The Spy's peerless pundit, David Bloviator, explains the impeachment inquiry

Editors' Note: Every Presidential election since Nixon/Humphrey has been explained to you, the ignorant reader, by the Spy's peerless political prognosticator and pundit, David Bloviator.  We are fortunate that again this year we are able to bring you the insights of this long-time DC fixture.  Today, as part of his quadrennial “get-to-know-white-voters” outreach, he has abandoned his usual listening post at the National Press Club bar for a booth at the leading diner in Whitesburg, Ohio, the International House of Hot Takes.

David Bloviator, now in the heartland
of white America

TMS:  Good morning Mr. Bloviator.  What have you learned by talking to the common folk of middle America, who are so often ignored by coastal elites?

DB:  Well, with Cillizza on one side and Dan Balz on the other, it's hard to find a local yokel to talk to.  And this place doesn't even have a liquor license.

TMS:  Yet it's an ideal place to find out how the impeachment proceedings are playing out here in America's heartland.

DB:  In this quaint hard-working Ohio town the residents are much too busy to spend all day watching some hearings in far-off Washington, D.C.

TMS:  What are they busy doing?

DB:  Burning meth, apparently.  I've been offered drugs at least twenty times since I got here.

TMS:  Well, what's your take on the impeachment proceedings so far?

DB:  They lack pizzazz.  They need something juicy.  Who cares about a bunch of devoted civil servants loyally serving their nation despite being undercut by the President and his lackeys?  B-o-r-i-n-g!

TMS: Don't you think that Ambassadors Taylor and Yovanovitch have made a compelling case that American interests are being undercut by the President's effort to extort campaign favors from a besieged ally?

DB:  But it's not a real ally like Turkey or North Korea.  It's some faraway place no one has ever heard of.  I mean, could you even find Ukraine on a map?

TMS:  It's pretty hard to miss.  It's about as big as Texas.

DB:  But JR doesn't live there, so who cares?

TMS:  Who's JR?

DB:  Look it up you millennial whippersnapper.

TMS:  How is it playing here in the heartland?

In heartland diners, voters don't care
about Ambassadors

DB:  Not well.  The patrons of this diner are dismissing the testimony as hearsay.

TMS:  Hearsay?  I didn't realize the law of evidence loomed so large in Whitesburg.

DB:  Oh, don't be selling the heartland short, you insufferable elitist.  Half the folks in this diner don't leave their house without their copies of Wigmore on Evidence.  And their AR-15's.

TMS:  I find that hard to believe.

DB:  I've heard more discussion here on the scope of the admissions and excited utterance exceptions to the hearsay rule than I ever heard back in Washington.

TMS:  But those rules apply to civil and criminal trials, not to Congressional investigations or pre-indictment proceedings like grand juries.

DB:  You're missing the point.

TMS:  Which is?

DB:  Impeachment will fail unless it is backed by both Democrats and Republicans.

TMS:  But that position essentially give Republicans a veto over impeachment and they have already dismissed the entire investigation without considering the credible evidence.

DB:  See I told you it was failing.  It's just a reflection of the sad state of American politics.  It's become so tribal.

TMS:  You mean between those who believe in facts and the rule of law and those who place blind faith in a corrupt Russian-dominated clueless sex criminal?

DB:  See that kind of tribal thinking won't get us anywhere.

TMS:  Well, what will?

DB:  There is a hunger in the land.

TMS:  A hunger?  For what?

DB:  For unity.  For someone who can bring us together.

TMS:  How do you accomplish that?

DB:  By nominating someone who can represent all of us.

TMS:  Like whom?

DB:  Like Bloomberg.

TMS:  How can he bring us together?

DB:  Well, he can unite the progressive base of the party with the billionaires who want to vote Democratic but think Elizabeth Warren is too extreme.

TMS:  Why is she too extreme?

Can lovable Mike Bloomberg
unite the country?

DB:  My God man have you read her program?  She wants to raise taxes on rich people.

TMS:  Isn't that a broadly popular position?

DB:  Not among rich people, you jackanape.  The rich would love to vote against the President but not if they have to pay for it.

TMS:  After fifty years of pro-rich tax policies, why shouldn't the top 1% who received all the gains in wealth share a little of it so that all can have health care?

DB:  You raise taxes on the rich and poof you've got Venezuela.

TMS:  You do?

DB:  Raising taxes on the rich would destroy jobs.  You're not trying to destroy jobs are you, Che Guevara?

TMS:  Who told you that Warren's tax increases on the rich would cost jobs?

DB:  That guy over there with the little plastic bags of gray crystals and the wad of hundreds.

TMS:  In other words, a reliable source.

DB:  He's a white man who lives in Ohio.  You tell me.

TMS:  Thank you Mr. Bloviator.