Impeach! Just Come Out and Say it!!
by tristero
The editorial board of the NY Times (and others) have been hinting more and more strongly that they are in favor of impeachment. Today, Ian Prasad Philbrick, described as "on the editorial staff of the Opinion section" published articles of impeachment against Trump based on the Nixon and Clinton impeachment articles. This is not direct enough.
It's time for Dean Baquet, Marty Baron, and other media leaders to just come out and say it: impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump (and many others in his administration) are more than warranted. Doing a Mueller "wink wink nudge nudge" is simply unacceptable. It implies the problem isn't as serious as they clearly know it is (but are afraid to say so).
Should the major media come out openly for impeachment, it will surely serve to embolden the unconscionably feckless Democrats who are inching closer to impeachment but so slowly it may be too late before they take action.
And wow, do they ever need more embolden-osity. Even now, the Democratic leadership truly believes that if they give Trump enough lebensraum he'll self-destruct. He won't. The strategy they're pursuing has a name. It's called appeasement and appeasement never works:.
When the British first got wind of the new German chancellor, he seemed so vulgar as to be harmless. Described by one British paper as a “stubby little Austrian with a flabby handshake, shifty brown eyes and a Charlie Chaplin mustache,” Hitler cut an uninspiring and ridiculous figure.
Within a month, he had used a fire in the Reichstag to suspend parts of Germany’s constitution. A month after that, the Nazis announced a boycott of Jewish shops. Germany started to rearm and rebuild its military in ways that were illegal under the provisions of Versailles...
Every time Germany or Mussolini’s Italy upped the ante — becoming ever more demanding and brazen — the British had to ask themselves whether the latest transgression was serious enough to merit a “preventive war...”
Hitler kept presenting himself as a man of peace, even if “Mein Kampf,” his bellicose, self-aggrandizing autobiography, suggested otherwise. The English translations of the book were expurgated versions, omitting the nastiest passages. “Mein Kampf” had also been published in 1925, years before Hitler had attained the dignified position of chancellor; those who wanted to could simply dismiss the book as intemperate juvenilia.
Bouverie’s chronological narrative conveys how appeasement transformed over the years: from a reactive, fearful policy to an enthusiastic, idealistic project to what can only be deemed a strenuous exercise in willful denial...
Sincerity typically requires consistency, but somehow Hitler’s volatility worked in his favor. He became so prone to tantrums that even when he talked to the British ambassador in Berlin about “annihilating Poland,” the relative lack of “the usual histrionics” meant that the genocidal comment wasn’t taken as an immediate threat. Hitler was constantly graded on a curve.
If the Times, the Post, and many others stopped dithering and told what they know is the truth — that this president has to be removed from office before an existential catastrophe occurs — perhaps the Democratic leaders will wake up.
This is very, very serious, folks.