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Welcome back once again to our year-end "McLaughlin Awards," named for the awards categories we lifted from the McLaughlin Report years ago. We've added a category here and there over time, but it's still the same basic list.
Tonight we saw the sixth in the series of Democratic presidential debates, and my first and strongest impression is that I for one am glad the field is being narrowed. Seven on the stage was enough, in other words, for me.
And so we come to the close of the most momentous week in Washington of the year. In one week's time, we've seen articles of impeachment move to the floor of the House of Representatives, an agreement between House Democrats and the White House to move forward on the U.S./Mexico/Canada Agreement, a truce declared in the budget battles (that had threatened to shut down the government once again), Democrats agreeing to the creation of the "Space Force" in exchange for paid family leave for federal workers, a tentative trade cease-fire declared with China, the Senate unanimously backing up the overwhelming vote in the House to declare the Armenian genocide for what it was, the release of an inspector general's report that totally debunked most of the conspiracy theories about the initiation of the counterintelligence operation at the edges of the 2016 Trump campaign, President Trump being forced to pay a $2 million fine for misuse of his own charitable foundation, and the House passing a landmark bill to fight the greed of drug companies by finally using the federal government's buying power to force lower prices on prescription medication. Again: all of these rather large things happened in a single week.
Occasionally, I like to take a look far down the road in an effort to see long-term political dynamics that others may be missing. I'm often accused of taking too long a look when I do. But I have to admit, a story today in Politico brought forth the same reaction from me, because it is concerned with the dynamics of Joe Biden's re-election effort, in 2024. I'll pause for a moment while you digest that one.
That title comes from Fiona Hill's testimony before the House Intelligence Committee's impeachment hearings this week. When Hill confronted Gordon Sondland over the quid pro quo Trump was forcing Ukraine into, she angrily told him: "This is all going to blow up." To which she added, to the congressmen questioning her: "And here we are."
I'm veering away from the impeachment hearings today to write up my reactions to last night's fifth Democratic presidential debate. This morning's testimony was pretty powerful, and Adam Schiff's closing statement was one for the history books, but it'll all have to wait until tomorrow.
The Democratic field now has 18 people in it, as Wayne Messam formally dropped out but Michael Bloomberg formally took his place. Other than Bloomberg, the candidates who are still running but who didn't appear last night are: Deval Patrick, Michael Bennet, Steve Bullock, Julián Castro, John Delaney, Joe Sestak, and Marianne Williamson. The ones who did appear on last night's debate stage: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang, and Tom Steyer. Hopefully, by the next debate, that entire list will have shrunk a bit more, but these days you never know -- maybe it'll even get bigger!
You'll have to forgive me, but during this morning's testimony before the House Intelligence Committee by Gordon Sondland, I kept thinking of a few key passages from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. If you watched the hearing, you'll understand what I'm referring to. Here are the quotes that sprang to my mind during this extended math lesson:
Rather than our usual weekly roundup, we are going to focus today solely on the public impeachment hearings. This is due to them being the most important thing that happened politically during the week, as well as the fact that we're admittedly more than a little frazzled sitting down to write this, after getting up at 6:00 A.M. and staring at the television for over six hours straight. Normally we would have used a good chunk of that time to sift the news stories from the past week, but that's simply not possible today. Nor is it all that important, because as mentioned everything else really pales in comparison to what is being witnessed right now by the American public.
The first public impeachment hearing was held today, in front of the House Intelligence Committee. It lasted almost five hours, and painted the same picture as all of the closed hearings -- at least, for anyone who has paid attention to them to date. The case was methodically laid out by the Democratic questions and the witnesses' answers that Donald Trump abused the power of his office to leverage both a personal White House meeting with him as well as military aid appropriated by Congress to Ukraine to force the Ukrainian leader to publicly announce an investigation into the 2016 election interference as well as Hunter Biden's work for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Both of these were not some sort of broad push to get Ukraine to fight corruption, as Trump has maintained, but rather to dig up dirt on his likely political opponent in next year's election. As such, it is not only unethical and illegal, but also an impeachable offense.
I must admit, I'm a sucker for "what if" storylines, especially when they concern little-used sections of the Constitution or congressional rules. Which is why an interesting article in Politico caught my eye today, because it lays out how a curveball move in the Senate could actually lead to Trump's removal from office (assuming that the House does impeach him, which seems like a pretty safe bet at this point).