House Democrats made it official — they will vote on two impeachment articles. But as history-making events go, the announcement was extra weird.

The decision was expected, yet the way it unfolded was strange. Speaker Nancy Pelosi obviously put out an order requiring her team to adopt a sackcloth-and-ashes pose for the cameras, as if they were attending a funeral.

No high-fives, back-slapping and smiles today! Gotta pretend we’re not enjoying this!

The act surely didn’t fool anyone. The rabid Dem base is certainly cheering the moment, and President Trump supporters won’t be tricked by phony long faces.

In fact, the decision is a huge milestone in the long resistance to Trump, and pretending otherwise is silly. But the politics of the conjured impeachment requires a continual selling job, and conveying a sense of dutiful reluctance is part of Pelosi’s con.

The contents of the announcement were also odd, starting with the rushed path to the finish line. A committee vote this week, a full House vote maybe next week and then off for Christmas vacation.

Anyone expecting a full and deliberate debate on an issue of such national importance hasn’t been paying attention. This is a one-party show done only for political purposes, so there’s no time or reason to debate.

The speed also suggests the leaders are reading polls and concluded that the more they talk, the less the public supports them. On that score, they’re dead right.

A Quinnipiac national poll released Tuesday found 51 percent of voters oppose impeachment and removal, with 45 percent supporting. It’s the first time Quinnipiac has found a majority in opposition.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the most creative member of the team, nonetheless introduced the latest excuse for the haste, claiming that Trump would corrupt the 2020 election if he’s still in office.

“The argument, ‘Why don’t you just wait?’ amounts to this: ‘Why don’t you just let him cheat in one more election? Why not let him cheat just one more time?’ ” Schiff said.

That’s a novel interpretation that relies on Schiff’s repeated false claim that Trump cheated in 2016. Perhaps he’s not aware that Robert Mueller said otherwise. Or maybe he believes Mueller’s a Russian agent.

Unspoken at the press conference was the fact that Dems don’t want to throw a larger cloud over their party’s presidential candidates. The Iowa caucus is Feb. 3, and Super Tuesday comes a month later. The candidates are compelled to support impeachment, but none wants to make a fetish of it.

Besides, with approximately zero chance they can muster the two-thirds Senate vote to convict and remove Trump, Dems won’t worship at the altar of lost causes. They want to do their thing for zealots and donors and move on.

The strangest aspect is that they are limiting their case to two articles, junking much of the mud they threw in their numerous hearings and press conferences.

No bribery, no quid pro quo, no witness intimidation, nothing to do with Mueller — all the talking points of months just suddenly disappeared.

The first article, charging abuse of power, is aimed at Trump’s phone call with Ukraine and the claim that he was using his office for personal gain by wanting an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden’s actions there. It’s a mushy claim that hasn’t resonated with the broader public because it’s not clear that Trump was breaking any laws or doing anything even close to the edge.

As I’ve written, it’s akin to calling for the death penalty for jaywalking.

The second charge, obstruction of Congress, is also an extra-long shot. To prevail on that in the usual ways, Pelosi’s team would have needed to go to court and won rulings that would enforce their subpoenas for White House witnesses and documents.

Instead, saying they don’t have time for court fights, they merely plan to make an obstruction charge, which effectively accuses the president of asserting his constitutional right to executive privilege. How is that kosher?

If the process unfolds as expected, a few Dems in the House will vote no but the articles will pass — and the partisan assassination attempt will die in the Senate sometime in January. How long the trial would take depends largely on how many witnesses are called, and a report Tuesday suggested most in the GOP want to keep the trial as short as possible.

Trump, however, has said he wants to call the Bidens, Schiff and the whistleblower, basically to put the Dems on trial. That conflict is something the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have to resolve.

In either case, it’s likely that by the time of the Iowa caucus, the failed putsch will seem like ancient history. That’s weird, too, and yet, these days, par for the course.

No holds Barr-ed!

The attorney general has more to say, so listen up.

Recall that AG Bill Barr was direct in his initial reaction to the inspector general report, complimenting Michael Horowitz while also saying that bad as it was for the FBI, the report on the start of the Russia probe wasn’t the last word. That would come from US Attorney John Durham’s criminal probe, which has access to more information through a grand jury and its subpoena power.

Barr went further in a Tuesday interview. “I think our nation was turned on its head for three years based on a completely bogus narrative that was largely fanned and hyped by a completely irresponsible press,” he told NBC. “I think there were gross abuses … and inexplicable behavior that is intolerable in the FBI.”

NBC, writing about the interview, reflected its bias by saying Barr’s remarks are “bound to stoke further debate about whether the attorney general is acting in good faith, or as a political hatchet man for Trump.”

It’s not a debate. Only someone who has an irrational hatred of Trump could read the IG report and say the FBI’s litany of mistakes were honest ones.

Nor is Barr’s other point debatable: The egregious behavior was “fanned and hyped by a completely irresponsible press.”

Those are inconvenient facts for the media and Trump haters, but they are facts nonetheless. Barr’s willingness to state them forcefully takes wisdom and courage.

Good for him, great for America.

NY mind$ the gap? No way

It’s worse than you admit.

That’s the gist of a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislators about the state’s fiscal gaps. Cuomo says the four-year gap is $22.2 billion, which is huge. In fact, it’s even more, $28.8 billion, according to the Citizens Budget Commission.

The group calls on Albany to cut spending. Listen carefully and you can hear howls of laughter in response.

Count on tax hikes and gimmicks. That’s the Albany Way.