The Washington Post was adamant. It addressed the House Judiciary Committee’s passage of articles of impeachment this way:
“The House Judiciary Committee has now completed its task, and it has failed miserably. It has approved four articles of impeachment, of which two are ill-defined and two are unsubstantiated. It also has arrogantly voted not to report a censure resolution, thereby seeking to deprive the full House of any alternative to impeachment. The House Republican leadership should remedy this situation by somehow insuring that the full House gets to vote on the sensible alternative of a strongly worded censure resolution.”
Thus spoke the editorial board of The Post — in 1998.
Recall that the very first article of impeachment against President Clinton began this way, bold print supplied:
“On August 17, 1998, William Jefferson Clinton swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth before a Federal grand jury of the United States. Contrary to that oath, William Jefferson Clinton willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury…..”
The second article of impeachment against Clinton said this, bold print supplied:
“On January 17, 1998, William Jefferson Clinton swore under oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in a deposition given as part of a Federal civil rights action brought against him. Contrary to that oath, William Jefferson Clinton willfully provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony in response to questions deemed relevant by a Federal judge…..”
Got that?
The articles of impeachment against President Clinton quite specifically cited him for lying to a federal grand jury and lying to a federal judge. Both of which are federal crimes.
And the response of The Washington Post? That would be to say “The House Judiciary Committee has now completed its task, and it has failed miserably.”
Now? Of a sudden the Post is all in for impeaching President Trump because:
“…he abused his office in an attempt to induce Ukraine’s new president to launch politicized investigations that would benefit Mr. Trump’s reelection campaign, and that he willfully obstructed the subsequent congressional investigation.”
This is based on the first article of impeachment against Trump that specifically says this:
“Using the powers of his high office, President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election.”
The transcript of the famous phone conversation shows no such thing.
But let’s take a careful look at that. Recall this Reuters story from March of 2012? It began this way:
“SEOUL (Reuters) – President Barack Obama was caught on camera on Monday assuring outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he will have “more flexibility” to deal with contentious issues like missile defense after the U.S. presidential election.
Obama, during talks in Seoul, urged Moscow to give him “space” until after the November ballot, and Medvedev said he would relay the message to incoming Russian president Vladimir Putin.”
What, exactly, was President Obama doing here? Let’s change that Trump article of impeachment by simply substituting “Russia” for “Ukraine” and the year of the election - 2012, for the current “2020.”
Then the article would hypothetically read as follows:
“Using the powers of his high office, President Obama solicited the interference of a foreign government, Russia, in the 2012 United States Presidential election.”
Yes indeed, in that famous conversation caught on a hot mic President Barack Obama had just requested Russian interference in the 2012 election — to assist President Obama’s re-election campaign.
A journey with Mr. Google mysteriously shows no indignant Washington Post editorial demanding that Obama be impeached because he requested Russian interference in the 2012 presidential election. As a matter of fact, there is no record of any indignant Democrats - or for that matter, Republicans — demanding Obama’s impeachment.
So what do we have here? We have The Washington Post, a leading member of what the Wall Street Journal correctly calls the “impeachment press”, firmly on record demanding Bill Clinton not be impeached for what, in fact, were federal crimes — lying to a grand jury and lying to a federal judge. The Post was also silent about impeaching Barack Obama when he was caught asking for, in effect, Russian interference in the 2012 election by not pressing on missile defense issues until after the election was over.
Now, of a sudden, The Post is demanding the impeachment of Donald Trump for something that he clearly did not do, or in the language of the Post’s 1998 Clinton editorial, is “unsubstantiated.”
So what do we have here? What we have is a newspaper pretending to journalism when in fact, yet again, it is revealed that it is merely a paper run by left-wing activists who in fact use impeachment as a partisan tool - opposing it when a liberal Democrat is the target, silent on it when another liberal Democrat is caught flat-footed doing what the paper now says it opposes, but supporting it when it is a Republican president they simply can’t abide.
And in the end, it isn’t just President Trump who will be impeached. Right along with him, so too is the credibility of The Washington Post.
The difference is that The Post impeached its own credibility.
