15 June 2013 –

If they can, they will. 

The U.S. intelligence community collects and stores vast amounts of data on the communications of millions of Americans.  This includes trillions of ordinary phone records, data transfers, and e-mails.  The intelligence community examines that data, gleans some actionable intelligence, and uses it to stop our enemies in Islamic fundamentalist terrorist networks.  On the one hand, this has helped to protect us.      

On the other hand, this practice destroys our individual freedoms.  How did this happen? It was a combination of bad executive decisions and cultural tendencies.  The president’s conceding of the tempo of the war to our Islamic fundamentalist enemies, the technology and methods used to collect, store, and analyze intelligence data, and the “can-do” culture of our intelligence community have created a domestic situation more dangerous to America’s freedoms than are the enemies it was created to defeat.    

Our problems start with our administration’s faulty decisions in the war against Islamic fundamentalism.  No matter what we want to admit, these enemies are at war against us.  Some say that this war has been ongoing for the last thirteen hundred years.  But, today’s Islamic movements don’t have to defeat western sovereign nations’ forces on a traditional field of battle; they have only to garner enough influence in the Moslem community to eliminate western-leaning governments in the Middle East.  They will then be able to create a large enough power base to successfully challenge U.S. influence everywhere.  President Obama’s recent declaration that the war with Islamic terrorists is over is wrong and strengthens our enemies’ position.  The president has conceded the war’s tempo—the timing and the targets for attack—to fundamentalists whose message resonates in the Moslem community that supports it.    

The war is not over.  But, acting as if it is puts the primary responsibility to defend us on our intelligence community and not on our military forces.  The intelligence community must now predict the targets and the timing of all enemy attacks, instead of support offensive military forces to root out and kill the enemy.  This puts pressure on the intelligence community to collect increasing amounts of data, collate it, analyze it, and then pinpoint suicide-bombers, et al, before they attack American targets.  This defensive focus has created a blueprint for intelligence collection abuse.   

It is not surprising that few intelligence community leaders resist their role in the war.  Three decades in the intelligence business revealed certain truths about the community.  If they can collect intelligence, they will want to.  If they want to collect intelligence, they will create enabling policies to do so.  Finally, information will never be destroyed. 

Today, the intelligence community collects, stores, and retrieves levels of information that thirty years ago were simply unattainable.  In 2013, it manipulates electronically generated data at a rate that is thousands of times higher than its best capabilities in 1983.  The U.S. intelligence community can do its collection and analysis job better now than at any time in history.

Because the intelligence community leaders can produce actionable intelligence based on such vast amounts data, they naturally want to do it.  That is the reason they go to work.  Therefore, it is difficult for intelligence community leaders not to embrace the current, wrongly-focused fight.  They are seduced by the importance of their expanded role to a point where they are willing to delve into and collect data on Americans’ daily lives.  They can do it.  They want to do it.  They do it.

Finally, nothing the intelligence community collects is ever destroyed.  The culture has learned that if the information does not apply today, it will apply later.  Past collectors and analysts filled warehouses with such information.   Today, they can carry the Library of Congress in a briefcase.  Imagine what the National Security Agency will be able to store, retrieve, and analyze when it finishes its multi-million-square-foot facility in Alpine, Utah.  This culture is capturing and storing our Fourth Amendment Rights.  Never put something in an e-mail or text that you don’t want the whole world—or NSA—to see. 

In sum, the administration has conceded to the enemy the war’s tempo and timing.  To overcome the effects of this bad decision, the intelligence community, with alacrity, collects information on Americans.  Its then does what it does best and collects ever more data.  Naturally, it will maintain that data, to be used for whatever the administration deems essential. 

Nothing is more corrupt than this situation, and, it won’t even help much to win the war.     

6 June 2013 - 

Quibblers, All of Them! 

When I was a new second lieutenant in the Air Force, my commander, a gray-haired colonel, stood me at attention in his office.  After reading my initial training report, he ordered me to sit down and listen carefully.  His profound lesson on leadership sheds light on why those embroiled in this administration’s scandals are so wrong in what they have done.        

