Senate Trial Is 'the Saddest Thing Ever'

Hoping the impeachment trial will sway Republicans or spark angry calls to Capitol Hill? Maureen Dowd's column is a cold splash in the face. The New York Times writer describes bored senators, GOP staffers celebrating at night, and Democratic office phones sitting in silence. "Nobody cares," a Dem staffer tells her. "It's the saddest thing ever." Dowd relishes an occasional verbal punch by House managers, but little else. "The more impressive the Democrats' case is, the more depressing the reality becomes," she writes. "They want to convince themselves that character matters. But many Americans knew they were voting for a thug. They wanted a thug who would bust up Washington, and they got one." In other commentary:

• Can the House really claim President Trump violated the Constitution by resisting Congressional subpoenas? "The President [then] becomes a vassal of king Congress," writes the Wall Street Journal editorial board. "This is another reason for the Senate to repudiate this House impeachment as its own abuse of power."
• "Don't bore your audience," writes Michael Hirsh at Foreign Policy. "It is the injunction delivered to every TV and movie producer, and to every lawyer seeking to win over a jury." Hirsh says Democrats "botched their case less through lack of evidence than an excess of verbiage."
• "Senate Republicans are growing confident that this is now the defense team's trial to lose," writes Lauren Fox at CNN. Republicans hope the legal team will avoid long attacks on the Bidens "or any tangents that alienate moderate Republican senators whose votes on witnesses are on the line."
• The Washington Post editorial board warns Republicans against dismissing the evidence. Those who do "will be reduced to watching in the months and years to come as the case against him—and against their abdication of constitutional duty—grows steadily stronger."
• Bradley Blakeman slams senators in both parties for coming and going during the trial and chatting with the press. "If a citizen-juror acted like a Senate juror, he or she would be removed and held in contempt of court," he writes at the Hill.

(More Trump impeachment stories.)