A big news day Tuesday. IG report fallout, Bill Barr’s propaganda press conference, Nancy Pelosi supporting NAFTA 2.0 (and AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka supporting Pelosi on this).
But impeachment dominates it all.
Will Bunch/philly.com:
With GOP certain to acquit Trump, should he be impeached for the history books?
In 1940, Otto Hampel began writing postcards that attacked both the Fuhrer and his totalitarian regime, scrawling the words “worker murderer” across Hitler’s face or asking fellow citizens to “Wake up!” to the evil of their government. Over two years, Hampel covertly dropped more than 200 of these postcards in busy stairwells or other public places, in the hopes that everyday people would read them and rise up against the Third Reich. The reality, though, was that most of the cards were immediately turned over to the Gestapo by terrified citizens. After confounding authorities for two years, the Hampels were arrested and executed by the guillotine.
It’s hard to imagine deeper existential questions than the ones posed by Every Man Dies Alone. Did writing the truth about Hitler doom Otto, or did it set him free? Were he and his wife, who helped deliver the messages, heroes or reckless fools? (Consider the fact that few people — possibly no one — responded positively to the postcards.) In real life, Otto Hampel told his Nazi captors that — even as he awaited the guillotine — he was “happy” with what he did.
Flash forward nearly eight long decades to Donald Trump’s America, and it’s impossible not to hear the echoing footsteps of Otto Hampel. Postcards of truth are dropping everywhere.
Eliot A. Cohen/NY Times (book review):
The Military’s Illusions About Donald Trump
In some measure, then, the Trump administration delivered the policies that a lot of Americans wanted. And when he did cross the accepted wisdom of the foreign policy establishment — most dramatically in moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem — the predictions of doom failed to materialize. An unskilled bluffer, Trump is instinctively wary of real confrontation, knowing as he does that he is president of a country that has been baffled by protracted wars and is not keen to engage in more. So he stopped short of immediately dangerous decisions.
The damage to American foreign policy that the administration has done is too subtle to register in headlines, because there are no reliable metrics for a nation’s reputation. It is visible in the accommodations that countries make, though they would rather not do so, when they send ministers to Beijing and Moscow more often than to Washington. It is to be detected in the candid observation of the foreign minister of a major partner of the United States who says, “Look, we simply cannot trust you now, and we doubt that we can trust you in the future
Alex Seitz-Wald/NBC:
GOP impeachment wall: Why Republicans won't walk away from Trump
Analysis: Politics and the media have changed since the time a group of GOP lawmakers went to the White House to tell Nixon he was finished.
Today, as Democrats in the House of Representatives move toward bringing articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, with the next Judiciary Committee hearing of evidence set for Monday, few Democrats are still clinging to the hope that Republicans will reach a breaking point with Trump like they did with Nixon.
"I really don't think there is any fact that would change their minds," Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told NBC News.
Why? Two key changes since Nixon: a massive divide in American political life — we hate the other team more than ever before — and a media climate that fuels and reinforces that chasm, powered by Fox News on the Republican side.
Himes said he was "a little stunned by the unanimity on the Republican side," especially among retiring lawmakers who don't have to worry about surviving a GOP primary had they gone against Trump. "We're in a place right now where all that matters to my Republican colleagues is the defense of the president," he added.
Quinnipiac:
Buttigieg Slips, While Biden And Sanders Gain In Primary, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Slightly More Than Half Of Voters Say Don't Impeach Trump
In the Democratic primary race for president, former Vice President Joe Biden is in the best position that he has been since the end of the summer, with 29 percent of the vote among Democratic voters and independent voters who lean Democratic, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll released today. Biden is followed by Sen. Bernie Sanders with 17 percent, Sen. Elizabeth Warren with 15 percent, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 9 percent. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has 5 percent, businessman Andrew Yang receives 4 percent, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar gets 3 percent. No other candidate tops 2 percent. In a November 26 poll, Biden received 24 percent, Buttigieg got 16 percent, Warren had 14 percent, and Sanders got 13 percent.
"This is the first time Biden has had a double-digit lead since August, and Sanders' best number since June. While Warren's numbers seem to have stabilized, Buttigieg's numbers have dipped," said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy….