The colonel asked me if I knew what quibbling was.  I said yes, I think so.  He then said that his definition of the word would guide me to be an honorable, trustworthy leader.  He said that quibbling is to not state the whole truth when one’s commander asks a question.  He further explained that quibbling is when one’s statements deliberately do not lead to the complete resolution of an issue. The colonel said that quibblers lurk in a nether world of relativism, where deception and distraction are valued more highly than honesty and forthrightness, where master quibblers abuse public trust for personal or partisan gain.  He said that quibblers are bigger dangers than any outside enemy force.  Quibblers seek power not to protect, but to self-aggrandize.  Quibblers chew at the principles of a free society and at its protecting institutions.   Quibblers get people killed. 

My colonel then told me that the Air Force was his and not mine yet.  His Air Force operated on trust, not on power.  His officers were honorable and truthful when confronted with moral or physical danger.  His officers trusted each other to get the mission done right because they took seriously their oath of commissioning.  His officers placed the mission and their compatriots’ lives ahead of their own lives.  Therefore, if one of his officers did mess up, the only thing that could lessen the inevitable consequences of such misjudgment was complete honesty.  His officers then could accept that their compatriot’s failure was not one of character.  Trust and cohesiveness could be restored.  That was the only way, as well, that the public trust could be maintained.  He stated that he would throw me out of his Air Force if I proved myself to be a quibbler.   

The colonel then ordered me to read aloud my oath of commissioning. 

“I, LeRoy M. Coleman, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

I did not have to look up my oath of commissioning to write it down today.   

I told the colonel I would live up to my oath and never quibble.  He welcomed me to his Air Force and then dismissed me to get back to work.  Over the years, I have seen the damage to the institution caused by quibbling Airmen of all ranks.  I threw out as many of them as I could from my Air Force.        

Everyone slogging in the scandals of Benghazi, the IRS, and the Justice Department took a similar oath to the one I took thirty-four years ago today.  Sadly, every one of them has quibbled about his or her actions and intentions when questioned by Congress.  They all have shown themselves to be sources of rot in our public institutions.  They have shown themselves to care more about deflecting and obfuscating the truth than about right, wrong, honor, or trustworthiness.  They even seem to revel in the “purpose of evasion” of their actions.

As these scandals continue to fester, more Americans are focusing on the rightness and wrongness of their public officials’ actions.  The people’s ultimate question will soon take the form of a moral, not a legal one:  Can these officials be trusted with public policy and monies?  Tragically, my colonel’s demand for honor and trustworthiness among his officers has not been repeated by the leaders of the organizations involved in these scandals.  They all have quibbled.  Good Americans must demand that the administration get rid of these quibblers and that our government institutions follow constitutional rather than partisan principles.  My question:  Will our president rise to the occasion and commit principled action to restore public trust?  Or, will he continue to display himself as the one from whom these corrupt quibblers have taken their cues in the last five years?  Will we, at the end of the day, continue to have a quibbler-in-chief?  

24 May 2013 –

What Did The President Say Yesterday?  I Simply Don’t Remember. 

When I wrote speeches for the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, I learned two rules for public speaking:  Pick something important to say; then, make sure you say it.  If you ignore these rules, eventually people will ignore you.  If the President’s goal on Thursday in front of National Defense University was to assuage people’s concerns about the ”scandales du jour,” he failed.  Our beleaguered president imposed an hour of ramblings on the American people while providing nothing to resolve the issues at hand.  Clearly, his comments on how to resolve the issues were weak.  It was the wrong speech at the wrong time.   

If the President’s goal was to remind the American people that his anti-terrorist policies have kept America safe for the last five years, he failed as well.  I am sure that he did not mean to imply that his anti-terrorist policies were a natural progression from his much-maligned predecessor’s; but, it certainly came across that way.  President Obama’s remarks also beg one to observe that recent terrorist attacks on American soil prove that President Bush did a better job protecting America than he has done.  I did like what he said about the use of drones to attack terrorist targets overseas; he sounded like a spokesman for Secretary Condaleeza Rice.  But, alas, he did not explain the legal issues surrounding the use of attack drones in circumstances-less-than-conventional war as part of a well-thought out plan to accomplish a cogent strategy.  Fleeting comments from both his supporters and his critics in the last twenty-four hours seem to confirm the President’s bad timing and poor performance.  The President is making himself increasingly irrelevant in creating and implementing U.S. foreign and domestic policy.  We don’t need a campaigner; we need a leader.       

