One of the underrated challenges of blogging is that often you’ll stumble across news items where all that needs to be said, or that really can be said, is “LOL.” But we haven’t yet reached the stage of utopia where one can make a living LOL-ing at things.
That’s a pure leisure activity, essentially what Twitter is for.
I’ll just remind you, then, that the high-minded Mr. Schiff represents at D+23 district in California, where any attempt to impeach a Democratic president would itself be deemed a high crime or misdemeanor punishable by a ferocious primary challenge. The polling for Jeff Van Drew among Democrats in his own New Jersey district was so brutal after he voted against authorizing the impeachment inquiry that Van Drew concluded he’d have a better shot at reelection by switching parties — and he’s in a swing district. That is, however angry Democratic voters there might be at him, there was a strong strategic argument for sticking with him in the primary and taking advantage of his incumbency to hold the seat. But they didn’t care. He betrayed the party and they were set to make him pay.
In a D+23 district, that strategic argument for sticking with Schiff would be completely absent. Whoever the Democrats nominated would be assured of a House seat. There’d be nothing holding voters back from nuking him from orbit in the primary and sending a more loyal Dem — the sort who’d never vote to impeach a Democratic president — to Congress instead. Instead of Republicans carrying “TREACHEROUS PIECE OF SCHIFF” signs, it’d be progressives.
In fact, listen closely to Schiff’s phrasing in the clip below and you’ll find a note of doubt creeping into his own rhetoric. He doesn’t guarantee that he’d vote against Obama in the same situation. He’s says he “hopes” he would.
My dude, you would not. Or you’d be an ex-congressman inside of a year instead of a guy who’s now being touted for a statewide run in California thanks to the exposure this impeachment process has given him.
Or am I being unfair to him? Here’s a fun tweet from Justin Lecea, a member of the Democrats’ young socialist vanguard, that made the rounds among politicos last night:
https://twitter.com/JustinTX_20/status/1206426098982162432
“I just want you to think about all the people who have and will die because Obamacare is pointless and your entire presidency was a waste,” Lecea had tweeted before that about Obama. “If god was just you would get the most malignant cancer imaginable.” So that’s how things are going among the DSA crowd nowadays.
Maybe we should add an asterisk to the LOL at Schiff’s expense, then. There’s no way he would have voted to impeach Obama before the socialist takeover of the party. But in some alternate universe where Obama is president while that takeover is happening in local elections, I don’t know. Imagine Schiff trying to decide between sticking with moderate Dems by opposing impeachment on the one hand and on the other having to appease lefties carrying “GIVE OBAMA BRAIN CANCER” signs on the other.
Exit quotation from Obama, still making news in 2019: “I’m absolutely confident that for two years if every nation on earth was run by women, you would see a significant improvement across the board on just about everything… living standards and outcomes.” Why the hell did he primary Hillary in 2008, then?
Rep. Adam Schiff: "I don't think any of us have any question that had Barack Obama engaged in the activity … every one of these Republicans would be voting to impeach him."
"I hope to hell … if it were Barack Obama, I would vote to impeach him." https://t.co/P6iz1j1VA4 pic.twitter.com/xlVrk2I3qG
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) December 15, 2019
