House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a wide berth to delay her supposedly "urgent" impeachment articles for weeks or even months, knowing the press will back her. Exhibit A is CNN's Alisyn Camerota. The New Day co-host made an impassioned defense this morning of Pelosi's decision to stall the delivery to the Senate of the articles of impeachment.
After Camerota made her initial pitch for Pelosi's position, guest host John Avlon and Washington Post reporter Seung Min Kim pushed back, saying Pelosi's position wasn't tenable and that she'd have to deliver the articles in fairly short order.
But Camerota refused to concede, insisting, "I guess I'm missing something. I still need you guys to explain to me . . . What harm is there in waiting? I don't see what . . . I don't see why [Pelosi] would feel any anxiety to speed up this process?"
If instead of stalling, Pelosi had delivered the articles to the Senate on the very day they were adopted, one can imagine Camerota having applauded that, too, as a brilliant political stroke. "You go, girl!" seems to be Camerota's operative principle when it comes to Pelosi.
Here's the transcript.
CNN
New Day
12/27/10
6:12 am ETALISYN CAMEROTA: So Joe, here's our update: we're still at an impasse. Congress isn’t back until the first week of January. I guess I need you to explain to me: what’s the rush? She, she, they impeached the president. Her work is done. In the House they impeached the president. Why does she need to rush over to what she thinks is a sham trial?
. . .
JOE LOCKHART: Well, one of the things I think she was trying to do with holding back the articles was to control the narrative over the break. She's done that.
. . .
JOHN AVLON: If Nancy Pelosi and Democrats felt such urgency, moral urgency, to push forward impeachment, why not urgency in getting it to the Senate, especially because this is going to bleed over into the Iowa caucuses, it looks like.
SEUNG MIN KIM: Exactly, and I think that's why the position, the position of just withholding the articles of impeachment indefinitely is not going to be a sustainable position.
. . .
CAMEROTA: I guess I'm missing something. I still need you guys to explain to me: things are still happening! Rudy Giuliani is still going to Ukraine as of two weeks ago to do the very same thing this phone call was about. Lev Parnas, who has been charged with laundering and funneling money into — Russian money — into US elections is talking. He’s still revealing things. What harm is there in waiting? I don’t see what -- I don't see around her Christmas table, Nancy Pelosi, why she would feel any anxiety to speed up this process?
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