can do” in reference to investigating Joe and Hunter Biden.
Sidebar: The argument that the Bidens were doing something illegal is both unproven and totally irrelevant in this context. If they were doing something illegal, it would be appropriate to report that to the FBI, not to the president of Ukraine.
Anyway, what is it like for Trump to be Trump? Did he really think that summary — by most standards a “smoking gun” — would exonerate him?
Did he think it was really terrible? (Somebody did. The whistleblower’s memo claims the White House tried to “lock down” all evidence of the phone call.) Does Trump think?
I just had to get that off my chest.
The remainder of this column will be news you can use: handy — and whenever possible Connecticutoriented — aids to following this complicated process.
Follow Ross Garber. This is not like “follow the money.” This is like: follow him on Twitter. Ross Garber is a Republican lawyer from Connecticut. He is arguably the nation’s leading sleevesrolledup, handsinthedishwater expert on impeachment, having represented no fewer than four Republican governors facing impeachment. You’ve probably seen the billboards: “Impeaching your boss? Better call Ross.”
Some of this was “luck,” if you call it luck to be counsel to the governor’s office in the days of John Rowland. I have known Ross since those days. He has an extraordinarily sweet disposition and is kind of a nerd, although The New York Times once alleged he had “a hip side.” This may refer to his nearly obsessive interest in Patti Smith.
Anyway, follow Ross on Twitter, and you’ll be impeachmentsmarter.
Listen to both seasons of “Slow Burn.” This is a Slate podcast. I know some of you have never listened to a podcast and act like they lead to hard drugs or something. It’s easy. Set it up so you can listen while cooking dinner or drawing pentagrams on the walls of your garage or whatever. Season one covers the Nixon impeachment. Season two, Clinton. I thought I knew a lot about both cases, and it turns out I didn’t know much at all.
Read at least one Watergate book. Things were different then. The process started with a sevenmember select committee. Seven senators. One of them was Lowell P. Weicker Jr., of course. Seven. Not dozens and dozens of congresspersons on six different committees, all clamoring to get on TV and ask stupid questions with inept followups. Much of the close questioning was done by majority counsel Sam Dash, leading a team of lawyers and investigators who worked day and night to prepare for each witness. Sure, the senators asked questions too, but there were only seven of them.
It’s a mistake by Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to start with a small select committee. They do the early spade work. Then the House votes on a resolution. Then it goes to the judiciary committee. This is how you do it. Just ask Ross.
My favorite Watergate book is “Watergate in American Memory” by Michael Schudson. But you do you.
Pay no attention to polls. I love polls, and I am what the young people call a “stan” of data journalism superstar Nate Silver. But impeachments and polls, meh.
Think about it this way: At the end of January 1998, Bill Clinton had a 67 percent approval rating. Donald Trump would kill for that number. He recently got an outlier 52 from a poll with a heavy Republican lean. Mostly, he’s been stuck around 40.
By the end of 1998, Clinton had been impeached on two counts. You know what happened to his approval rating? It went up to 73 right after the impeachment.
Polls and impeachment have very little to do with one another.
That’s all for now. President Trump just announced he “could really go for about 900 mosquitoes right now.” There may be more to this bat idea than even I thought.