The Donald Trump, of Donald Trump fame? Commit an impeachable offense? I’m sorry, I’m just having difficulty aligning my vision of Donald Trump with the concept of a man who might ever, in his life, have even a little bit committed the tiniest infraction. Mr. Donald Trump, whose lawyer for years was Roy Cohn? Whose every contractor left him a glowing testimony? Whose net worth was always — no, Donald Trump? Are you sure? Donald Trump, might have done something wrong, for which he might be asked to pay?

AD

AD

Donald “When You’re a Celebrity, They Let You Do It” Trump? Donald 'I Could Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue and They’d Still Vote for Me’ Trump? Donald “Very Fine People on Both Sides” Trump? Donald “I Won’t Release My Tax Returns” Trump? Donald “Trump Steaks” Trump? Donald “Lock Up My Political Opponent" Trump? Donald “Won’t You See Your Way To Letting This Go, James Comey?" — Trump? Donald “Pay No Attention to Mueller and the Angry Democrats” Trump? Donald “Just Draw A Bigger Hurricane On The Map With A Sharpie” Trump? That Donald Trump — maybe committed an impeachable offense?

Donald Trump? A man with such a clear sense of right and wrong (he would have to have one, to so unerringly select wrong every time)? A man who, every time he got off the phone with a foreign leader and had not offered them a creepy threat or bribe, it was honestly a surprise to him and to everyone around him? He might have done something bad? That necessitated an impeachment inquiry?

An impeachment inquiry that Congress is actually going to deliver?

AD

AD

No, wait, now I am actually surprised.

Wait, Congress is really doing something now? I’m sorry, really? Congress? I thought we had agreed that what they were going to do was: nothing. I thought that Nothing was the courageous thing to do. I thought that there was nothing the president could do that was so bad that his Republican defenders would not say that what the president had just done was (a) something he would never do, you must be mistaken, or (b) a great thing to do that more people should try to do if only they weren’t afraid. Even across the aisle, I thought that Congress had agreed to sit and wait for some other coequal branch of government to hold the president accountable.

I thought we had long ago given up wishing for things like accountability and let hope crawl out of Pandora’s box to die. (It seemed so sad in there with all those monsters.) I thought all consequences had floated out to sea on a pyre made entirely of copies of the Mueller report, on the same day that the last petal fell from the impeachment rose, the Republican Party turned into footstools forever, and the Democrats became a series of clocks counting down to the next election. They have revived, resumed their original forms and are bringing an impeachment inquiry? Against Donald Trump?

Well, it’s always the last people you expect.