Famed philosopher W. Axl Rose once said this about the power of patience:
"Said woman take it slow, and it'll work itself out fine
"All we need is just a little patience"
That is exactly the message that Speaker Nancy Pelosi is bringing to her House Democratic colleagues in the wake of the release of the much-anticipated Mueller report. We need to slow our roll, make sure we do our due diligence, dot all the "i's" and cross all the "t's." What we can't do is try to impeach President Donald Trump right this very second.
"As we proceed to uncover the truth and present additional needed reforms to protect our democracy, we must show the American people we are proceeding free from passion or prejudice, strictly on the presentation of fact," Pelosi wrote in "Dear Colleague" letter released Monday. "While our views range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment, we all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth."
The letter came in advance of a conference call among Democratic House members on Monday night that was designed to begin the process of building a strategy on how best to proceed in the wake of Mueller's report that, while damning for Trump, did not recommend any legal action taken against the President or anyone in his inner circle.
All this comes amid a clear divide with the Democratic Party about what to do next.
Many liberals -- including freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York -- have called for the articles of impeachment to be brought against Trump following the Mueller report, which shows a series of episodes in which the President appears to engage in potentially obstructive behavior. That list includes Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who seemed to get a jump on the 2020 Democratic field when she announced Friday that the House should begin the impeachment process against Trump.
Pelosi has, at least pre-Mueller report, been on the other side of that argument -- insisting that unless impeachment is supported by a bipartisan majority in the country, it's not the sort of thing Democrats should spend time on. "Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it divides the country," Pelosi told the Washington Post in March. "And [Trump's] just not worth it."
Now she is trying to walk that very thin line between likely still opposing impeachment while also making sure the liberal end of her caucus knows that she isn't just standing pat.
The Point: It's a very delicate balancing act. Investigate Trump without doing so in an impeachment setting. Pelosi -- as she has proven again and again over her career -- is one of the deftest politicians operating these days. If anyone can do it, she is likely the one.
-- Chris | |
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