{"id":8224,"date":"2019-09-29T23:34:01","date_gmt":"2019-09-30T06:34:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=8224"},"modified":"2019-10-01T03:38:53","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T10:38:53","slug":"post2-64","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=8224","title":{"rendered":"“Impeaching the Peach One”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maureen Dowd,\u00a0Opinion Columnist, Sunday Review (part of The Impeachment Inquiry Begins:\u00a0Six Times Opinion writers weigh in on the characters, the strategy and what comes next for President Trump<\/em>), September 29, 2019<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 It\u2019s a beautiful day for an impeachment.<\/p>\n

Or at least an inquiry about an impeachment inquiry.<\/p>\n

So on Friday, as summer stretched on, I went to the Capitol to see what the speaker of the House was thinking, now that she has lowered the boom.<\/p>\n

At the tender age of 73, Donald Trump may finally have to face some consequences for his depredations. His casino games have caught up with him and this time Daddy\u2019s not here to bail him out<\/a>. How delicious that a woman has the whip hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t it something, Maureen?\u201d Nancy Pelosi asks about what she calls her \u201cwild week.\u201d<\/p>\n

I nod. It surely is. \u201cThe president says you\u2019re no longer speaker of the House, that you\u2019ve been taken over by the radical left,\u201d I say to Pelosi, who looks smart in a pink pantsuit and sparkly pink high heels.<\/p>\n

She laughs. \u201cSee, I always think he\u2019s projecting: When he says \u2018She\u2019s not the speaker of the House,\u2019 what he really means is \u2018I shouldn\u2019t be president of the United States.\u2019 When he says that Adam Schiff should resign<\/a>, what he really means is \u2018I, Donald Trump, should resign.\u2019 He knows that this is really very incriminating.\u201d<\/p>\n

The speaker is in a fine mood, now that she\u2019s turned her focus from reining in the progressives to reining in the president.<\/p>\n

Does she no longer think, as she said for months, that impeachment is so divisive that it needs to be a bipartisan effort?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I said I hoped<\/em> it would be bipartisan. I still hope so. It\u2019s up to the Republicans whether they honor their oath of office or honor their oath of Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

I ask her how she feels about those who say she came to this moment belatedly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t come to anything belatedly,\u201d she shoots back. \u201cI have said from the start, we\u2019ll go where the facts take us and we will be ready. And we are ready. And they\u2019re shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump was clearly smarting that Pelosi is now on the side of an impeachment inquiry. Is the highchair king about to have his most epic tantrum yet?<\/p>\n

Even Trump\u2019s pal Chris Ruddy told NPR<\/a> that the president may not understand the implications of the inquiry or that he\u2019s going up against \u201cthe smartest person in Washington right now,\u201d as Ruddy called Pelosi.<\/p>\n

The speaker would have preferred to send Trump packing at the ballot box. But since he keeps contaminating the ballot box, asking foreign countries to meddle in our elections to help him win, what choice did she have?<\/p>\n

The man who always claims the system is rigged against him keeps trying to rig the system \u2014 proving Pelosi\u2019s point that Trump projects.<\/p>\n

About the White House officials who engaged in what she calls \u201cthe cover-up of the cover-up,\u201d she notes: \u201cYou\u2019d think that there would be some sense of decency on the part of the people who work for the president.\u201d<\/p>\n

I ask her when the last time she talked to Trump was.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean the latest?\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cIt may be the last.\u201d<\/p>\n

They were talking about gun violence on the phone on Tuesday morning when the president suddenly changed the topic to the whistle-blower complaint. \u201cMy conversation with the president was one in which he said the phone call was perfect and he couldn\u2019t wait until I saw it because it was perfect. It wasn\u2019t perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House says it plans to work with Democrats in Congress even less than usual. On Friday, The Times reported<\/a> that Trump met with N.R.A. ghoul Wayne LaPierre to talk about how the N.R.A. can chip in some blood money for the president\u2019s defense if he stops \u201cthe games\u201d \u2014 \u201cthe games\u201d being any attempt to curb our periodic human sacrifices.<\/p>\n

Hasn\u2019t Trump learned his lesson about scummy quid pro quos?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to fathom why he would slip the noose on Robert Mueller\u2019s testimony on Russia and then turn around the very next day and ask Ukraine to interfere in an American election.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said before, I do not have the medical background to analyze the president\u2019s behavior,\u201d Pelosi says. Maybe it\u2019s time to break the last taboo and put a psychiatrist on staff at the White House to analyze a president\u2019s mental state, or possible impairment?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I think the White House should have an honest lawyer on staff,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd not a rogue Justice Department.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of rogue justice and psychiatric emergencies, what does she make of America\u2019s mayor becoming America\u2019s nightmare?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m focused on the president,\u201d she says, adding disgustedly about Rudy Giuliani: \u201cI mean, that\u2019s almost like a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did not arrive at her decision lightly. In between speaking at two funerals \u2014 that of Cokie Roberts, the journalist, and Emily Clyburn, the wife of the House majority whip, Jim Clyburn \u2014 she talked to her members, lawyers and constitutional experts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had one phone call; it lasted all weekend,\u201d she says dryly.<\/p>\n

She drafted her historic statement Monday night on the plane from New York to D.C. \u201c\u2018Betrayal\u2019 was a word that my members wanted me to use,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t have that in my original statement. Betrayal of the Constitution. Betrayal of our national security. Betrayal of the integrity of our elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

If only she could click those sparkly slippers three times and send Donald Trump home.<\/p>\n

[This article is part of The Impeachment Inquiry Begins:\u00a0Six Times Opinion writers weigh in on the characters, the strategy and what comes next for President Trump. All articles available at the link.<\/em>]<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Maureen Dowd,\u00a0Opinion Columnist, Sunday Review (part of The Impeachment Inquiry Begins:\u00a0Six Times Opinion writers weigh in on the characters, the strategy and what comes next for President Trump), September 29, 2019 WASHINGTON \u2014 It\u2019s a beautiful day for an impeachment. Or at least an inquiry about an impeachment inquiry. So on Friday, as summer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8224"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8278,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8224\/revisions\/8278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}