I am not going to talk about impeachment today.

To keep that from being so difficult I rupture something, I would just ask that people consider this:

The impeachment wasn’t about a trial.

It was about a media event.

It was a television series and Dems were the producers.

1/
Dems concentrated it down to a few days; ran it when it would be least watched; and then agreed to yank it off the air.

Reconsider your evaluation through that lens.

Did Dems get the most value they could’ve out of this production?

(For ref, see the Benghazi hearings)

2/
And now I’m going to go mute “impeachment” and try to stay true to my word here.

We Dems have a hard time understanding what Republicans have always known: keep an attack on TV long enough and it does damage - no matter how it ends. Even if you lose.

3/
As a communications person, that outage is abject torture for me.

A trial to remove a guy who has already been removed is nearly *all* public relations.

It is a communications production.

There was never a conviction at the end of this. There was only communications value.

4/
This was a sparkling chance to force Rs to live through a Benghazi of their own which:

1) pounded Trump’s legacy to dust
2) divided moderate and MAGA Rs
3) fomented calls for criminal prosecution

Make up your own mind on whether we achieved those as fully as we could have.

5/
If at least some people would indulge me in rethinking their evaluation of the trial through this lens, I might successfully get through the day without rupturing a kidney trying to contain myself.

This was a TV event. The “verdict” was the least important plot element.

6/
What it Dems had done nothing more than postponed the closure until after the recess this week?

We’ll never know.

But we do know that the entire “...but her emails” saga arose because Rs stretched out Benghazi hearings so long, someone saw Hillary on TV using a Blackberry.

7/
Now the trial is over. It will be pushed from the newscycle within two days.

The media will fill the airtime with other things this week.

And McConnell is positively delighted at that.

Did abruptly canceling our own TV series serve our purposes?

That’s the lens.

8/8
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