As the impeachment of Pres. Donald Trump heads into its twenty-third year (at least that’s how it’s beginning to feel), the Left once again finds itself embracing the document liberals love most to hate. And they’re doing it in the most obnoxious ways possible.
On Thursday, Joe Scarborough, star of MSNBC’s show “Morning Joe,” urged Trump to “do something that he’s never done before and read the Constitution of the United States.” Scarborough elaborated, explaining that if he did, the president “might actually understand how the Speaker of the House has that power,” referring to impeachment.
That’s true, but the put-down comes at a time when said speaker is trying to control the tone and tenor of the as-yet-to-be-scheduled impeachment trial, which is a gross violation of Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution That article specifies that “the Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” Pelosi’s work on the impeachment — and input into it — ended with the House vote.
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The Democrats’ dislike for the Constitution (aka, document written by a bunch of dead white men) was on vivid display during the Obama years. Barack Obama himself, a self-professed “constitutional scholar,” boasted in 2018 that he would won a third term in office had it not been for that pesky piece of paper.
Although Obama didn’t attempt to effect a coup against the Twenty-second Amendment, he did run roughshod over the Constitution throughout his presidency.
Even now, as Democrats figuratively wrap themselves in that ancient parchment, they can’t help but show their true colors. During the debate in the House Rules Committee over the articles of Impeachment on Dec. 17, Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.), summed up the document this way (beginning at 10:54 in the video that follows):
Mr. Chairman, the Constitution did not come from a higher power. It is just a document, a piece of paper with words written on it. But we, the people, give the Constitution its power. We, the people, decide to follow and honor our laws. And today, we, the people, must agree that the laws apply to everyone, including the President of the United States. That — that is the president that we expect of all elected officials.
Torres’s words encapsulate the long-standing Democratic view of the Constitution as a “living document,” open to interpretation and reinterpretation by each succeeding generation. Presumably it is somehow on that basis that Nancy Pelosi is now inserting her nose where it doesn’t belong.
