MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE–You can get so tangled up in a campaign—or, as I've learned, in impeachment hearings, even ones with all the democratic unpredictability of North Korean elections—that really amazing stories can get by you without your noticing them. Like this one in The New York Times, a story I like to call, Chicken Run: The Chickening.



The senators were concerned that it would look bad for Mr. Trump to dismiss Mr. Sondland and argued that it was unnecessary, since the ambassador was already talking with senior officials about leaving after the Senate trial, the people said. The senators told White House officials that Mr. Sondland should be allowed to depart on his own terms, which would have reduced any political backlash.

But Mr. Trump evidently was not interested in a quiet departure, choosing instead to make a point by forcing Mr. Sondland out before the ambassador was ready to go. When State Department officials called Mr. Sondland on Friday to tell him that he had to resign that day, he resisted, saying that he did not want to be included in what seemed like a larger purge of impeachment witnesses, according to the people informed about the matter.

Mr. Sondland conveyed to the State Department officials that if they wanted him gone that day, they would have to fire him. And so the president did, ordering the ambassador recalled from his post effective immediately.



Now, you may wonder who these brave souls were, and why they stuck their necks out for Sondland, who'd donated a million bucks to the president*'s inauguration and got an ambassadorship out of it. They did not do the same for, say, Alexander Vindman, the war hero and NSA staffer who got frog-marched out of the White House because he went before Congress and told the truth. Silly you.



Among the Republicans who warned the White House was Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who after voting to acquit Mr. Trump said she thought he had learned a lesson. Others included Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Martha McSally of Arizona and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. The White House did not respond to requests for comment on Saturday but a senior administration official confirmed the senators’ outreach on behalf of Mr. Sondland, a donor to Mr. Tillis and other Republicans.



What a sorry lot of house pets they are. Members of the United States Senate "warning" a president* who sees them for the invertebrates that he is not to do something because it will look bad. When was the last time this president* cared about how he, or any action he's taken, looked to the great wide world? The only constituency he cares about is the one he sees in the mirror in the morning, right before they bring over the firehose that applies the spray-tan.



Ms. Collins said Saturday that her lesson comment had been misinterpreted and that she had earlier noted that she did not support retribution. “The lesson that I hoped the president had learned was that he should not enlist the help of a foreign government in investigating a political rival,” she said in a statement to The New York Times. “It had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he should fire people who testified in a way that he perceived as harmful to him.”

The senators did not express the same concern about Colonel Vindman, who is viewed less sympathetically by the president’s allies. Republicans considered some of Colonel Vindman’s comments during his testimony overtly political and, in any case, believed it was untenable for him to remain on the staff of a president with whom he broke so publicly.

Susan Collins regularly exchanges her congressional salary for a bag of magic beans. I have the receipts. Jesus, these people...

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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