The most recent additions to Trump's impeachment defense team seem to me perfectly apt. Alan Dershowitz and Ken Starr are known to everyone who watches a lot of political shows on cable tv, and that certainly includes our president. I wonder whether it follows that they aren't the best people for the job. Seems doubtful that the Venn diagram of "best for job" and "known to Trump" has much overlap. The people known to him include Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Lev Parnas, Jeffrey Epstein, Michael Cohen, Rudy Giuliani, and assorted Trumps and Kushners.
I watch enough cable tv myself to know that neither Dershowitz nor Starr appear to subscribe to Trump's "perfect call" theory of the case. Dershowitz has proclaimed on tv that abuse of power, even if proven, would not be an impeachable offense—a sure sign that he thinks abuse of power can be proven. On the day of Gordon Sondland's take-2 testimony, after his memory had been "jogged" by other witnesses, Starr allowed in an interview on Fox News that "it looks bad for the president." Some of the talking heads on non-Fox channels are therefore speculating that the new additions to the defense team signal a strategic shift. Maybe not all is "perfect."
But this assumes there's "strategy." It's more likely that the president is just watching tv and hiring people he sees who seem famous and friendly. Probably it'll work. The defense's only job is to give Republican senators stuff to say to justify their vote to acquit. It shouldn't be transparently ridiculous, which precludes "perfect call," but when the verdict for acquittal is in Trump will say: See, perfect call! Complete and total exoneration!
Philip Roth said Trump has a working vocabulary of 77 words, but I think that was before, as president, he added exoneration. Also, reciprocity, the definition of which he has illustrated by using it in a sentence: "There's this thing called reciprocity."
Tremendous words. Tremendous and terrific. He has the best words.
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