The third day of Donald Trump's impeachment trial once again featured Republican senators competing with each other to see who could show the most disdain for the idea of their constitutional duty and the oath they took to provide impartial justice. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, apparently felt one-upped by the odious Martha McSally of Arizona in the race to be Trump's favorite woman senator, so she stepped up her game by maligning decorated American combat veteran Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who still serves in uniform and who has been subject to threats of violence since he testified in the House impeachment investigation.
Then there's the ongoing middle-school brat behavior on display for the handful of reporters who are allowed to tell us about it. Which, by the way, Sen. Susan Collins thinks is too many. She wants one whole group of reporters, those sitting in the front row of the gallery where they can actually see what's happening, to be booted—presumably so they don't have a clear view of the Republican senators who are doodling, playing with toys, working on crosswords, chomping gum, and wandering around the chamber and leaving it for long stretches at a time. All in defiance of the rules they swore to follow. And once again, Chief Justice John Roberts might as well have been a potted plant in response.
They all complain that they're not hearing anything new. They're all saying it verbatim, repeatedly and uniformly, almost as if they have nothing new to say. But given that they're also not paying attention, perhaps they're missing the new news.
What they do selectively hear, however, is horribly offensive to their very delicate ears. Collins tattled to Chief Justice Roberts that Rep. Jerry Nadler had suggested that Republicans were abetting a cover-up—that one deeply offended Lisa Murkowski, too.
They were even offended by Rep. Adam Schiff's remarkable closing remarks Thursday night: "Because in America, right matters. Truth matters. If not, no Constitution can protect us. If not, we are lost." Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming was deeply offended on behalf of all his Republican colleagues who had to sit through Schiff's uncomfortable truths, none of which any Republican will really contest—they just think it doesn't matter.
Oh, the humanity. By the way, not a single one of them publicly chastised their colleague Blackburn for her gross attack on Lt. Col. Vindman's patriotism.
