Outgunned, outmaneuvered, and outsmarted!

Democrat House Impeachment Managers were not up to the task!  

This is how somber they "should" have looked when the voted originally

The Democrats though that they had all the advantages!

• Unpopular President (even with many GOP lawmakers)!
• Dastardly story of nefarious quid pro quo!
• An adoring and helpful median repeating their talking points non-stop!
• An 18-1 witness advantage!
• Last minute "bombshell" NYT leak "just at the right time"!

Yet, they still couldn't pull it off. In fact, they couldn't even get enough votes to subpoena additional witnesses (including John Bolton from the aforementioned "bombshell" leak). But this is what happens when you start the race late, try to finish before it's over, have a poor strategy, and are unable to think on the fly. I could write for hours and hours and still not cover all of the individual acts of foolishness and over-the-top self-degrading political acts from those Democrats responsible for this blatant and astounding failure.

The first problem was that they never had a case that ever had a chance of convincing Republicans (much less 20 or more in the Senate) that they should vote to impeach a President. Andrew McCarthy said it best in his most recent column. There really isn't any solid and set criteria for what is and is not an impeachable offense "other" than it needs to be something so egregious that the public becomes outraged enough to make it impossible for the Party of the President to back him/her. This is not much different than a prosecutor having to take into consideration whether they feel that they can secure a guilty verdict. They are not encouraged (or really allowed) just to bring charges they cannot prove against an accused out of some sort of personal vendetta or personal spite. Make no mistake, this was personal for the Democrats, and it never stood a chance.

Ironically it appears that this impeachment hearing will come to a close with the RCP average in a virtual tie (with 47.8% of the population in favor and 47.8% of the population against the removal of the President). That falls far short of the sort of public outrage required to force a guilty verdict.

The second major problem was that the manner in which this impeachment worked put House Managers up against an all star legal team, put together by the President. This was not Democratic politicians against Republican politicians. This was partisan politicians against professionals who work the law and the courts as a matter of their career. The difference was staggering and oh so clear.

President's legal team!

Democrats started off repeating themselves over and over, droning on for three days, with each of the seven managers repeating the same talking points in just a slightly different manner. They are now running through closing arguments, repeating much of the same talking points from the opening over and over and over and over... and quite obviously falling completely on deaf ears. They might have some newfound complaint over the "unfairness" of everything, given they only had an 18-1 witness advantage, and that the President actually was allowed to make his own defense, and the Senate was able to make their own rules.

But the President's defense team all played different parts, and (contrary to Nancy Pelosi and media critique) did so very effectively. Had they not been effective in their arguments, there is no way that this thing would be coming to a close without at least additional witnesses. They picked apart the basis for the House case piece by piece, making logical arguments, legal arguments, political arguments, constitutional arguments, all while refusing to dive into the mud and play the Democrat's game with them. It was impressive in both what they said and did and for what they "did not" say and do. They made the idea of additional witness not only unnecessary, but probably convinced many GOP Senators that doing so would be setting a bad precedent (which ultimately convinced Murkowski on her no vote).

The bottom line is that Democrats overplayed their hand and were likely bitterly disappointed that the NYT Maggie Haberman leak did not have the effect that they probably expected it to (and make no mistake, that was a coordinated effort). Mitch McConnell and the President's defense team played that whole thing perfectly, never flinching, never acknowledging it as a serious issue, and ultimately driving the entire Democratic Party and most of the media stark raving mad, because the coordinated "bombshell"  just never stuck. Republicans had seen this play out during the Kavanaugh hearing, they gave into it, it became a circus (which was the goal) and the adults in charges were not going to allow this impeachment to head down the same rabbit hole.

At the end of the day, the Democrats had a very weak hand, a very weak strategy, and got outmaneuvered through the entire process. But wanna take bets as to whether they try this fiasco a second or third time?