Meet the Press Panel Hopes Dems Can ‘Dramatize’ Impeachment Hearings With Crying Witnesses

November 11th, 2019 9:14 AM

Following Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd grilling Republican Senator Rand Paul and tossing softballs to Democratic Congressman Jim Himes on Sunday, regarding impeachment, the political panel admitted that House Democrats had an uphill battle in upcoming public hearings. The worried journalists urged liberal lawmakers to “dramatize” those hearings as much as possible and hoped some of the witnesses would cry or become “emotional.”

“I think in those two segments, with Rand Paul and Jim Himes, we had a good snapshot of how difficult this is going to be for the – for the Democrats to convince the country that this is extraordinary behavior that disqualifies the President from office,” The Washington Post’s David Ignatius admitted. He also acknowledged that impeachment effort against President Trump looked “purely partisan.”

 

 

As a result, Ignatius eagerly offered advice to Democrats on how to change that image problem: “The one thing that will break through, I think, is if this can be dramatized so that our diplomats struggling against the President feel like soldiers in a battlefield, and their commander abandoned them.” He argued: “...if that gets through...It makes it a very different process.”

Moments later, PBS NewsHour correspondent Yamiche Alcindor seemed giddy as she touted the political strategy of Democrats:

I will say that Democrats are very, they’re very focused on how to tell the story this week. And I’m told, from Democratic aides, that they wanted Taylor to be there because he’s a Vietnam vet. He’s gonna be able to tell this story in a simple way. And they wanted Marie Yovanovitch there because I’m told she cried in her testimony, and they essentially want someone who’s going to be emotional to say, “I was a victim of the President trying to do this for his own political gain.”

Before the conversation concluded, Ignatius again noted the problems Democrats had with selling impeachment: “So, so their problem is that this is something complicated. And it gets more complicated with all the names and faraway events.” He then reiterated: “Again, if there’s a simple way to dramatize this, where, where these people sound like soldiers, fighting our fight for us, and they got undercut, then it’ll be different.”

Liberal journalists are now admitting that there are significant flaws in the substance of Democrats’ impeachment argument and are starting to focus more on the show of public hearings, hoping “dramatized” events on Capitol Hill will make the case.

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Here are excerpts of the November 10 panel discussion:

10:55 AM ET

DAVID IGNATIUS: I think in those two segments, with Rand Paul and Jim Himes, we had a good snapshot of how difficult this is going to be for the – for the Democrats to convince the country that this is extraordinary behavior that disqualifies the President from office. This argument, this is purely partisan. It’s back and forth. “Well, this one did it. That one did it.” The one thing that will break through, I think, is if this can be dramatized so that our diplomats struggling against the President feel like soldiers in a battlefield, and their commander abandoned them. And if that gets through, or if there’s something corrupt that Rudy Giuliani was doing that we discover, I think that changes the stakes. It makes it a very different process. But based on what we heard just now, you know, it’s political bickering. And that’s the way the people will hear it.

(...)

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: I will say that Democrats are very, they’re very focused on how to tell the story this week. And I’m told, from Democratic aides, that they wanted Taylor to be there because he’s a Vietnam vet. He’s gonna be able to tell this story in a simple way. And they wanted Marie Yovanovitch there because I’m told she cried in her testimony, and they essentially want someone who’s going to be emotional to say, “I was a victim of the President trying to do this for his own political gain.”

(...)

DAVID IGNATIUS: So, so their problem is that this is something complicated. And it gets more complicated with all the names and faraway events. And here, we had, you know, one of the leading Democrats saying, “We don't want to talk about quid pro quo anymore. That’s too complicated.” If that’s too complicated, all the rest of it is, too. Again, if there’s a simple way to dramatize this, where, where these people sound like soldiers, fighting our fight for us, and they got undercut, then it’ll be different.

(...)