If the general election for president were being held today, 51 percent of registered voters say they would vote for Joe Biden, while 42 percent say they would vote for President Trump. When Trump is matched against other Democratic contenders the race remains in single digits:
- Bernie Sanders gets 51 percent, while Trump has 43 percent;
- Elizabeth Warren receives 50 percent and Trump gets 43 percent;
- Michael Bloomberg gets 48 percent to Trump's 42 percent;
- Pete Buttigieg has 48 percent, while Trump receives 43 percent;
- Amy Klobuchar receives 47 percent, while Trump has 43 percent.
This compares to an October 8 poll, in which Biden beat Trump 51 - 40 percent, Sanders led Trump 49 - 42 percent, and Warren won against Trump 49 - 41 percent.
At this point in the 2016 election cycle, a December 2, 2015 Quinnipiac University national poll found that 47 percent of voters said that they would vote for the eventual Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, while 41 percent said that they would vote for eventual Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Trump still stuck in low 40’s.
Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes/Atlantic:
If the Witnesses Could Exonerate Trump, Why Aren’t They Testifying?
Trump’s defenders suggest that White House aides could exculpate the president—but the evidence suggests otherwise.
Speaking with George Stephanopoulos on ABC this weekend, Representative Matt Gaetz—one of President Donald Trump’s most relentlessly enthusiastic congressional supporters—had an unexpected suggestion for how the president should proceed in the impeachment inquiry. Mick Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and acting White House chief of staff, should testify before Congress, Gaetz argued—along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and perhaps even the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. All three men have so far refused to cooperate with House requests for information. But, said Gaetz, “I think it would inure to the president’s advantage to have people testify who could exculpate him.”
This is the kind of thing one can say only if one has a certain confidence that the witnesses in question will not, in fact, testify. And Gaetz himself seemed to hedge, indicating that the need to preserve executive privilege made the question of Mulvaney’s and Pompeo’s testimony “a tough balance for the president.”
Whatever spin these three men might put on their interactions with the president, the facts that might be elicited from them, given the wealth of information about their activities in the Ukraine scandal, are most unlikely to exculpate Trump. And it’s not only them: There’s also Trump’s former national-security adviser John Bolton, who has publicly suggested that the White House harbors “fear of what I may say.” The last time Mulvaney opened his mouth at a public press conference, he openly admitted that military aid to Ukraine was held up, in part, pending “investigations.” Giuliani, meanwhile, seems to blab major admissions every time a journalist gets him on the phone—or every time he inadvertently butt-dials a journalist. And that’s before the former New York City mayor starts tweeting.
These are not people the president should want Congress to hear from.
Philip Bump/WaPo:
What Trump claimed about the Russia probe — and what the Justice Department inspector general determined
If you’re still not quite clear on what exactly Horowitz found — or what he was even looking at — it is hard to blame you. Trump’s sweeping declaration that the inspector general had both exonerated him and revealed horrendous behavior by the president’s opponents is a by-now-familiar response.
That Trump’s rhetoric outpaces reality by several light-years is familiar in its own way.
BTW, interesting read on Mayor Pete and McKinsey from Megan McArdle/WaPo::
Why McKinsey became a problem for Pete Buttigieg
Why do so many people with elite degrees make their living telling other people how to run their businesses, rather than, say, just cutting out the middleman and running a business?
As it happens, I have an answer for that. In 2001, on the verge of completing an MBA, I accepted a job with a boutique strategy consulting firm. I never actually started work — the dot-com bubble collapsed, and they started laying off instead of bringing on new hires — but I remember well why I wanted to work there so badly.
For one thing, the hiring process soothingly replicates the process of admission to an elite school. You slide down a well-greased chute from informational mixers to on-campus interviews, through second- and third-round interviews, and smoothly to a job offer, sometimes more than one. After a brief period of agonizing, you choose a firm — generally the highest-status destination, for they have a known hierarchy, as colleges do. And just like that, your future is settled for the next few years, without the arduous labor of figuring out what industry you’d like to work in and finding a company that will hire you.
In other words, these jobs are custom-designed for maximal appeal to the upper-middlebrow conformists who excel at navigating elite education. I suspect that Buttigieg’s consulting experience stirred up so much antagonism because he and McKinsey were standing in for that whole class of people whose lives revolve not around any particular competency but simply around “being smart” — with “smart” defined as having leaped a certain number of educational hurdles in the prescribed manner, after which you earn the right to tell everyone else their business.