The President’s comments about using drones to kill terrorists deserve further inspection.   As an Air Force targets officer and campaign planner, I learned a lot about warriors, weapons, and winning wars.  I learned that warriors and weapons are necessary, but romantic elements of warfare.  Courage, loyalty, physical strength, and selflessness are among the virtues that compel warriors to “go to the sound of the battle.”  As well, most warriors tend to prefer weapons that prove them worthy of victory over the enemy.  Such is the ethos of the profession of arms.  It is a powerful, cohesive element that has bound warriors together since the days of swords, shields, and slings.  It also has led our society to assume that “good” warfare requires some version of warriors facing each other on the battlefield, armed with weapons and with honor.   Even our legal thinking generally says that warfare should be conducted in this intimate manner. 

Unmanned combat aircraft—drones—are superb weapons to kill individual terrorists.  They take the fight to small, mobile targets quite effectively.  Radical terrorists fear drones because they are difficult to elude and to shoot down.  Why then do we have a political problem including drones in our planning?  The problem is their success; fewer warriors are needed on the battlefield to kill the enemy.  That bothers many people who justify violence only if it is done in a traditionally “fair” way and not from a “safe” distance.  Other critics naively contend that we could convince our enemies to become our friends if we weren't so coldly focused on killing them.  Such critics dwell on warriors and weapons, not on winning.  The President would resolve all such issues if, in his next speech, he were to present a clear strategy for victory and how his campaign plan uses both warriors and weapons to achieve it.  But, that would require him to publicly identify radical Islamic terrorists as the real enemy.  His obvious denial of this obvious fact makes the President’s present strategy—if he has one—suspect and any supporting plan, drones or no drones, ineffectual.  What we have now is a recipe for failure.

This warrior tradition recruits and sustains military personnel from a generally supportive society.  But, warriors alone, even armed with good weapons, rarely ensure victory; they require the building and execution of an adaptable campaign plan that dictates the weapons they use to attack specific targets to achieve certain results.  These results must achieve carefully considered strategic objectives.  Expert planners take into account, but do not rely on, a warrior ethos.  Martial music is for warriors; accurate history books are for planners.   

27 May 2013 –

They Rest Close to Where They Fell

Memorial Day was established in the aftermath of the Civil War.  At least 600,000 Americans, mostly young men, were killed between 1861 and 1865, all on U.S. soil.  Since then, generations of Americans have maintained the graves of those who fought, died, and were buried close to where they fell.  Near the battlements, sunken roads, and hilltops of places such as Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Antietam, rows of grave stones mutely remind us of the friction of the opposing lines of troops and the sounds of dying men.  A war fought in one’s home, in one’s cornfields, and on one’s market roads must never be forgotten.  Memorial Day should always remain a sacred expression of how and why our war cemeteries came to be. 

But, since the Civil War, our troops have almost exclusively fought and died far from home.  This is because our Civil War fundamentally resolved the gaping conflicts that had previously prevented our coalescing as a nation.  Since then, we have worked on residual domestic issues with more peaceful means.   To help, God gave the “Grand Experiment” called the United States a choice land between two vast oceans to the East and the West and lesser powers to the North and the South.  Despite our mistakes, He has protected us from external enemies as few other countries ever have been protected.       

Since the Civil War, in our remote enclave, we have built a powerful nation.  We also have used our military instrument of national power to extend U.S. influence to more places in the world than has any great empire in history.  When we have wisely sent our troops into harm’s way in some distant land, we have fought and succeeded under the banner of freedom and liberty for us and for others.  When we have unwisely sent troops to fight and die under such a banner, the unbending principles of war have eventually mocked our banner and exposed us to the harsh consequences of our mistakes.  In every case, all glory should rest with the troops who took the fight to the enemy, and all criticism should rest with our leaders for answering badly the challenge of the moment.       

In the last 150 years, Americans in uniform have fought just about everywhere on the globe in the following conflicts:  the Spanish-American War,  World War One, The Russian Expedition, Nicaragua, Honduras, World War Two, Korea, the Cold War, VietNam, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Beirut, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq again, and Libya.  From these conflicts and others, we have returned most of our fallen troops to be buried in American soil.  In some of these conflicts, thousands of Americans died for allied freedom and were buried in now well-manicured cemeteries, close to where they fell. 

