Pelosi Made A Mistake. Here's Why.

There's a bit of grande dame in Nancy Pelosi, and not without cause. Her political position in American life has been hard-earned, and the prestige of being Speaker of the House is and should be equivalent to its power.

So when she said that she doesn't think 45 should be impeached, the world took notice. So did I. It's a mistake.

Perhaps she shouldn't have put it quite the way she did. She can say that she was doing no more than voicing the reality of the matter. No matter what 45 has done or what Mueller reports him to have done, the prostrate Republican Party will never, ever cross over and consider it from a legal standpoint--that is, the way the Constitution proclaims it. They will continue to circle their own wagons and (with perhaps a few exceptions) stand by him, regardless of how craven their regard for the rule of law is and will be from that moment.

In other words: Without the numbers, the trouble all that engenders is pointless. It takes a 2/3 majority to convict a sitting president of impeachment charges in the U.S. Senate, and barring something even more amazing that all the violations of norms and outrages that we already know about (Really now, what in blue blazes could that be?), nothing will stir their senses of propriety and decency in lieu of, well, winning, which they still believe they can do.

Until they don't, of course. Which they might not. They might just lose this gamble of completely sacrificing their independence and yielding whatever power they believe they have to assuage what they believe to be an unbudgeably angry mob out there and fall prey to getting primary-ed.

In doing so, they are violating the first rule of having power: Don't give it up unless you know you are getting something in return. Don't show your hand until you know what other people have--as much as possible to ascertain. Which is what Nancy Pelosi has just done.

In declaring herself flat-out against impeachment, in saying that 45 "just isn't worth the trouble," even though in a sense he certainly isn't (I feel her flipping the back of her hand at him, like the door-to-door salesman who doesn't yet know how the internet works), she is handing him the one thing he doesn't operate well without: certainty. He is, after all, a political novice, but extremely sophisticated about business relationships. He equates the two, which means that he has 'won'. Why? Because he has stood his ground while the other side caved. He now knows that there will be no effort to dislodge him from office before the 2020 elections, since Pelosi would need a far clearer indication that the Senate would seriously entertain impeachment charges in more than a token fashion. He can now do planning he wasn't sure he could do.

He's much less on the defensive now. With someone like this, you don't want to make him the least bit comfortable or to give him confidence on top of his bravado. He's outrageous enough the way it is.

Maybe she would have said this anyhow. But to say it now, this directly instead of in the kind of political code that people like her are known for and rather skilled at, and early in the deliberations, takes away the sting and unease which each revelation the House investigations make. It takes the gravitas out of the question, "So what?" She could have waited down this path a bit. 45 has a habit of saying ridiculous, self-accusatory things if the tension around an issue remains, making him look more deeply and more continuously unhinged--thus adding to the need to impeach and remove. There is always the possibility of White House leaks, too, telling us even more evidence of corruption and/or incompetence.

Pelosi could be sending a different kind of resistance message, though. She could be telling her House allies that standing up against the ridiculous, destructive budget proposals that 45 has just released will take enough work. The investigations, too, that are presently going on--whether Mueller's report will buttress them sufficiently or not--will be taking up a tremendous amount of time and work, and each revelation of improprieties and probable illegalities will build an enormous case for whomever survives the cascade of Democratic presidential candidates who are already lining up for the Iowa caucuses, ten months ahead of time.

And to say it now releases her from the accusation, which would have eventually surfaced, that she pulled the rug from under the investigatory committees at the last minute, and disappointed nearly everyone even more deeply.

But then, she might be thinking that she could avoid being forced into a corner and do something she shouldn't be doing by coming out now and not later. No politician, however popular, acts completely for someone else. She still needs to watch her own back.

To be sure, she left the door open a crack. She didn't rule it out completely. But the buzz that it created basically allows the Republicans to move that piece forward on the chess board, and post an even thicker firewall for the Democrats to overcome--as in, You won't win anyhow, so let's end this discussion, shall we? And that could be even more damaging to Democratic hopes in 2020, say some.

I don't think so. Remember that the ultimate result of the 'failure' of the Clinton impeachment trial was to get a Republican president who was nearly as awful as this one, which was in itself enough of a disaster, by allowing the candidate to obliquely, but cleverly, refer to the whole business in terms of respecting the Constitution and to consistently drive that point home. No reason the Democrats can't do the same in 2020. But now that Pelosi has backed away, they can be accused of chickening out--an indication of weakness that 45 will only exploit, as illogically as he does so but effectively for his emotionally-afflicted base.

Pelosi believes or wants to believe that the American people, seeing the obvious mistake they've made, will correct the course in 2020 and elect a Democrat to the presidency and, based on the 2018 mid-terms, has reason to think so. That, though, is itself a long and arduous path in which 45 will be given every opportunity to go on the offensive. Indeed, his campaign has already gone up on TV with an ad criticizing Beto O'Rourke before he even declared for the campaign, the strategy behind which is mysterious but perhaps crafty because maybe he fears O'Rourke above all other candidates (interestingly). The only way 45 could have gone on the offensive in an impeachment hearing is with his attorneys and on Twitter--but only in response to the facts presented to the Senate as acquired through a thorough and legal process. By definition, he'd already be on the defensive. And the smearing of damaging facts would proceed nonetheless.

Again, she's giving up too much, it says here. It's risky either way, though. And the tension builds either way.

Be well. I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark