The Wall Street Journal first reported yesterday that at a Republican caucus meeting, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell mournfully conceded that the votes just might exist for some semblance of a fair impeachment trial.
Yet that bit of say-what? reporting took a backseat to the story's real humdinger, 14 paragraphs down: "The president’s lawyers … argued that too little is known about the Bolton claims for them to factor into the Senate trial."
Hmmm, damn, they should just pass on those claims then, because, you know, it's not like they could maybe call John Bolton as a witness?
The president's main man, Jay Sekulow, though, resolved this brain teaser with an elegant Occamism: "[He] pointed to the president’s denials." Ah, well, there you go.
On this matter I agreed with Chris Matthews yesterday, who said in effect what I was thinking: I'll believe McConnell's lack of unfair votes when I see it — when I see The Fourth Man.
Presently Sens. Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are considered somewhat in favor of fairness. Lamar Alexander, Pat Toomey and Rob Portman might join them.
Yet as the NY Times reports this morning, "key Republicans said they were increasingly confident they could bring the trial to an end, and they described Mr. McConnell’s comments as a pointed signal that it was time for rank-and-file senators to fall in line."
How many times, gentle reader, have we been told to expect that a handful of congressional Republicans might, for once, do the right thing?