Hard to Believe

If Donald Trump is Maureen Dowd's punching bag, Ms. Dowd is my favorite punching bag when it comes to her work ethic. At the end of the week that President Trump is impeached by the House, she has no column in Sunday's paper. This is like Derek Jeter taking himself out of the lineup in the seventh game of the World Series. It's unfathomable.

How do you write—when she does write—all year about the president, and then are MIA when he's impeached? Okay, impeachment was a forgone conclusion as soon as he was sworn in, but not to even phone something in—seemingly how most columns go—from the airport, or where she hides, is an abdication of her oath as a reporter. The Pulitzer should be returned.

Talk about something that is anti-climactic. The third impeachment, coming so fairly soon after the second, is just another political blip on the horizon. Talk about a story that has a short news cycle.

I missed the chance last week to write about Ms. Dowd's December 15th column, where she introduced us to the word Apollyon. That time she gave a link. The word, from Ms. Dowd's word-a-day-gift apparently, means "the Devil as destroyer." And now no column following the impeachment, and therefore no great word-of-the-day. What is the world coming to?

I'm including the comment I tried to make last week about Ms. Dowd's column. It was apparently too long and was not accepted. I felt hurt.

Maureen, you're at your best when you're not happy with anyone. And rightly so, there are plenty of misdeeds on all sides of the political and cable aisles that if they were fiber optic cable, the entire earth could get broadband for free. A U.K. campaign promise for the Brits. 

Nice to see that the words you use that I don't know the meaning of, such as Apollyon, have a link in the online piece.  That word-of-the-day gift that we hope someone will give you again in 2020. Once you latch onto a calendar-type gift, you should never let go. It's an easy gift to remember to give. It keeps on giving.

My initial thought was that Apollyon was a character on Outlander, Harry Potter, or Games of Thrones. It's nice to become better informed. 

Sarah Lyall the other day wrote how clinically depressed all the Democrats are that Trump is president. Typical NYT claptrap piece about the psychological and mental angst people are enduring over his administration. Did we miss an uptick in the suicide rate?

The Democratic majority in Congress is trying to tell us they all took the high road, and have only reluctantly taken up impeachment proceedings because they want to tell their grandchildren they acted with valor when they inevitably ask, (or so they believe) "Pop Pop, Gran Mama, what did YOU do when the orange blob was ruining everyone's life? Can we blame the falling birth rate on the Administration? Let's try.

If Nancy Pelosi tells us she doesn't hate Trump, that she prays for him every night, my thoughts are I hope that someday you smile. Perhaps even laugh. 

As Dennis Farina told the worry-wort in 'Midnight Run,' "Sidney, have a cream soda."

And of course since last week we've had the actually impeachment vote. But with Speaker Pelosi's delay in sending it to the Senate, we don't have closure. What now emerges is if the bill of impeachment isn't delivered to the Senate, then the president is not really impeached. At least that's where the law professors are squaring off now.

Is it possible the NYT might have to create a large souvenir headline that tells us: TRUMP NOT IMPEACHED. I'd be sure to save that copy as well.

It's like that Miller Lite beer commercial of years ago where Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner square off that Miller Lite tastes "great." "No, It's less filling." This is going to turn into a right-to-life debate. Conception, or months later? Argue away.

If the bill of impeachment dies a slow death and expires before reaching the Senate, we will miss the spectacle of Chief Justice Roberts perhaps wearing a robe with chevrons, like William Rehnqusit did for President Clinton's impeachment. Chief Justice Rehnquist looked like a very senior college varsity member, perhaps in rowing, presiding over the proceedings. Image is everything when it's historic.

My hope is Ms. Dowd is not too distressed about the prospect that the Senate will never reach a two-thirds majority and complete the impeachment process and actually remove the president from office.

Quite the opposite appears to be more likely. The word impeachment carries such gravitas when it means an indictment has been returned by the grand jury. John Gotti got plenty of those. President Trump will in all great statistical likelihood get re-elected in 2020, despite the impeachment label. His base loves him even more when others don't.

My hope in all this is that Ms. Dowd emerges from wherever she is and allows herself to write about it. I miss learning new words.

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