For months, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned itchy Democrats against the perils of impeachment. She should have stuck to her guns.

In surrendering to the radicals and the noisy drumbeat of their media handmaidens, Pelosi established a formal investigative process involving the top legislative committees.

Yet she did something else, too, something far more monumental: She effectively committed House Dems to impeaching President Trump.

PELOSI ANNOUNCES FORMAL IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY AGAINST TRUMP

Because of what she said and did, if the House doesn’t go all the way, it will be a political disaster. Either failing to take a vote on articles of impeachment, or failing to get enough votes among her majority to pass any articles, would be seen as a political exoneration for Trump, likely leading to his re-election.

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If all that weren’t risky enough, consider another scenario. If House Dems do impeach Trump on grounds that much of the public sees as flimsy and concocted, they could win the battle and lose the war. Indeed, no matter what the House does, there is a next-to-zero chance the GOP controlled Senate would convict the president absent clear and convincing “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Pelosi knew all that since January, when she became Speaker, which is why she kept resisting the impeachers. But her surrender proved again that her party can’t quit 2016. Like generals fighting the last war, she and they are now committed to taking their sore-loser grievances to 2020 voters.

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Dems apparently assume the country hates Trump as much as they do. President Hillary Clinton had no comment on the strategy.

They also are demonstrating they didn’t learn the lessons of the Robert Mueller probe.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING MICHAEL GOODWIN'S COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK POST