Littwin: The pre-impeachment presidential rankings are in. And the leader is, who the hell knows?

[TexasTowelie]

Once upon a time, there was a Democratic presidential primary season that often dominated the news cycle, particularly on debate days. And sometimes even on days when a one-time phenom would drop out of the race (say, Beto O’Rourke).

That time is coming to an extended, and almost certainly dramatic, pause while impeachment season heads into the anything-can-happen-including-seven-consecutive-road-victories postseason. Now that the House has voted to approve the impeachment rules, basically on a party-line vote, we will move soon to public hearings, at which point everything else will likely come to a full stop.

I mean, the impeachment news is huge even now, and that’s before we open our pool for who will be this season’s John Dean. There’s Bill Taylor, the chief envoy to Ukraine who will testify that portfolio-free Rudy Giuliani was running a likely illegal misinformation campaign there. There’s Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, leading the White House National Security Council team on Ukraine, who will testify that the Trump-Zelensky July 25th call was so scary that it sent him running to the lawyers. And not only because the rough transcript somehow was altered from Zelensky saying “Burisma” — the company associated with Hunter Biden — to “the company that you mentioned in this issue.” And guess what the lawyers told Vindman? Not to mention the “perfect” call to anyone. Then there’s Fiona Hill, also of the NSC, who gave us this now-iconic quote from former NSC chief, John Bolton: “I am not part of whatever drug deal Rudy [Giuliani] and [Mick] Mulvaney are cooking up.” I’m considering betting on Bolton, who says he won’t testify without a subpoena and maybe not even then. But can he really resist the chance to be the star witness for truth and justice and never Trump?

So now as we await Donald Trump’s threat to do a live dramatic reading of the very rough transcript of his otherwise perfect call with Ukraine President Zelensky — this is such a bad idea that even the king of bad ideas would never attempt it — we have a slight window in which to update where the primary season stands. Because, to this point, no one has any idea whatsoever.

Read more: https://www.coloradoindependent.com/2019/11/01/littwin-warren-biden-bernie-buttigieg-beto/