Nancy Pelosi, losin' it? (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The First Rule of Holes states: "If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."
VodkaPundit's Second Rule of Holes says: "When your opponent is in a hole, get them a bigger and nicer shovel."
Whatever Nancy Pelosi is trying to accomplish, it isn't working. She's in a hole, she's digging furiously, and with such dedication to her craptaculent efforts that she wouldn't even notice me handing her a bigger and nicer shovel.
Dig, Nancy, dig!
Impeachment was never very popular with your typical American voter, with support topping out at under 50%. And that was before Pelosi started the actual "investigation." Since then, support for impeachment has tumbled, while Trump's election numbers against every single likely Dem contender have skyrocketed.
The thing about Pelosi is, she might be the sharpest vote-counter and arm-twister on Capitol Hill since LBJ ran roughshod over the Senate, bending that recalcitrant body to his will time and again.
Maybe her plan is a repeat of what she pulled in the first half of Barack Obama's first term. From 2009-2011, Pelosi led her caucus like lemmings to their own destruction, passing one unpopular bill after another. But she seemed satisfied with the idea of losing her House majority after it was all over (she did), confident that the Left's "ratchet effect" would prevent the incoming Republican majority from undoing much of her work (they didn't). But with impeachment a dead letter in the Senate, what could Pelosi possibly hope to achieve by driving her majority off the cliff?
Maybe her plan is to put on asterisk next to Trump's name like they set out to do to Brett Kavanaugh, and in vengeance for Bill Clinton's impeachment. OK, that I can get -- but at what cost? Even a cursory look at the cost-benefit analysis shows that the Dems are losing far more than they could hope to gain. If the Democrats are really on nothing but a self-destructive tear, that's more the action of a sullen teenager than the oldest political party in the world's oldest democratic republic.
Maybe her plan is to keep Mitch McConnell so busy he'll have to slow down the GOP Senate's well-oiled judicial confirmation machine. If so, Pelosi is gonna have to send over those articles of impeachment sometime... soon? ...ever? ...or just hope the whole thing shrivels into dust and blows away?
Hope isn't a plan, but maybe Pelosi never had a plan at all.
Maybe the Speaker -- one of the most powerful women in the world -- has become a complete captive to her party's Kamikaze Wing. Pelosi is smart enough to understand that her party is piloting a suicide course straight into the USS Trump's heavy anti-aircraft fire, and doomed to be blown to bits well short of their target. Maybe she also understands that if she's powerless to stop the parade (if you'll forgive the mixed metaphors), she might as well lead it.
Or maybe Pelosi hasn't lost control of her caucus, but of her faculties. Have you seen her recent appearances? Here's just one example of how the once-formidable public speaker seems to be losing her touch.
The Speaker turns 80 in March, and maybe she's lost a step or two or three. Age catches up to us all, but given her Scrooge-like grip on access to wealthy Bay Area donors, there's probably no one in her party willing to take her aside and speak hard truths. (Joe Biden looks increasingly like he could use a similar talking-to.)
But maybe the problem isn't Bay Area Nance. As Stephen Miller (no, not that one) noted on Twitter noted this morning:
She actually has no leverage on McConnell whatsoever. None & watching this narrative metastasize among the smarts has been a breathtaking wonder.
She can hold the articles for the next 6 years for all he cares. twitter.com/jbendery/statu…
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I don't see much of this among normal people, but there's a non-zero chance that the MSN-DNC echo chamber is so perfectly soundproof that they honestly believe that impeachment is working. If so, then today's Dems remind me of the Republicans in 2006, convinced that their money advantage would be enough to save their majorities on Capitol Hill, even as their approval ratings sunk ever deeper in the sands of Iraq. The Republicans gave up six seats in the Senate, 31 in the House, and lost control of both in a humiliating night in which they lost nearly every losable race, and failed to unseat a single incumbent Democrat running for Congress or governor.
Democrats seem to be on a similar course for 2020, blind to the hole they're in and digging, digging, digging away.
If you'll allow me to finish on a personal note, the other good news is that I got exactly what I wanted for Christmas: A Democratic Party working furiously to spoil their own chances in 2020.
Exit Question: I hashed this one out with my Right Angle colleagues earlier this week, but we weren't able to come to any agreement on what the hell is wrong with Nancy Pelosi -- so what's your take?
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