What She Really Wanted to Tell Him

Nancy Pelosi didn't let the opportunity go. She certainly could have. She had displayed her usual savoir faire in announcing that yes, indeed, United States of America, the evidence is in, the experts are finished, and there will soon be a vote on impeaching the president.

Then she took questions and headed off the stage. But someone wanted to ask her one more thing just before she disappeared behind the curtain: Do you hate him?

He didn't say exactly that, of course. But he brought the 'haters' into the comment. That allowed him plausible deniability, the leaker's way out.

Of course, he was from a right-wing communications syndicate, Sinclair, which controls the informational output of dozens of stations. Of course, he or it was trying to control and expand the snark factor. He said he meant no disrespect. You can believe that if you want.

She wouldn't have it, though. She made a few things quite clear. We know what she said. Here's my filter:

Thank you for trying to get that last little shot in there just as I'm leaving. You think you're being clever. I ate people like you for lunch thirty years ago. I'll bet that, just because you're a guy, you think that somehow, women don't get that and will overlook it. Uh-uh. That train left the station way before you felt like hating Hillary.

So you aren't getting away with that. And I'm not only going to answer you, but I'm going back to the podium because I want everyone to hear this, because the only thing that the other side's really saying is that we're going to all this trouble because we don't like him. Isn't that what the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee said? Isn't that what their echo chamber's insisting?

I don't and can't control what others are feeling and saying, but I don't hate him. In fact, I pray for him and his family a great deal. With this guy, what else can you possibly do? He won't listen to anybody. He doesn't care about anyone but himself. And he sure as heck doesn't care about the country. If he did, we'd simply be discussing how much of a coward he is about climate change and how cruel he is to immigrants.

But those are policy matters, subject to politics. As wicked and pathetic as he is, we've been talking about that stuff for some years now. They remain sticky wickets with no clear path. But he offers no path, nothing. And that way is self-destructive.

No matter. We aren't here because of his disgusting manner, his endless insults, his bullying and his ridiculous behavior overseas, as awful as all of that is. We'll be running against that, too, for the next eleven months.

Nope. This is about the Constitution. He promised to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And not only has he not done that, he has collaborated with the Russians to grease the skids for them to control Ukraine--a country which has counted on us to help them defend itself, a country that has struggled with its own corruption but which now has someone running it who wants to clean it up.

Except he ran into Mr. Corruption himself, who's pretending to play with their money as if it's his own. No: it's our money, and he got caught holding it back to try to smear, with a pretend investigation the announcement of which would be sufficient to do the job, the person who has a decent chance of gaining the nomination of my party to unseat him. (In fact, on MSNBC yesterday, Ari Melber announced that that money still hasn't been completely turned over to Ukraine: there's about $15M of the projected, voted upon $391M that hasn't. So what's that about?) Never mind that he got caught and was were forced to turn over the money anyhow. The point is that he was going to do it and now we know.

He has no Constitutional authority to play with our foreign policy like that. That's supposed to be his responsibility, and he has completely undermined it, and this country, by these hijinks. He put an ally in danger with his scheme, to please an enemy the reasons for which will, I'm quite sure, emerge eventually. (The real quid pro quo, perhaps--election interference in exchange for control of Ukraine? But I digress.) But we will all be in shock if it doesn't have something to do with his bottomless, endless gluttony for money.

To hide this, or to try to hide it, he has ordered significantly revelatory information and witnesses to remain closed to testimony, acts which, in and of themselves, constitute obstruction of justice. That alone is a high misdemeanor within the scope of the Constitution. That alone would get him kicked out by Senate Republicans who wouldn't be scared to death of him for some reason.

Never mind that. We here in the House, despite the cultish obsession of the other side, have done our Constitutional duty. We have done what we could, what we must. Because he has broken the law. Period.

Got that now, buddy?

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


Mister Mark