Sometimes President Trump’s congenital mendacity manifests like a tourettes tic. This explains the way he used to blurt out “no collusion,” as well as the way he now blurts out “no quid pro quo.”
But, just as there was collusion between him and the Russians, there was quid pro quo between him and the Ukrainians. The latter stems from this:
In testimony to impeachment investigators delivered in defiance of State Department orders, the diplomat, William B. Taylor Jr., sketched out in remarkable detail a quid pro quo pressure campaign on Ukraine that Mr. Trump and his allies have long denied. He said the president sought to condition the entire United States relationship with Ukraine — including a $391 million aid package whose delay put Ukrainian lives in danger — on a promise that the country would publicly investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his family.
(The New York Times, October 22, 2019)
Granted, as is so often the case with his Art of the Deal, this one left Trump looking more like a bungling Mafia don than a master dealmaker. After all,
- he made an offer Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could (and did) refuse; and
- that offer is the “smoking howitzer” that will get him impeached.
But I hasten to note that the Democrats who control the House of Representatives (where articles of impeachment will be voted on) did not need Taylor to delineate this quid pro quo to justify impeaching Trump.
For starters, Taylor merely corroborated the quid pro quo delineated in the “reconstructed transcript” of the infamous call Trump had with Zelensky on July 25. Moreover, even though it might seem like ancient history, Robert Mueller delineated at least 10 high crimes and misdemeanors in his famous report – each one of which is justification enough.
I duly hailed Democrats in “Putting Country Before Party, Democrats Launch Impeachment Inquiry of Trump! September 24, 2019. Because impeachment stands as a categorical imperative if only to officially memorialize his norm-busting presidency as a thoroughly discredited anomaly.
But I also hasten to note that the Republicans who control the Senate (where articles of impeachment will be put on trial) seem hell-bent on acquitting Trump no matter how clear and convincing the evidence of his guilt. I mean, how could they pass judgment on the conduct of one they hail as messiah. I kid you not: see “Republicans Abandon Faith and Values to Hail Trump as ‘Chosen by God’,” March 6, 2019.
It’s bad enough that they are twisting their long-held principles into pretzels to defend his impeachable conduct. But they are turning all congressional proceedings into a farce. For example:
Republicans’ defense of President Trump grew more frantic and disjointed Wednesday, with House members storming a closed-door meeting, delaying the testimony of an impeachment witness as the GOP grappled with a growing abuse-of-power scandal centered on the president. …
The lawmakers staged the dramatic protest while making process arguments that sidestepped the substance of the central allegations underpinning the impeachment inquiry. Democrats accused the protesting members of compromising security by taking their phones into the secure area, where cellphones are barred.
(The Washington Post, October 23, 2019)
Such antics show that Republicans have no compunctions about turning America into a banana republic. They clearly know that only in such a republic could they make their scorched-earth defense of Trump’s high crimes and misdemeanors seem … normal.
Yet I am mindful that unforeseen political winds caused these lemmings to begin worshiping Trump. Because similar winds can cause them to begin not just demonizing him but demanding his conviction to boot. Surely no politician would be more deserving of such a craven betrayal.
I am also mindful that this president of the United States has willfully betrayed more people than all of his predecessors combined. Therefore, it would not surprise me if someone (e.g., a disaffected military man) takes matters into his own hands. This, in a karmic twist on his infamous suggestion that one of his “Second Amendment people could act against Hillary.”
But I digress …
As the title above indicates, I relish the pivotal role Ukrainians are playing in this unfolding impeachment drama. And I have standing to feel this way. Because you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the United States who has published more commentaries on Ukrainian politics over the past 15 years than I.
Suffice it to know that, in the beginning, I was hailing their Orange Revolution against Russian control as every bit as praiseworthy as the American Revolution against British control.
Yesterday, the newly elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, received a triumphal welcome before addressing a joint session of the United States Congress. Yushchenko thanked President George W. Bush for standing firm in his support for Ukraine’s Orange Revolution. He also vowed to build a resolutely American-style democracy in the heart of the old Soviet Union.
(“Victor Yushchenko Comes to Washington,” The iPINIONS Journal, April 7, 2005)
But it didn’t take long before I was ruing that praise in many commentaries, including “Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko Falls from Hero to Zero in 8 Months,” September 15, 2005, “Ukraine’s Democracy Flounders as Its Leaders Play Political Musical Chairs,” March 28, 2006, “Update on My Favorite Ex-Communists: the Ukrainians,” September 24, 2008.
The point is that I could’ve warned Trump that trying to extort them is rather like a rattlesnake trying to bite a scorpion. And I mean no disrespect to the snakes.
But the media are wrong to portray the Ukrainians as no more capable of defending themselves from the Russians than the Kurds are of defending themselves from the Turks.
Thanks to Trump’s infamous “betrayal,” we know this is true with respect to the Kurds. In fact, as I write this, the Turks are ethnically cleansing them from their homeland in northeastern Syria. This, of course, is the very homeland their American partners in the fight against ISIS promised to help them defend, indefinitely.
With respect to the Ukrainians, however, it’s a little more complicated. Above all, though, the Russians are no more likely to “steamroll” the Ukrainians than the Americans are to steamroll the Cubans.
But the Americans have been using passive-aggressive tactics to influence life in Cuba (beyond Guantanamo Bay) for over 70 years to no avail. The Russians are now doing the same in Ukraine (beyond Crimea). Alas, I could see them doing so for 140 years – even if also to no avail. I refer you to my take on this standoff in commentaries like “Russia Gobbling Up Ukraine: First Crimea, Now Donetsk … Next Odessa?” May 13, 2014.
In any event, it seems fitting that I ended up being every bit as frustrated with Ukraine’s dysfunctional politics as I am now with America’s. Indeed, I even had cause earlier this year to analogize Ukraine’s election of Zelensky as president in “If America Can Elect a Reality-TV Star as President, Surely Ukraine Can Elect a Popular Comedian,” April 23, 2019.
Now we have a reality-TV star-cum-American president and a comedian-cum-Ukrainian president starring in an international farce that poses the greatest threat to democracy since the US Civil War. The gods really are laughing at us.
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