(diary)
Fri 17 Jan 2010
The feeling of history doesn’t go away. The feeling that we’re right in the middle of it now like we haven’t been for our lifetimes and probably our parents. There was a grimness from day one. Some conservative friends said, about a month ago, that they never expected it to be this bad. Bad, but in the form of just-not-a-very-good-president bad and not to the degree and depths that we’ve gone. There’s no satisfaction in seeing that the sky is, in fact, falling. I credit Sarah Kendzior with the assessment: “there is no bottom” though not sure if it was her words or sentiments.
It started with Lisa and my arrival back home from Philadelphia and encountering Pelosi’s statement that the House was opening an impeachment inquiry. Weird, terrified feelings of hope where there’s been none for 3 (?) years.
Yesterday (two days ago?) was Lev Parnas’s interviews with Maddow and Anderson Cooper that shocked all except Republicans. (Aside: I used to assiduously make references to “conservatives” and “liberals” rather than “Republicans” and “Democrats” when discussing standard beliefs. Republicans are no longer conservative.) These interviews came a week (weeks?) after Pelosi finally sent the articles of impeachment to the Senate; in fact on the day before those articles were sent. Other revelations–primarily the surveillance of Amb. Yovanovitch–also came after the House impeachment but before the articles were sent.
Simply: Pelosi’s delay left space for more offences (that we really suspected exited) to be revealed.
Some think that Pelosi’s best chess move against intractable Republicans is to allow them to perform in a cravenly partisan manner and have them self-napalm the next Senate election. That may be the best we can hope for, as they (and the mincing Sen. Collins) vote inevitably, but still a pretty good outcome.
I watched a bit of the presentation to the Senate live, coming into it late while at work. I was riveted to my phone for the House inquiries (fuck productivity when we’re deciding the future of a nation) but for no good reason missed the hand off to the Senate.
As always: hopeful with the obviousness of the offenses and stultification of office, downbeat when I hear the cult members circle the wagons.