We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men...

—Edward R. Murrow, March 9, 1954

We may not be descended from fearful people, but we certainly have evolved into them. Late Thursday night, Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, pretty much sank the effort to have witnesses testify in the impeachment trial of the president, and Alexander did so in a statement that is going to go down in the annals of unmitigated weaselspeak. Gaze in awe.

I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States Constitution's high bar for an impeachable offense. There is no need for more evidence to prove that the president asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter; he said this on television on October 3, 2019, and during his July 25, 2019, telephone call with the president of Ukraine. There is no need for more evidence to conclude that the president withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; the House managers have proved this with what they call a "mountain of overwhelming evidence."

Alexander believes that the president* shook down the president of Ukraine in order to help the president* ratfck the 2020 presidential election. Alexander believes this is what happened. Alexander believes that the House managers have made that case. Alexander believes that the House managers have made that case so convincingly that calling further witnesses and demanding further documents would be superfluous. And because Alexander believes all that, he believes that the president*...should be acquitted on the charges of which Alexander believes the president* is guilty as hell.

Alexander escapes a group of reporters at the Capitol. Samuel Corum Getty Images

Alexander is being a poltroon on so many different levels here. In addition to arguing that a guilty president* is guilty but should go unpunished, Alexander is claiming that the solution to a ratfcked election is to hope the next one isn’t ratfcked. Good Christ, what a waste of a handsome piece of office furniture in the Senate chamber this man has turned out to be.

Now, it’s possible that this latest spasm of political cowardice will cost Mitch McConnell his Senate Majority. (I, for one, don’t think this is going to rescue Collins in Maine. Cory Gardner likely is a dead fish in Colorado, and Martha McSally of Arizona can’t get out of her own way. In their fondest dreams, the Democrats will come out of Georgia with at least a split.) So, on Friday, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago will skate, and Brexit will become formalized in the UK. At the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg, the moles and trolls are going to throw themselves a party.

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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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