Impeachment hearings

[_Gunnar]

Trump certainly isn't helping himself by his denigrating, bullying tweets about the witnesses in real time even as they are testifying. I love what Mike Rogers said about Trump, as quoted by Mark Shields:

The only time he isn't shooting himself in the foot, is when he is stopping to reload his gun.

His intimidating tweet about Ambassador Yavanovitch during the very time she was on the witness stand testifying about witness intimidation was particularly stupid!

[_subgenius]

“I would now feel compelled to ask you, Madam Ambassador, as you sit here before us, very simply and directly, do you have any information regarding the president of the United States accepting any bribes?”

“No,” Yovanovitch said.

“Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the president of the United States has been involved with at all?”

“No,” Yovanovitch said.

[_honorentheos]

“I would now feel compelled to ask you, Madam Ambassador, as you sit here before us, very simply and directly, do you have any information regarding the president of the United States accepting any bribes?”

“No,” Yovanovitch said.

“Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the president of the United States has been involved with at all?”

“No,” Yovanovitch said.

I thought that was a particularly effective line of questioning on the part of Chris Stewart.

Yesterday's questioning was uneven for both sides, in my opinion. If I were to condense my critique of the Democrats, it would be:

1) Democrats need to figure out who they need to convince and then speak to that audience.
2) Democrats need to make the witness the center of the moment rather than using them as a prop to make personal statements.

The Democrats were prone to making statements and then asking Yovanovitch some form of, "Isn't that true?" Too often they put her in a position where she struggled to answer because the question was a statement of opinion or beyond the limits of her responsibilities and knowledge.

So many lines of questioning seemed to be little more than using the pretense of having a witness to make a public statement that would appeal to people already convinced Trump was guilty of wrong doing. If that is how the rest of the proceedings play out, it's probably going to end up messy and controversial rather than having given more clarity.

If the Democrats can't shift to presenting the case to an audience still undecided regarding Trump's misdeeds or that they are legitimately damaging to American rather than just political sniping, then I'm pessimistic.

[_canpakes]

Likewise:

“I would now feel compelled to ask you, Mssr subs, as you sit here before us, very simply and directly, do you have any information regarding the previous vice-president of the United States accepting any bribes?”

“No,” subs said.

“Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that he or his son has been involved with at all?”

“No,” subs said.

Same for Crowdstrike, servers, Ukrainians in 2016, etc., etc...

[_Smokey]

Oh Maria, why are you wearing a $600 Hermes scarf to a sideshow about you...getting fired?

Perhaps spend that kind of money on food or save it? Dunno, but ok.

[_ajax18]

“I would now feel compelled to ask you, Madam Ambassador, as you sit here before us, very simply and directly, do you have any information regarding the president of the United States accepting any bribes?”

“No,” Yovanovitch said.

“Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the president of the United States has been involved with at all?”

“No,” Yovanovitch said.

I thought that was a particularly effective line of questioning on the part of Chris Stewart.

Yesterday's questioning was uneven for both sides, in my opinion. If I were to condense my critique of the Democrats, it would be:

1) Democrats need to figure out who they need to convince and then speak to that audience.
2) Democrats need to make the witness the center of the moment rather than using them as a prop to make personal statements.

The Democrats were prone to making statements and then asking Yovanovitch some form of, "Isn't that true?" Too often they put her in a position where she struggled to answer because the question was a statement of opinion or beyond the limits of her responsibilities and knowledge.

So many lines of questioning seemed to be little more than using the pretense of having a witness to make a public statement that would appeal to people already convinced Trump was guilty of wrong doing. If that is how the rest of the proceedings play out, it's probably going to end up messy and controversial rather than having given more clarity.

If the Democrats can't shift to presenting the case to an audience still undecided regarding Trump's misdeeds or that they are legitimately damaging to American rather than just political sniping, then I'm pessimistic.

I think the Democrats have calculated that the entire impeachment process enthuses their base and is win for them politically. I'm still unsure if that's true or not. What do you think Honor?

I don't think the Mueller saga really changed anyone's political opinions. Truth will be determined by the electoral college. If Trump does win, he needs to really clean house if he doesn't want another 4 years of investigations and alleged scandals.

[_honorentheos]

I think the Democrats have calculated that the entire impeachment process enthuses their base and is win for them politically. I'm still unsure if that's true or not. What do you think Honor?

I don't think the Mueller saga really changed anyone's political opinions. Truth will be determined by the electoral college. If Trump does win, he needs to really clean house if he doesn't want another 4 years of investigations and alleged scandals.

My personal opinion, with no claim to have particular insight into the minds of Democrat representatives or the DNC, is that the impeachment proceedings have some sincere, earnest belief behind them that Trump has indeed committed impeachable offenses. I don't think it's purely political. I do think most people on both sides are skeptical that the Senate will remove Trump from office even if the House impeaches him so there is a political element to the proceedings.

I've listened to the testimonies on Wednesday and Friday, and my sense is the Republicans are probably winning the appeal to those who most need to hear the case made and may genuinely be in a place where the proceedings would move their opinion. The quote from Chris Stewart on Friday is one example where that kind of direct line of questioning has a certain appeal, clarity of the intent and provides bite-sized answers from the witness made for the modern media environment. I thought similar questions on Wednesday regarding Trump providing bullets rather than blankets had the clarity of message that probably appeals to voters in critical swing districts who aren't invested enough to dig into the issues themselves but need to be persuaded. The headlines on Wednesday and Friday are often more direct and edited than the actual proceedings, which I think is deceptive. The Democrats would do well to enforce some discipline in their questioning, have an objective for each participant, and use the witness to make the point.

That said, there is so much churn around Sondland and the revelations from Wednesday and in yesterday's closed door session that this coming week could make all of the above irrelevant. If Sondland is interested in not going to jail for Trump it's quite possible next Thursday we'll be talking about this in a very, very different light.

[_EAllusion]

There's a certain kind of journalist who imagines their job is not report the facts, but to imagine in their minds eye a different, dumber person and how they'd react to the facts (or better still - how they'd react to the inevitable spin on the facts), then report that instead. They are impressively wrong most of the time because they genuinely exist in an elitist bubble that is divorced from both the thoughts of ordinary people and political science, but their control of the narrative people are exposed to itself has a meaningful impact on the direction of public opinion.

Those people have failed us, possibly to our end.

[_Smokey]

[_EAllusion]

I, for one, hate having to wait to get Washington Post articles laundered through CNN, then the Times, then NPR, then MSNBC, before hearing about them from the CIA.