I’ve been listening, off and on, to the Judiciary Committee testimony today. It features four professors, three brought in by the Democrats and one by the Republicans, George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley. Skipping the whining from the Republicans, I couldn’t help but notice that Professor Turley raised two objections to the impeachment process so far, neither of which I found credible.
First, he says this is the fastest impeachment process on record. Unfortunately for him, some processes move slowly and some move quickly, like most such things, and one has to be the fastest. Without a credible reason for not moving quickly, the movement should be at the discretion of those who believe impeachment is appropriate. That it be quick is preferable because, if you believe impeachment is called for, in most cases, and certainly in this case, you also believe the President is doing continual and lasting damage to the country. I have no insight into the Professor’s mind, but it sounds like he sees this as a standard criminal proceeding in which the alleged criminal is now in custody and no longer engaged in the alleged criminal activity. That is not true in this case.
Second, he spent some time elaborating on the dangers of removing a President who is seen as incompetent only by one Party, which is my phraseology, not his; I suspect he’d prefer “narrow partisan basis“. He felt that if this was a go-forward basis for impeachment, then we’re headed for chaos when the President is a Democrat, as the Republicans will raise impeachment charges when they can. But this suffers from a fatal flaw: the voters hold the final power. If they perceive the impeachment was nothing more than a political lynching, then those who are not Party cultists will dump the party who perpetrated such an action on their heads.
The Republicans have been an extremist organization for more than the last three years, yet did they impeach and convict President Obama? They didn’t even try. Why? Because the independent voter who holds the balance of power in their collective hands would have seen it as nothing more than dirty politics, found those involved to be unworthy of their seats, and voted en masse against them. No doubt the Republicans realized that.
So I’m not taking Professor Turley too seriously. His objections and complaints are too easy to rebut in my mind.
