24 January 2020 | A Stiff-Necked People

Adam Schiff has given Republicans a choice: here is your opportunity to get rid of someone that most of you don’t like. If private comments are to be believed, there’s more than enough Republican votes to remove this unfit “president.” And Schiff has framed it in a way that they *don’t need to admit they were wrong.*

But that right there is the GOP’s essential problem. If there was ever a stiff-necked group of people, it’s Republicans. This helps explain the weak complaints of Sens John Barrasso (Wyoming) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) about their hurt feelings over Schiff’s incredible closing statement of Day 2 of the impeachment trial. Murkowski whines that she doesn’t like “being made to feel guilty.” You can’t make someone feel guilty out of the blue: something has to be there in the first place. And that complaint sums up the entire GOP’s problem rather nicely. If they could tear themselves from a mirror long enough, they would grasp the opportunity they have. Alas, people like Murkowski and Barrasso want to insert themselves into all of this when the blame has been laid strictly at the feet of their party’s leader. They also appear to think there really is such a thing as a homeless senator.

The party seems to believe it can be Slim Pickens riding that bomb, but somehow they escape at the last minute and later tell people they never really supported dropping that bomb in the first place. They are a terrified group of people who have not done “the right thing” in three years and they’re unlikely to start, even with a golden opportunity that will not present itself again.

Ride that bomb, stiff-necked idiots. Ride it to electoral oblivion.