In November 1972, I was nineteen years old and living in southern France.  I visited the Rhône American Cemetery at Draguignan, about forty miles west of Cannes, near the town of St. Raphael.  This 12 ½-acre cemetery holds 860 graves and a wall with the names of 294 missing-and-presumed-dead soldiers from the U.S. Seventh Army’s invasion of Southern France in August 1944.   I learned that the invasion originally was to take place in June 1944, a simultaneous landing with the larger one at Normandy.  Together, they were to create a two-front offensive against German forces in France.  But, we didn’t have enough landing craft to support two landings at once; therefore, we had to wait until August 1944 to open the southern front.  The Seventh Army eventually landed and fought its way 400 miles northward to join up with the expanded Normandy forces.  Our unified forces created a front that stretched from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.  On that bright fall afternoon in 1972, I reverently stood among gently contoured rows of crosses, trying to take in the solemnity of my surroundings.  I experienced something there that my military service throughout the world has since reinforced.  In the shade of French oleanders and cypress trees, I felt as if I were on an American hillside amidst heroes who had fought valiantly for freedom and who were buried close to where they fell.  Nearly forty years later, I feel that same reverence every day the Stars and Stripes fly in front of our home.   

21 May 2013 –

“What Difference At This Point Does It Make?”

This administration’s tapestry of the Benghazi scandal may be on the verge of unraveling.  Eventually, all such weavings, those with a warp of arrogance and a weft of deceit, do unravel.    We conspiracy nuts have been snipping on the edges of this tapestry, finding threads to hold on to.  To us, the damning issue is not the miscasting of the reasons for the attacks, i.e., the editing of administration talking points.  Neither is it the decision to stand-down rescue forces, if that decision had been made based solely on events of that day.  The real issue, the one that could condemn people in this administration, finally may be emerging from the shadows.    

PJ Media has reported that people with reason to know are revealing that Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi to talk to al-Queda operatives.  He was there to try to buy back the Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that Secretary Clinton’s State Department had covertly given to a group of insurgents in Libya to help overthrow Mohamar Qadafi.  These sources also reported that the CIA refused to be part of this arms decision, citing the risk that these missiles posed to civilian aircraft.  The sources also say that Secretary Clinton proceeded anyway, trying to “overthrow Qadafi on the cheap.”  Later, Ambassador Stevens was quietly sent to clean up the missile mess when it was discovered—shocked I am!—that these helpful insurgents were actually al-Queda and that they still had some of the missiles.  It makes sad sense to posit that these same al-Queda bad guys attacked our Benghazi consulate and killed the emissary sent there to meet with them.   

I agree with PJ Media’s source who regarded the whole enterprise as totally “amateurish.”  It is totally plausible that Secretary Clinton and the Obama Administration have performed in their three-ring circus of absurd talking points, no rescue of besieged Americans, and accusations that Republican cuts in DEPSTATE security funding were the cause of the deaths, in order to cover this up.  If the real reason that Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi isn’t exactly what these sources say, at least heavier hitters than just conspiracy nuts may start to focus on the real issue:  Why did Secretary Clinton and President Obama send Ambassador Stevens to Benghazi? 

Given this new information, I want to weave a plausible tapestry on the frame described above.   The Secretary of State decided to give anti-aircraft missiles to an “insurgent group,” which turned out to be al-Queda.  Such decisions are long-shot bets, audacious or foolish, depending on eventual success or failure.  This time, the decision can’t be described as audacious.  Making this decision public would have forced the Secretary to admit fault and to possibly resign; therefore, the Secretary of State chose to double down on the original, bad bet by trying to buy back the missiles and by doing it on, of all days, the anniversary of 9/11, and in, of all places, the terrorist pit called Benghazi.  The Secretary mistakenly allowed her opponents to set up the entire scenario.  Her emissary walked into a deadly trap.    

