I did not watch the first round of impeachment hearings on Wednesday gavel to gavel. Just enough to get firsthand a sense of the witnesses and of those questioning them. It goes without saying I have read and listened to a ridiculous amount of reporting and commentary and will continue to do so. Nothing from the first day is likely to change hearts and minds.
This morning I am watching Marie Yovanovitch and unable to tear myself away. She is most impressive, sympathetic, an American hero. Her testimony and her experiences, documented in the public record, do nothing but bolster the case for impeachment.
Charlie Sykes as usual offers a good summary and analysis of Wednesday's action at The Bulwark: 10 Takeaways From Day One of Impeachment. Maybe Charlie and the gang should put me on the payroll, what will all the promotion I do for them.
Upcoming hearings (CNN's Next week's schedule of public impeachment hearings has links to transcripts of previous testimony)
- Friday, November 15: US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch
- Tuesday, November 19, morning: Jennifer Williams (State Department official advising vice president’s office; this is the other Jennifer Williams, not to be mistaken for my niece Jennifer Williams, by the bye) and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (National Security Council Ukraine expert)
- Afternoon: Kurt Volker (former US special representative to Ukraine) and Tim Morrison (National Security Council staffer)
- Wednesday, November 20, morning: Ambassador to the EU and Portland hotel magnate Gordon Sondland
- Afternoon: Laura Cooper (deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia) and David Hale (the under secretary of state for political affairs)
- Thursday, November 21: former White House Russia expert Fiona Hill
Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer could better serve the country by devoting their considerable resources to the campaign against Donald Trump and malign actions of the regime than they do by murking the waters with runs for the Democratic nomination.
I would have given Deval Patrick a close and serious look if he had announced his candidacy last summer. Now I just don't know if his entrance into the race enhances a Democratic field that I once found impressive but that now leaves me concerned about the prospects for November 2020.
Recent blog posts include Parts I and II of a three-parter triggered by Agnès Poirier's delightful book Left Bank: Art, Passion, and the Rebirth of Paris, 1940–50. The pieces also draw extensively on Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails, Tony Judt, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944–1956, Simone de Beauvoir's novel The Mandarins, and to a lesser degree Olivier Todd's biography of Albert Camus and other sources.
Camus, Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre are central figures in all three parts. Part I deals with occupation, resistance, liberation, and the purge of intellectuals accused of collaboration. Part II takes up the second half of the decade when fame reared its head and our heroes became public figures and improbable celebrities. In the concluding segment I reflect on the meaning these people have for me, our present time of discord and crisis, and what the heck it is I think I am up to.
The essays run on at greater length than I had in mind when I set out. Something more concise and general might have been a better option, as would something of grander ambition and scale. There is too much of interest about the people and the period that I did not want to leave out for the former option, and at present insufficient ambition and maybe competence for the latter.
Links to recent posts can be found below in the customary place.
Keep the faith.
yr obdt svt
