I despised Hastart, Gingrich, Ryan, and Bohner. But none of them ever wished "that [the President’s] family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country.”
They exercised the power of the House to the fullest extent possible. They wouldn’t be waiting around offering prayers.
We are in a crisis, and all Pelosi has are excuses, prayers, and wishes for an intervention. Oh, and she waves her hands around a lot.
We need Carl Albert back.
I have been monitoring Trump’s Twitter account for the last hour since Pelosi spoke. Nothing. They must have him bound and gagged in the Lincoln Bedroom.
Agreed. Pence has nowhere near the savant quality Trump has on gaining and wielding power; Pence is nowhere nearly as dangerous as Trump. It’s pretty academic anyway: the road to Trump’s removal runs through the 2020 Election.
Exactly. I immediately thought, “Who says it didn’t?”
Thank you. I remember during Watergate people were discussing how Hoover operated so he ‘never’ got ‘called in.’
I remember Nixon-people saying that Johnson and Hoover used to get together and go over all the Congress’ foibles and sins.
I remembered Rayburn being in the same time period and I thought he might’ve also done so. But I believe you. I don’t remember if Rayburn was also ‘tarnished’ by being a buddy with Hoover.
Carl Albert, aka “Mister Squeaker.”
The GOP would bust their butts showing what a GOOD godly CHRISTIAN man he is.
I know he is a non-entity but from what I gather HE is the one moving all the Administration into anti-Planned Parenthood territory, and that he has taken over many ‘cultural issues.’
My favorite story is about the time LBJ as president was ranting to a young aid about Hoover, and the young aid said, “Mr. President, why don’t you just fire him?” and Johnson famously replied, “Because I’d rather have him on the inside of the tent pissing out than on the outside of the tent pissing in.”
“I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country.”
This is the clearest 25th Amendment talk from public officials we know about since McCabe and Rosenstein in reaction to the Comey firing. And this is a public statement, from the Speaker of the House.
If she is, as she seems to be, in favor of going slow on impeachment and doing lengthy investigations in committee before committing to trying to get articles of impeachment voted on, I think that’s a mistake, unless she intends the go-slow approach as a way to insure that the House doesn’t go with impeachment. The longer such investigations and the formulation of articles of impeachment goes on, the more likely that too many Ds get cold feet over the whole idea of impeachment.
Go-slow would, in contrast, be the way to go if the intent is to pursue the 25th. The House has at least two sorts of duties if it believes that the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.
One is to challenge the validity of his pretended acts. The idea would be that if Trump is unable to understand a given decision that his handlers pretend he made, then the decision was not really the president’s. The president gets to exercise the powers of his office, but no one else does. I don’t see the House pursuing this sort of duty, which would, for example, involve refusing to recognize a veto that Trump had made on the grounds that he didn’t understand that act, outside of a clear emergency, such as his vetoing a raise in the debt ceiling, for example. Refusing to register a veto, under any other circumstance, would pretty clearly be way too rich for the blood of this House.
The more pedestrian duty the House has if it believes the president is unable to discharge the powers and duties is created by the 25th. Should the VP and cabinet fail to suspend a disabled president, it falls to Congress to appoint that “other body” mentioned in the 25th, to look into his inability. Of course the R Senate is no more going to approve the law actually setting up the other body than it would convict on impeachment, and even if it did, Trump would veto that bill. But the investigation into Trump’s disability that, of course, the House should conduct before it votes on this bill seems to me much more likely than impeachment hearings to damage him and his party with the electorate. And unlike the investigation of potential high crimes and misdemeanors, there’s no need to rush this through before Ds get cold feet.
It should not be difficult for Ds to vote for this bill, because this other body would have no power to suspend the president unless the VP agrees with a finding it makes of inability to discharge the powers and duties. It would be presented as a purely advisory body providing the benefit of subject-matter expertise to a VP trying to discern if dementia or some other disabling condition was responsible for the president’s dysfunctional behavior. Let the Senate vote the bill down, as that disposition of the proffered expert advice would mean that the R Senate majority thinks that there is not any slightest possible question raised by anything he has said or done of Trump’s mental fitness for the most difficult job on the planet. The investigation in the House will, I’m sure, turn up voluminous evidence of the extent and stability of his genius.
It should go without saying, that, of course, Pelosi’s statement may not be the opening move in any strategy. It is more likely just her off-the-cuff reaction to Trump’s latest bit of demented behavior. But, opening move in a strategy or not, Ds might stumble into this strategy as Trump’s behavior becomes ever more dysfunctional, and impeachment stalls over cold feet in the caucus.
Sigh. You’re so incredibly sure you’re right about everything and yet you don’t know the first thing about Washington, which is that people there frequently talk in a kind of layered speech where the true meaning is in the subtexts. She’s not actually wishing that the people she mentioned would literally stage an intervention. She’s telling the public that Trump is unfit to be president because he’s a sick person. And she’s doing it while making him demonstrate it, knowing he can’t help himself. Open your damn eyes for once.
I remember one SoTU where Speaker McCormick was sound asleep behind the President. Boy, he looked older than DIRT.
Well, sure. But have you checked how that stuff polls nationally? Abortion, all that? Not so well, actually.
In my office I have a quote from Rayburn, a reply to Johnson, shortly before Kennedy’s and Johnson’s Inaugural, Johnson just having met some of the young Turks Kennedy was brining into government, many of whom would later be characterized (partially derisively) as “The Best and the Brightest.” Johnson was lamenting about their brilliance.
Rayburn’s prophetic reply:
“Well, Lyndon, you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I’d feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for Sheriff once.”
More like after Omarosa…! 
I understand what you are saying, but he is having an effect on POLICY where family-planning issues are concerned.
AND I guess I have more distrust in how I believe the GOP cheats (Florida 2000; Ohio 2004) or games the system (Georgia/Florida 2018).
Anyway, I do not want to put my faith in Pence not being ‘presidential’ enough to be elected; GOPers would vote for a qumquat rather than a qualified Democrat.
Speaker Pelosi is famous for saying “impeachment is off the table” after Bush and Cheney both admitted on TV to committing serious federal crimes (e.g. conspiracy to commit torture) punishable by 20 years in prison. If she impeaches Trump I will believe it when I see it.
Pelosi is slow-walking the investigations in every way she can, regardless of what she says.
“She’s reportedly hoping that the longer any talk of impeachment is delayed, the less acute the obsession will be as national attention shifts to ousting Trump via the ballot box in 2020.”
That is what she is doing. Open you own damn eyes.
You’re right. She should have just strangled him on the spot.
I get it. You want Trump gone, yesterday. I want him never to have been elected. But it is, as they say, what it is.
However, I have no illusion that Trump, or his cult following, will evaporate just because Pelosi launches impeachment proceedings tomorrow. In fact, it could backfire. Sure, some people will feel good, for a while. I might too. But the American public, which has managed to stomach a lot of unsavory shit in our history, won’t all just jump on the bandwagon overnight, bringing pitchforks to the WH gates. And they probably won’t toss flowers at the speaker either,
Everything I’ve seen these past months, since you started calling for impeachment before the last election, which is about as far as I cared to scan back, shows me that Trump is essentially hanging himself, a little bit more every day. So maybe she’s on to something. Trump’s not good with finesse. He thrives in a circus brawl, which is what impeachment would give him.
Right, because the last thing you want, George, is the Democrats, you know, winning in November 2020. You perfectly characterize the death wish of the narcissistic white-privileged left (but I repeat myself).
And what happened in 2008? Dem’s won the house/senate and presidency correct?