Until this moment, these “amateurish” decisions were leading only to failure and embarassment for the Secretary and, by extension, for the administration.  But, when things turned deadly, even worse “decisions were made.”  The Secretary—and, according to PJ Media’s source—the White House, refused to authorize forces to rescue their hapless emissary.  After all, no one in the know would then be able to talk about poor decisions or possible crimes.   You were right, Madame Secretary, when you said “What difference at this point does it make?”  If you made the Ambassador suffer for your sins, nothing you did, do now, or will do, will have made a difference for you.   

Such a tapestry does not display just a cover-up of poor decisions in a pop-up crisis; instead, it displays a lengthy series of dangerously bad decisions.  These same threads were then woven into a nefariously corrupt scene of hanging Ambassador Stevens out to die.  If this scene is accurate, then we know pretty much the worth of the life of an Ambassador of the United States to our former Secretary of State and to whoever was awake in the White House when the Commander of US Africa Command, General Carter Ham, was ordered to stand down rescue forces.  Anyone in line for an ambassadorship before 2017 should carefully examine the threads of this tapestry.     

18 May 2013 –

No Surprise In What He Said—Or In How He Said It.

Steven Miller’s testimony yesterday to the House Ways and Means Committee about IRS abuse of power was best described as that of a disrespectful, self-important teenager saying “You’re not the boss of me.”  He even had the audacity to refer to his agency’s performance as “customer service.”   How could he act this way in front of such a powerful committee?   

The answer hit me when I realized that Mr. Miller was a career IRS agent.  Tellingly, he once headed e actually the very office that decided which political groups would receive “increased scrutiny.”  I quickly saw his performance as an example of the IRS’s bureaucratic culture capturing and then corrupting the agency’s employees and their mission.         

I spent thirty years in one of the most bureaucratic organizations on earth:  The United States Air Force.  I have an advanced degree in Public Administration, aka, bureaucratic crap.  I have worked extensively with the State Department and with foreign governments and militaries.  My experience confirms what I saw in Mr. Miller’s performance:  All organizations create bureaucracies, which, in turn, engender and protect organizational cultures; and, they often do this at the expense of the organizations’ original missions.  The self-serving interests of ensconced bureaucratic cultures help us understand not only Mr. Miller’s performance, but the IRS’s vested interest in assaulting conservative organizations, and President Obama’s guiding role in this scandal.  

Every government organization, no matter its official mission, quickly coalesces around a culture.  This culture often coopts and guides organizational action.  For example, the Air Force’s mission is to be an integral part of a larger organization—Department of Defense—that fights our nation’s wars.  But, if you ask an Air Force fighter pilot what her mission is, she will say that it is to “fly, fight, and win.”  The technology of powered flight gave the Air Force its original “raison d’être” among the military services at the same time that it engendered a powerfully self-serving flying culture.   The scarf-in-the-wind culture naturally inspires and motivates Airmen.  It also helps sell complex arguments in the interagency budget and mission allocation battles.  But, in one case, drone technology languished for decades before the Air Force begrudgingly gave up pilot seats in aircraft for console seats in distant bunkers.  Such cultural power stultifies innovation and risks government success.  A flying culture also promotes pilots who, when leading the organization, have personal reasons to perpetuate the limited culture.  That is a tough system to deconstruct.    

The IRS as well has powerful cultural and organizational motivation to perpetuate its involvement in the present liberal, wastrel government.   The IRS’s powerful role as the arbiter of a complex tax code has long been abetted by the growth of a regulatory and intrusive government.  The thousands of agents that will swell IRS ranks to implement Obamacare, for example, will give the agency even more organizational, cultural, and personal power.  On the other hand, the IRS stands to lose tremendous organizational power if TEA Party and other conservative movements convince politicians of the necessity for limited government.  Limited government, lower taxes, and a simplified tax code—all conservative goals—could even eliminate the IRS as a major agency.   It is no wonder that Mr. Miller doesn’t admit to deliberate abuse of conservative movements.  He probably justifies his actions as necessary to perpetuate a powerful culture and organization that he bought into years ago.  It makes perfect sense to do what Mr. Miller did—in a corrupt, selfish sense, that is. 

