He took bribes from aspirant contractors to swing public works projects in their direction. He indignantly denied for years he’d done this until his one-time attorney ratted him out. A quondam aide of Agnew’s tried this defense: his propensity to take bribes was less pronounced than his successor or his immediate predecessors.

Agnew came from Baltimore, where taking cash from contributors was accepted practice. That’s a pretty hard habit to break. You know, of course, who else is from Baltimore, whose father was the Mayor of Baltimore during her formative years? Nancy Pelosi. She learned from her earliest years how politics works, and she learned well.

Agnew really destroyed himself with the continuation of his practice of taking cash from contributors. I’m not sure what they thought he could do for them as VP.

You really should read Pat Buchanan’s “Nixon’s White House Wars.” Pat loved Agnew and was one of very few mourners at his funeral.

“An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”

(When he became Nixon’s Vice President, replacing the hapless Spiro T. Agnew, he probably wished he could have quietly walked back that statement.)

But Uncle Gerry spoke the plain truth.

I for one am *already* tired of debating whether this or that is an impeachable offense. It is, as Ford correctly noted, whatever a majority of the House wants it to be — in which case, now that the Democrats have the majority, whaddaya say we all impeach Trump because . . .*Trump*, and move right along to the Senate, where a 2/3 vote is required to convict (and where Republicans hold a slight majority of Senate seats)?

And once *that*’s done with, whaddaya say we dispense with all the the breast-beating and virtue signaling and get down to serious work?

Won’t work. Ain’t no way it’s gonna happen.

So because the Senate won’t vote to convict, USA gets to be treated to death by a million small cuts (a political death of Trump).

I was never crazy about Trump, but I am in awe of the sheer volume and intensity of what he puts up with, day in, day out — and still has energy left over to do his job.

It’s an odd view of the world that considers that “winning” for Democrats.

All this political energy squandered zero gain.

And if they impeached Pence, they’d get another Republican. It’s not a winning strategy. It’s a strategy fired by hate that has left the tracks of logic.

Study the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

Johnson was a “War Democrat” who was Lincoln’s VP. When Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson became President but was really unprepared. The reason he was there at all was Lincoln’s desire to bring the Confederate states back into the Union. His plan was to allow amnesty to all residents of those states once they swore an oath of loyalty to the Union.

The Radical Republicans, with Edwin Stanton as leader decided to punish the South for the Assassination of Lincoln. He and Johnson became rivals.

The House’s primary charge against Johnson was violation of the Tenure of Office Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in March 1867, over the President’s veto. Specifically, he had removed from office Edwin McMasters Stanton, the Secretary of War—whom the Act was largely designed to protect—and attempted to replace him with Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas. (Earlier, while the Congress was not in session, Johnson had suspended Stanton and appointed General Ulysses S. Grant as Secretary of War ad interim.)

Congress passed a law that the President could not fire a member of his cabinet. That is a Constitutional absurdity.

Yet, Johnson survived by only one vote in the Senate.

Clinton committed illegal acts (perjury, suborning perjury) while in office. The Senate established the precedent that such acts are not sufficient for removal from office. It needs to be worse.

The hypocrisy of an impeachment would be astounding.

Precisely. It has been said before, but warrants repeating: impeachment is not a legal act; it is a political act. The incoming House will be weighing very carefully whether or not they want to take a political act that will not result in conviction in the Senate. Do they want to stir up Republican voters in the year before the next campaign begins? Or merely threaten to do so, in the hope it will stir up Democrat voters but leave Republicans quiet and happy? That is the equation Nancy is weighing every moment.

Don’t wager real money on my prediction, but it is that Nancy will continue to allow her caucus to threaten impeachment, but not get around to it. Just as Paul Ryan continued to threaten to overturn Obamacare as long as Obama sat in the White House and would veto it, but did not do so after Trump was elected.