The first day ofPresident Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial didn’t actually end until thesecond day of his impeachment trial —2 o’clock in the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 22.
When I awoke later that morning, I asked my wife, “Have theystopped talking yet? Please make them stop.”
But no one could make the Democrats stop, at least not until Rep. Adam Schiff’s remarkable, heartfelt closing on Thursday night, which felt like Paul Newman delivering his final “justice in our hearts” argument in “The Verdict.”
But it took a long, labored time for the Democrats to getthere.
By Wednesday afternoon, they were at it again. Schiff spenttwo hours and 15 minutes on what he called his “introduction.”
That’s an “introduction”?
No, no. An introduction is, “Mr. Laurel, meet Mr. Hardy.”
Schiff’s long speech was followed by the remainder of the platoon of Democratic managers taking their full turns. And then it was Schiff again. And then more of the other Democrats. Until finally, mercifully, the second full day of the impeachment trial ended so late at night that some Republican senators were surreptitiously mocking the Dems’ strenuous efforts to rid the nation of the 45th president.
For example, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) reportedly expressed hisdevotion to the great constitutional crisis at hand by sending some of his Senatepals little slips of paper mocking the Democrats like a fourth-grader passingnotes in class and hoping Miss Grundy doesn’t catch on.
Maybe Sen. Paul becalmed himself long enough to hearSchiff’s plaintive closing Thursday night, a plea for his colleagues todistinguish simple right from wrong.
“If right doesn’t matter,” said Schiff, “we are lost. Iftruth doesn’t matter, we’re lost.”
It was deeply moving, and maybe it made up for an awful lotof lumbering hours that tested everybody’s patience.
The Dems have the facts on their side. But did they help orharm themselves by belaboring them over so many hours?
I thought I had their strategy figured out during those longstretches. They’d talk so long and repeat themselves so many time that theRepublicans would finally throw up their hands and say, “Enough! Please stop! We’ll do whatever you say if you’ll just stop!”
Of course, as this is written, early Friday morning, wehaven’t even begun to hear the Republicans lean into the body of their own Trumpiancase – if, in fact, they have one.
If they had a defense to offer, wouldn’t they offer it? Theycould bring in witnesses, they could bring in documents, they could bring inall the stuff defendants bring in when they’re on trial.
But, as everyone in America must know by now, theseRepublicans have resisted such standard defense mechanisms. They’re locked intoa kind of willful ignorance. They prefer to go with the simple power of theirmajority. Morality be damned, history be damned.
And America, get overit.
The Republicans have lined up behind this president oftheirs, and they’re ready to defend him no matter what the available facts andall previous testimony and all previously released documents and all logic makeclear.
And that clarity is in order to cheat his way to anotherelection, Trump was willing to sell out thousands – maybe millions – of livesof Ukrainians desperate to hold off Russians who have already killed roughly15,000 people.
The president was ready to hold back $391 million inmilitary aid promised by the U.S. Congress unless the Ukrainian presidentagreed to broadcast a phony investigation into the Trump’s Democratic rival,former Vice President Joe Biden.
Can Americans hold onto that simple act of Trump’s moraldegeneracy while we have these mind-numbing speeches from the floor of the U.S.Senate?
Here’s one theory on the Democrats’ endless speechifying,and the endless repetition. Maybe they’re thinking the same way the cable newsstations think. On routine news days, these stations run the same stories hourafter hour, repackaging them slightly so they can run “Breaking News”headlines, in the theory that it’s a completely different audience every houror so.
There are plenty of Americans who tune in here and there,who catch a few words and then flip to “Jeopardy” or “Judge Judy.” Those folksdon’t have a vote in these impeachment proceedings, but they’ll vote inNovember.
Maybe they’ll remember the pleas for a fair trial back whenthose such as Rand Paul were passing out notes.
As for that audience which will soon vote on impeachment –the 100 U.S. senators – if these speeches continue to drone on, we’ll have bothsides throwing up their hands in surrender, declaring, “Please stop talking! We’ll do anything!”
Maybe that’s the only way to reach compromise.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
Cruel, inappropriate, egomanical, outrageous and bullying are all attributes that pass for presidential these days, writes Michael Olesker.
Commemorations of the Holocaust must transcend the past to include concerns about the present and future, writes Menachem Z. Rosensaft.
Someone needed to tell Donald Trump that his appearance at a UFC fight over the weekend was not a good look, writes Michael Olesker.