Are Senate Republicans circling the wagons?

[struggle4progress]

By Jennifer Rubin
Opinion writer
September 25 at 10:45 AM

... Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) said it was “inappropriate” for a president to seek foreign assistance, while clarifying that “I’m not acknowledging or alleging that the president did that.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), among the most effusive Trump supplicants, said he would be “disappointed” if the allegations proved to be true. (Should we break it to him that President Trump has largely confessed to the allegations?) Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) all but encouraged the House to commence its inquest.

The beauty of impeachment proceedings on Ukraine is twofold. First, the facts will come out. Second, a number of GOP senators — perhaps not enough to remove Trump but certainly enough to humiliate him — cannot justify using U.S. taxpayer dollars for leverage to extract dirt on a political opponent from a foreign government.

Some profiles in queasiness, including Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), refused to even comment on the matter. Perhaps they hope it will all go away before they are forced to comment. That’s unlikely to happen insofar as the House is in possession of public information that might be sufficient to support voting out articles of impeachment.

By their silence, the squeamish Republicans underscore the wisdom of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s move toward impeachment. There is no good answer on Ukraine for Republicans outside of deep-red locales. Reasonable Americans, regardless of party, will not buy that Trump’s alleged conduct was acceptable, nor are they likely to look favorably on senators who pretend it is. Moreover, Republicans who are vulnerable in 2020 can expect to see the sort of protests, sit-ins, and telephone and letter campaigns that activists mounted in the fight over the Affordable Care Act. Conversely, Trump’s rabid base will attack any senator who steps out of line ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/25/watch-senate-republicans/

[customerserviceguy]

1. I watched ABC News tonight

and it appears that they're all falling in line at this point. As I recall, that happened during the Nixon years, until it just became too much. The Watergate burglary happened in June, 1972, and Nixon didn't resign until over two years later, in August, 1974.

The public did not know about the Monica Lewinsky scandal until January, 1998, and Clinton's acquittal in the Senate did not occur until February, 1999. So, it seems to take some time to wrap these things up. It might have been a shorter period when Andrew Johnson was involved, but that is so far in the past as to be nearly irrelevant here.

If impeachment goes forward, it will probably consume most of the time between now and Election Day. It will certainly absorb the news media, and anybody on the Democratic side who hasn't achieved double digits in the polls can probably forget about making a surge that would surely require media attention.