What about President Obama’s role in this scandal?  I predict that there will be no tapes or e-mails implicating the President in these crimes.  The IRS did not need explicit presidential direction.  Mr. Miller and his fellow career IRS employees implemented common cultural and organizational survival practices when they blatantly abused conservative 501 (c) 4 applicants.  I repeat: The IRS did not need outside prodding.   Abusing conservative organizations helps the IRS thrive.  Therefore, Mr. Miller’s testimony that such abuse by his agency was not partisan is correct in a corrupt sort of way.  The IRS naturally satisfied the President’s partisan political and economic agenda because that is where the money is for the IRS.  It is no wonder that Mr. Miller, the career IRS agent, was so defiant and arrogant in front of the conservative House Ways and Means Committee; his culture has always rewarded him for doing so.  The President will survive this scandal because the IRS did his partisan work for him.  

15 May 2013 –

The President is in political trouble.  There even are mumblings of impeachment.  If he does not resolve today’s big three scandals with aggressive action, the House of Representatives may indeed start impeachments proceedings by next year.  There are two views of the effectiveness of impeachment.  Pragmatists say that the House would accomplish little by impeaching the President for his involvement in the current scandals; the Senate would never convict him.  Altruists contend that impeachment without the conviction still would be valuable because it would force the President to confront his bad acts.  Later generations, altruists say, will need these facts to accurately assess history.     

I remember President Nixon in 1973-74.  The House of Representatives was drawing up articles of impeachment based on the President’s misuse of the IRS to attack his political enemies and on his complicity in the bungled break-in of Democrat Party offices in the Watergate Apartments.  Why did Nixon, a renown political survivor, resign instead of fight through the process?  It wasn’t simply because he was guilty.  It was because Republican leaders finally said that they would not support him in the House’s impending impeachment and, importantly, in the Senate’s trial to convict.  Nixon knew his political life was over.  Initiating impeachment proceedings forced President Nixon to resign because his party supported what was right.       

The House, on the other hand, impeached President Clinton on 19 December 1998, on two charges: perjury—lying under oath while being questioned by federal agents about his sexual relations with White House aide, Monica Lewinsky—and obstruction of justice.   President Clinton survived the trial in the Senate, even with fifty of fifty-five Republicans in the Senate voting for conviction, because NO Democrat voted for his conviction.  President Clinton’s Democrat confederates stolidly held that his acts did not “rise to the level of impeachable offenses.”  President Clinton lost his law license in his home state of Arkansas, but not his key to the Oval Office. 

Steady party support for a beleaguered president is required in our era of divided government.  If the President has it, he survives the impeachment process.  If he doesn’t, he is gone.  In President Obama’s case, Democrat Party support is holding firm.  But, as in President Nixon’s case, that support can erode during the long hot summer. 

The President faces three scandals of political importance: the Benghazi cover-up; the IRS’s deliberate intimidation of conservative political groups; and, the Justice Department’s flagrant abuse of the Associated Press’s First Amendment’s rights.  I start with the last one.   

The President could make this Justice Department scandal meaningless to all Democrats and a temporary success to some Republicans.  He could tell Attorney General Eric Holder to resign and then to appoint a conservative Democrat or a moderate-to-liberal Republican to “refocus” the Justice Department.  Then, no matter what came of the investigations, scrupulously reported on by the vengeful press, there probably would be little pressure to implicate the President in any illegal decision-making.   Political case closed. 

President Obama has a bigger problem with the misdirection of the IRS’s power.  This worries Democrat politicians because the IRS scares the average Democrat voter more than any other function in government.  Democrat politicians could lose significant support in future elections by not treating this scandal as something that “rises to the level” of a serious offense.  The President could still resolve this scandal.  He could direct the IRS commissioner, Steven Miller, to apologize publically for the abuse and to immediately “refocus” the agency.  The President could then assure the American people that IRS rules will be followed scrupulously for all Americans.  Democrat politicians would thus be appeased, and life would go on.

“Benghazi” is a serious threat to President Obama’s tenure because the President has little control over what has become a determined investigative process.  Eventually, the most despicable facts will be brought to light about why Americans were killed on 11 September 2012.  The worst will be when America finally knows the real reason for the cover-up: The President wanted Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi for something he wanted nobody to know about.  To cover up this when things went awry, he hung the Ambassador out to die and went to bed early.  When that becomes known, no Democrat anywhere will risk political suicide by voting against impeachment and conviction.  This game will be long and painful.  The pragmatists will disappear.  The rest of us will feel little joy in the eventual verdict.