Yes, there will be a reckoning for the unsuccessful litigant here, although the Democrats have been brilliant in elevating this matter, bringing together their caucus, dominating the news media and engineering parliamentary maneuvers to their advantage. Imagine if all of this energy had been put into fixing health care or immigration; they would be light years ahead of the Republicans, rather than facing a possible electoral boomerang when all this fails.

But impeachments have hidden costs, which is a strong reason I have consistently opposed them. In 1998 I received a 2 a.m. call from President Clinton, asking me if he should send some missiles to “get a really bad dude” or would it seem like he was doing it to divert attention from impeachment; he fired the missiles, but they missed Osama bin Laden. Perhaps if he had gotten bin Laden, there might not have been a 9/11. In contrast, the successful attack on Iranian general Qassem Solemaini, who was declared a terrorist by the Obama administration, during the Trump impeachment battle has been met with exactly the kind of skepticism that Clinton feared in 1998 and, as a country, we showed division rather than unity against our No. 1 foe, Iran.