Impeachment: The hearings are must-see TV:
Rep. Jim Jordan acting as President Donald Trump’s chief defender in the impeachment inquiry.
So far in the public impeachment hearings, it’s Democrats 3-0. This was unexpected. The twin Foreign Service officers were impeccable. The fired ambassador was splendid.
The Republicans were tepid partly because U.S. President Donald Trump gave the Democrats a lemon and they made lemonade. Trump is doing everything he can to prevent his own subpoenaed staff — including acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney — from appearing before the House intelligence committee because they might offer uncomfortable information. That means he has no defenders to show servility and greasy Trump love.
So the Democrats, strategic and well-rehearsed, are telling the story, easily as gripping as a Dickens serial in 1860. We cannot binge-watch, but we can watch.
Committee chair Adam Schiff offered voters a foreword, telling them what would unfold, given that he’s in charge of the unfolding. The two diplomats offered a timeline, which is gold.
Republicans think voters are fascinated by Beltway theatre, but Democrats know that they’re busy. They have lives.
Thus Americans were prepped for this Netflixish drama. They could follow the plot.
Older, sophisticated, educated to the teeth, and radiant with rectitude, the State Department’s George Kent (three-piece suit) and acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor (embassy dad) spoke in full sentences about complicated matters and maintained their sang-froid when Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio sent absurd theories up a flagpole presenting Trump as canny or even wise. Sometimes they suppressed laughter, much more effective than laughing.
A new day began. A distinguished female ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, appeared. Her family had fled communism and Nazism. Born in Canada, she become a U.S. citizen and “served” her country, as Americans so often say. She had worked in five “hardship posts” in the Foreign Service and moved 13 times, often to miserable places where she was in physical danger. The Ukraine ambassadorship was a plum, given the importance of this huge, heavily populated country as a bulwark against Russian dominion over former Soviet satellites.
It was also a plum for ordinary Americans who do not know where Ukraine is or why it matters.
The hearings are a barrel of males, with men seated in rings and rows. Republicans were flummoxed by the existence of a woman in their midst, much less an accomplished one. Without evidence to exculpate Trump, they flailed, just as in the Kavanaugh hearings when Christine Blasey Ford scared them.
Kavanaugh cried like a baby because he was scared of a woman making him lose. Yovanovitch frightens Jordan.
Imagine selecting Jordan to lead the effort. He’s facing accusations that he covered up a wrestling coach’s sexual abuse of boys — 1,429 sexual assaults and 47 rapes — at Ohio State University. He thinks his refusal to wear a suit jacket shows his contempt for the proceedings, but he just looks cheap and shifty.
Republicans can’t grasp that they don’t need the Jordans. They already have Trump’s base. They need new voters. Jordan embarks on long curly sentences and, by the end, can’t remember the question. “Could you repeat the question?” Yovanovitch asked politely and by then he was, as always, out of time.
It was a Democratic rout. I wouldn’t normally describe the hearing in those terms, but a foolish reporter said the hearings had no “pizzazz.” In other words, they have to be “Desperate Housewives of the House of Representatives” or voters won’t tune in.
I doubt that’s true. Even thick Americans understand basic concepts. Bribery. Fired. Extortion. Threats. The Russian enemy.
Yovanovitch was smeared by the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, left undefended by the State Department and fired by Trump. In the July 25 Zelenskiy phone call, Trump said, “She’s bad news. She’s going to go through some things,” which she did and they distressed her greatly.
“You’re going to go through some things,” is the kind of thing a serial killer says after he handcuffs you to the car door. It’s more unpresidential than the horrendously unpresidential things Trump says daily. And then Trump tweeted insults at the woman he had fired as she was testifying. Schiff looked angry and called it witness intimidation. It frightened her and anyone else set to testify.
So not a great vote-getting day for Trump, who has to give his wretched defenders something exculpatory to work with, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, explaining to Trump what the word means.
After that showing, more Republican senators and members of Congress will retire before the next election.
Seats are in play. Trump may well be impeached for bribery, a specific crime mentioned in the Constitution. But the hearings have just begun. In the novel called “Impeachment,” each chapter ends with “There would be little sleep that night for members of the committee …” We are hooked.