{"id":27511,"date":"2020-01-31T12:30:20","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T18:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=27511"},"modified":"2020-01-31T12:30:20","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T18:30:20","slug":"to-be-a-reporter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2020\/01\/31\/to-be-a-reporter\/","title":{"rendered":"To Be A Reporter"},"content":{"rendered":"

I see CNN<\/strong><\/em> is reporting<\/a> that there will be no witnesses & evidence presented at the impeachment trial, and Trump’s acquittal – dubious, in my view – is inevitable.<\/p>\n

One of the pivotal Senators of whom I was unaware is Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN). Steve Benen describes him<\/a> as an institutionalist with a variety of posts under his belt, and is retiring at age 80 with little to fear from Trump, politically speaking. Still …<\/p>\n

As Alexander sees it, Trump did what he\u2019s accused of doing. Indeed, while the president continues to describe his antics as \u201cperfect\u201d and \u201cbeautiful,\u201d the Tennessee Republican conceded that Trump\u2019s actions were \u201cinappropriate<\/a>\u201d and that the House impeachment managers successfully proved their case.<\/p>\n

Alexander just doesn\u2019t much care. He read the call summary, heard the arguments, weighed the evidence, and concluded that Trump is guilty \u2013 of an offensive that isn\u2019t especially important. It\u2019s why, in the senator\u2019s mind, there\u2019s no need for any kind of accountability. …<\/p>\n

And his conscience led him to disregard the misdeeds of a president whose guilt he considers obvious. Alexander not only won\u2019t vote to convict Trump and remove him from office, he believes the right course of action is to make this the first impeachment trial in American history in which the Senate doesn\u2019t even hear from witnesses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thing is, Benen shouldn’t be surprised at Alexander’s poor judgment. After all, it was Senator Alexander, possibly exhibiting signs of dementia<\/a>, who said<\/p>\n

\u201cBetter to get your news directly from the president,\u201d Smith said. \u201cIn fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.\u201d\u00a0[Vox<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which all leads me to formulate a reporter’s question:<\/p>\n

Senator Alexander, in view of the indisputable fact that the Senate, and therefore Congress, has now ceded to the Executive yet another power assigned to it by the Constitution, is there any point in having a Congress? And how do you think this will look in your legacy?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s just off the cuff. I’m sure readers can come up with more insightful questions for the good Senator.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"

Pushing Congress towards the Museum Of Useless Relics.<\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>\n

And that’s not to say I have lost faith in Speaker Pelosi planning to use this outcome to win the Senate and the Presidency in November. But this is a precedent<\/strong>, and I can only hope the next President repudiates it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I see CNN is reporting that there will be no witnesses & evidence presented at the impeachment trial, and Trump’s acquittal – dubious, in my view – is inevitable. One of the pivotal Senators of whom I was unaware is Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN). Steve Benen describes him as an \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27511"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27513,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27511\/revisions\/27513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}