I loathe meetings, conferences, seminars, conclaves — assemblies of all kinds. I avoid trials, whether civil or criminal, religious services, whether of my own faith or others, and political rallies of all stripes. Anything that traps me so I must sit, be silent and listen to people talk for an indeterminate time.
Thus I was surprised, mildly, to find myself Wednesday at 9 a.m. CST parked in front of CNN to watch the beginning of the House Intelligence Committee’s public hearings on whether Donald Trump should be impeached. The “This is history!” imperative must have overridden my natural disinclination to watch parliamentary proceedings. The president is being impeached. It’s like the moon catching fire; who doesn’t step outside and look up?
Two minutes later it hadn’t started, and I was growing impatient.
“It’s 9:02,” I tweeted. (Because really, if a thought goes unexpressed nowadays, does it even exist?) “You’re late. [C’mon] Dems, get with the program.”
Be careful what you wish for.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., gaveled the hearing to order and spoke for 36 seconds.
“It is the intention of the committee to proceed without disruptions,” he said, then was interrupted by Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, asking about the “rules of engagement,” as if this were some kind of battle, which of course it is.
But an odd sort of battle, a battle where the outcome is unimportant. Anyone who understands that the president put his own interests ahead of the nation’s already knew it Tuesday. And anyone who refuses to see that derailing American foreign policy to grease your chances in the next election is an impeachable offense will never grasp that fact, not after a thousand hours of damning testimony. Not after a century.
The question, Schiff said, is “what kind of conduct or misconduct the American people can come to expect from their commander in chief?”
Ooh, ooh, me, me! I know!
Anything! Am I right? Of course I am. We’ve come to expect anything from Donald Trump. Really, if he swiped the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington and sold it on eBay, then pocketed the money, would you be surprised? I wouldn’t.
But here’s the strange thing. As the Trump era grinds onward, endless, eternal, the man himself seems to flicker, fade, go out of focus. The lying, the self-pity, the malice, the near-hallucinatory conspiracy theories. It’s all too much. It’s blinding. Trump fades to a concept at this point. But as he vanishes, Cheshire Cat-like, his glittery-eyed supporters come into sharper focus, the lapdog Lindsey Graham, the legal whirling dervish Rudy Guiliani. All defending their president with a mad, Marx Brothers pie fight of allegations and accusations, anything but addressing the matter at hand.
“The facts are not seriously contested,” Schiff said. “Is this what Americans should now expect from their president?”
Again, I’ve got that one: You betcha! This and worse.
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., had his turn, blasting so much obfuscation I thought of an octopus squirting clouds of ink.
“The Democrats ...” he sneered. “The corrupt media ... and partisan bureaucrats. ... The spectacular implosion of their Russian hoax. ... Star Chamber ... cult-like atmosphere.” He emitted a mist of Fox News conspiracy theories and wild, what-about-this scenarios. It was Trump’s Twitter feed come to life.
Like the kindergartners they are, emotionally, the president and his supporters immediately declared the impeachment hearing “boring.” Here I agree with them, though for a different reason. They’re bored because, if you can’t process new information at odds with your beliefs, then the clearest, most compelling evidence is but white noise.
And I got bored because first, as I said, I hate meetings. Second, I already know this stuff. More detail only makes the atrocity more hideous. I got bored with impeachment for the same reason you can’t stare too long at a crime scene photo. It’s grotesque. I get it.
That said, I’m glad they’re holding impeachment hearings. It is good for Americans clinging to our cherished values to see decent, patriotic men like Bill Taylor and George Kent, the first two witnesses, in contrast with the contemptuous band of toadies, bootlickers and lackeys the Republicans sent to try to discredit them. I almost said it will matter to history. But that depends who writes the history of our sad time. That is what this struggle is about.
