This morning I posted that Trump is so ineffective he should not be impeached. What I should have said is this:
The man is first and foremost a danger to the republic and the rule of law. If I had my way, he’d be gone via impeachment tomorrow.
The danger that he poses to our Constitution is unique and is more important than the danger that another Republican president would post to the safety net.
So I should’ve made clear that since the key to impeaching this man is the moderate Republicans in the House, it makes more sense to (after the various reports come out, especially Mueller’s report) have the calls for impeachment come from the moderate Republicans. Any bill of impeachment must originate in the House, and the House is controlled by the Republicans.
When we attempt to remove the king, we cannot afford to lose.
I do still think though that his weakness is -for now at least – an opportunity to survive this Congress.
While I agree the case will be stronger legally if we let Muller investigate first and politically if it were made by a Republican, I want to caution Dems against getting cold feet because Pence might be more effective in all the wrong ways. Putting country before party goes both ways.
That is a fair warning.
I think this argument has also been substantially weakened by Pence’s own failure to be a particularly effective surrogate and lobbyist for the administration on Capital Hall. He may be blamed for more things now that Reince is no longer the resident punching bag.
The one area where I would prefer a President Pence is a 25th amendment scenario where the cabinet has to stop a mentally unbalanced President Trump from starting a war or launching nuclear weapons. It’s not as unrealistic as we might think it is.