Oh, how I hate playing the “both sides are wrong” card. I feel I must do so in this instance.
Republican Mitch McConnell, the U.S. Senate’s majority leader, says he is not going to be an “impartial juror” when the Senate commences its trial over the articles impeachment filed against Donald J. Trump.
McConnell’s comments have drawn a rebuke from fellow Republican, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who said she is “disturbed” by his approach to putting the president on trial.
Now comes the view of a senior Democratic senator, Dick Durbin, who criticizes his fellow Democrats for refusing to maintain their own impartiality.
Both sides are guilty? I suppose so.
All 100 senators are going to raise their right hands and take an oath to be impartial jurors when Chief Justice John Roberts administers the pledge. They will say “so help me, God” at the end of the oath, which gives the pledge an air of sanctimony.
Will they be loyal to that sacred oath? Have they made up their minds to convict or acquit Trump? Is there a truly impartial mind among the 100 senators who will sit in judgment of Donald Trump? Or have every one of them pre-determined the president’s guilt or innocence, determining whether he has committed impeachable offenses?
Those of us on the outside have the liberty to make these determinations prior to hearing evidence. We’re not elected public officials. Those folks have the power to remove the president, or to keep him in office. They must maintain their impartiality for as long as they are hearing the case being presented.
I worry now that the trial that’s about to commence — hopefully sooner rather than too much later — will be akin to a sideshow with senators on both sides of the great divide guilty of the same sin.
Iām sick of hearing the insultingly specious, schlocky ham-actor indignation at Mitch McConnellās open admission heās not āimpartial.ā
This is asinine, infantile.
Of COURSE McConnell isnāt āimpartial.ā Who is? Maybe a Martian who just landed yesterday. Anybody seen him?
At the Senate trialās outset, the senators will take an oath professing their impartiality.
There isnāt the least contradiction between what McConnell has said and the vow he will take.
The constitutionās framers werenāt such blatant IDIOTS as to think that, by the time an impeachment case reached the Senate, for Peteās sake, nobody would have an opinion on the merits of the matter.
Like Joan Rivers used to say, āCan we talk?ā
First person obtuse enough to suppose thereās not a single Democrat senator whoās got his/her mind made up on their verdict, please raise your hand….
[Crickets]
First person blockheaded enough to fantasize there was an ounce of impartiality behind the years-long Schiff-Nadler vendetta, please raise your hand….
[Crickets]
Mitch McConnell can take the oath of impartiality, just as I would were I a senator, with a perfectly clear conscience. The impartiality referred to in the constitution, and in the English of that day, means you are not going to ignore or distort evidence because of personal loyalty . I could make a comment in this vein about the Schiff-Nadler farce weāve just witnessed, but, well, I guess I just have.
Nobody in their right mind thinks Mitch McConnell is a Trump groupie. In that sense, he is fully impartial enough to satisfy the constitutional expectation.
But the constitution isnāt so stupid as to demand Mitch McConnell not have, or pretend not to have, an opinion on the merits of the whole travesty of governance and parody of statesmanship we have just witnessed. Heās no criminal for being unconvinced, to say the least.
Nor will it be an act of perjury to swear to his āconstitutionalā impartiality.
I would do the exact same thing.