Political Theatre

Around my house, we have a phrase in response to anyone asking "what are the chances that..." for an event that has already occurred: "About one hundred percent." It is the rhetorical version of walking in the front door, dripping wet, to someone asking, "Do you think it will rain today?"

So, on the day that the House of Representatives finally sends over the Articles of Impeachment, what are the chances that a witness to all that has unfolded over the past few years who could corroborate not just anecdotally but with memos and texts and boxes of evidence?

Now please to be repeating the line: "About one hundred percent."

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House and one of the most feared humans in half the country, knows what she's doing. Is there any reason not to believe that the delay in sending over the articles was calculated to let this particular cat out of the bag? 

The cat in question is one Lev Parnas. A Soviet-born businessman, Mister Parnas has been part of the show in the Impeachment Circus for several months, appearing as an associate of the "president's lawyer," Rudy Giuliani. In an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, Lev had this to say: “He knew exactly who I was especially because I interacted with him at a lot of events." "He in this version of the truth would be the "president." “I was with Rudy when he would speak to the president. Plenty of times.” If you're a fan of those procedural shows, this would be the kind of revelation that shows up right before that commercial break three quarters of the way through. In screenwriting terms, this would be the gun that was loaded in the first act, going off in act three. This screenplay has begun to unravel a little more like Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny than the Corleones. 

Except that it's not funny. It is tragic that an administration has been blowing smoke up the trouser legs of its fans for the past three years while operating like an inept bunch of rabbit hunters. Parnas told Maddow that he and Giuliani struck a deal with Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian gas billionaire who has been stranded in Vienna for years as he fights extradition to the U.S. on foreign bribery charges,whereby the oligarch would provide the Trump team with information and, in exchange, the Department of Justice would drop the charges against the Ukrainian mogul. Pardon me if I don't put quotation marks around the Department of Justice. There is only so much irony that any one person can expect to punctuate. 

So the drama that should be governance continues, as we begin act three. 

Stay tuned.