GOP Arguments

It's essential to recognize the Republican impeachment arguments for what they are: bullshit, in the sense described by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt in his prescient classic. Their words have no relationship to the truth, only to the effort to survive another day without a mass revolt among their supporters. They are serious only in the sense that they are deadly committed to staying in power, only in the sense that they're destroying the foundations of a working republic.

Today, Senate Intel Chair William Burr (say that out loud) said there's no problem with soliciting dirt on a political opponent from a foreign power. In other words, it's 100% fine for candidates to be compromised. And it's 100% fine to put our republic in our enemies' hands.

Meanwhile, Republicans are saying the Bidens were corrupt because Joe Biden withheld funds from the Ukrainians over corruption. Yes, he did -- and several Republican senators were in the room when he told a Senate committee just why. He didn't bury it in a secure server, for example, because why? He wasn't fucking corrupt.

Lindsey Graham was in on the Giuliani/Parnas/Fruman thing back in 2018. He's always been dirty in this.

And of course the whole line that a president can't commit an impeachable offense if it's intended to help win an election, on the grounds that said president believes reelection is in the national interest, that's bullshit too: you know, Nixon also wanted to be reelected. That's what Watergate was about. What I didn't see coming? The Wall Street Journal endorsing this stinky pile of poo.

We are in a world of hurt.