Impeachment: President Trump only has himself to blame He's taken every opportunity to make a complete buffoon out of himself. He has earned the utter humiliation heading his way.

Paul Brandus | Opinion columnist

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You may have heard that President Trump has a problem with truth. That’s like saying the Titanic had a problem with ice.

But, with Wednesday's impeachment vote, truth has ripped a great gash into the Trump presidency; it is taking on water fast. The rats are scurrying for higher ground, but the captain, well, he has to go down with the ship.

And yet with water pouring in all around him, Trump remains utterly delusional that anything is wrong. Exhibit A was the letter he sent Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Even in the annals of this most unhinged of presidents, even after three years of bizarre ranting and tweeting, its six-pages of pathetic self-victimization stand out and should be considered prime evidence as to why this man shouldn’t be anywhere near the Oval Office.

This has nothing to with party and nothing to with ideology — and everything to do with the fact that I believe the president is unstable and mentally unfit to serve.

This president deserves everything coming to him

Speaking of Pelosi, when I read the letter, a line of hers from nearly a year ago came to mind: "It's a temper tantrum by the president,” Pelosi said. “I'm a mother of five, grandmother of nine. I know a temper tantrum when I see one,” I don’t remember what she was referring to then, but it doesn't matter. We're dealing with a 73-year old crybaby. What an embarrassment that this is the man who represents our great nation.

How delusional is this man? Even Tuesday —i mpeachment eve — Trump’s Roy Cohn-inspired refusal to ever admit a mistake was on full display, when CNN’s Jim Acosta asked him if he takes any responsibility for anything? The president’s response: “Zero.”

Over the course of his adult life, Trump has always been deeply afraid of two things: being humiliated and being laughed at. In this respect, impeachment is a nightmare, because it has brought both upon him in buckets. His dishonesty, selfishness, sleazy personal life and all the rest has always fueled contempt by anyone with a conscience and ability to think objectively. But this, this is different. This is contempt for the history books.

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Trump’s delusion has no bounds. He says efforts to impeach him began the day he was elected. Gosh, really? Does his base have such short memories that they can’t remember that for first two years of his presidency, both the House and Senate were controlled by Republicans? Speaker Paul Ryan ring a bell? Pelosi has only been speaker since January, and until August resisted efforts by the likes of New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and other far lefties to begin an impeachment inquiry. This all began on August 12, with the whistleblower complaint about the president's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. August.

Trump cares quite a bit about Trump.

Tuesday’s letter also destroys another of Trump’s lies: That he’s not concerned about how impeachment will impact his legacy. He’s not concerned? It’s the only thing he cares about. Perhaps the only thing Americans today know about Andrew Johnson — the only thing — is that he was the first president to be impeached. The fact that Trump is about to join him and Bill Clinton in the “IPC” — Impeached President’s Club — is an embarrassing stain that will be in the first paragraph of his eventual obituary. It will dog him forever, and like Johnson (impeached in 1868), I suspect that 100 years from now when future generations think of Donald Trump, it’ll be the very first thing that comes to mind. Perhaps the only thing.

In fact. I know this is what Trump thinks. In 2014, he called in to — what else — Fox & Friends — to discuss the idea of President Obama being impeached.

Obama, Trump said, “would be a mess. He would be thinking about nothing but. It would be a horror show for him. It would be an absolute embarrassment. It would go down on his record permanently.”

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Trump’s right. It’s a mess. A horror show. An absolute embarrassment. It will go down on his record permanently. Not Obama’s record, of course. Trump’s. And he has only one person to blame for the humiliation that has descended upon him: The one that stares back at him in the mirror each morning.

Paul Brandus, founder and White House bureau chief of West Wing Reports, is the author of "Under This Roof: The White House and the Presidency" and is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter: @WestWingReport