Could they have got a couple more votes to get witnesses if they were more professional. Maybe.
* * *
Jonathan Turley agrees with you.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/jerry-nadler-made-a-huge-blunder-during-impeachment-trial-says-jonathan-turley/

Jerry Nadler made a “huge blunder” during the impeachment trial according to Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor from George Washington University Law School. “One of the things you teach law students is that when you make arguments to juries, make sure you don’t insult the jury. That is, you don’t want to make statements that make them feel stupid or ascribe any bad motivations to them,” Turley told CBS News.

They may have been playing to the gallery, but given the usual success of woke-shaming and PC-punishments, they may seriously have expected their tactic to work.

Maybe the Republican Senate isn’t totally full of snowflakes after all.

* * *
At this point, I’m not sure there’s really any distinction.

huxley on January 31, 2020 at 11:36 pm said:
…
This morning I heard a liberal cafe friend a table over cursing Republicans for preventing more witnesses and documents. Before that a conservative cafe friend at the counter was gloating over the imminent failure of impeachment. It’s a wild, wacky world.

I just listed the outlets. You could add the commentary programs on Fox and a few syndicated columnists. Again, the think tanks do not take institutional positions on campaigns, so you’d have to name employees who produce topical commentary. The only one that comes to mind is Mona Charen, who has been rather more circumspect than most of the NeverTrump crew.

Here’s an antique commentary from Jonah Goldberg on his support for John McCain (whom Wm Kristol also endorsed). https://www.nationalreview.com/2000/03/mccains-still-my-guy-jonah-goldberg/. I’m just not understanding your thesis that ‘Conservatism, Inc.’ destroyed McCain when here are a couple of pillars of it endorsing him. (Both these pillars are inveterately hostile to Trump right now). Note, he discusses Marvin Olasky’s support for Bush. Olasky’s an academic in Texas who edits World magazine on the side. He’s not what Samuel Francis used to call a ‘courtier intellectual’ at all.

As for Kristol, I think it’s obvious that he’s revealed himself as never really being a conservative at all, like many other NeverTrumpers. Max Boot recently admitted he knew nothing about Goldwater and was shocked to find out what a horrible “racist” he was. Tom Nichols just openly declared he’ll be voting for socialist Bernie Sanders over Trump.

Well, you’ve named three people. Nichols is on the faculty of the Naval War College. His CV lists precisely one article in the starboard press out of 30 years worth of publications in all kinds of venues. This one piece consisted of some remarks in National Review Online penned in 2009. I don’t see how he counts as ‘Conservatism, Inc.’ Max Boot worked for The Wall Street Journal, the Council on Foreign Relations, Commentary, and, a tad, for National Review (four articles placed during the years running from 2013 to 2017). He has been a fairly inconsequential figure in the small ponds he’s worked in (with which, bar the Council on Foreign Relations, he is no longer associated). Our moderator here knows Wm. Kristol personally and she doesn’t quite understand the set of stances he’s taken in the last five years, so I’m not sure why you fancy you have great insight.

I brought up Conservatism, Inc., a term I’ve seen elsewhere to describe the blob of think tanks, activists, advocates, media outlets, and pundits that pretty much defined discussion on the Right. My NYT link demonstrates my point, that there was far more and far more vehement opposition to McCain from that group than could be justified by the facts, which led to many of them supporting Romney in 2008, which paved the way for nominee Romney in 2012.

And while it is true not every single member of Conservatism, Inc. was anti-McCain, I don’t think that lack of universality weakens my argument.

As for Kristol, I think it’s obvious that he’s revealed himself as never really being a conservative at all, like many other NeverTrumpers. Max Boot recently admitted he knew nothing about Goldwater and was shocked to find out what a horrible “racist” he was. Tom Nichols just openly declared he’ll be voting for socialist Bernie Sanders over Trump.

Whatever these people are, they are not conservatives. And no, that doesn’t apply to all conservative Trump critics or even all NeverTrumpers. But if you throw out everything you claimed to believe over Donald Trump, you didn’t honestly believe it in the first place.

Mike

You were the one who brought up opinion journalists. At the time, you had six publications which traded in topical commentary (leaving aside the quasi-academic and policy wonk publications): National Review, The Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, Commentary, Human Events, and Chronicles. This last was a cranky palaeo publication hostile to the conventional right. The others were not antagonists, just differently formatted.

He was a perfectly mainline Republican from 1980 to 2015. He did work on Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s campaign in 1976. Moynihan during the period running from 1965 to 1981 was very much a dissenter in the Democratic Party.

I doubt they ever thought that. It’s all a skeevy public relations game. Red meat for the worst of their constituency and a conduit to force blue state Republicans to make potentially embarrassing votes. If there are any decent people in the Congressional Democratic caucus, they are very quiet.

Plenty of time for one or more Dem/MSM “bombshells”.

The left will keep up the bombardment all the way to election day.