(01-29-2020, 06:46 PM)Gabe Wrote:

(01-29-2020, 05:06 PM)mikesez Wrote: Dershowitz is basically correct, but each senator should make up his own mind about whether what Trump did was in the public interest or not.
If it was only about corruption in general, and didn't affect things on Ukraine's front lines, maybe it was in the US public interest.
But if it was just specific to the Bidens and crowdstrike, that's not in the US public interest at all.  That's partisan.

I didn't take it to mean that at all. 

If the claim is that the president's re-election is in the national interest, therefore doing whatever necessary to achieve said re-election (inferring that includes the solicitation of foreign assistance in doing so) isn't impeachable...that's a hell of a slippery slope. 

Am I not hearing the Dershword Salad with ranch correctly?

I can't say if I read it correctly. But I did read it to mean something like, "voters like actions that are in the public interest. If the action is in the public interest, but the president only cares about his election chances, and only did it to help his election chances, he can't be impeached for that. even though you could say his motives were bad."

If that's what he meant, he's making a logically valid argument. But he is taking it as a given that the president acted in the public interest. Senators should look not just at the transcripts, but all of the text messages and overheard phone calls and decide if the president was trying to reduce corruption in Ukraine, or only hurt Democrats.

If, on the other hand, he meant it the way you read it, then he is completely wrong. assuming that one party's success is in the public interest and the other party's is not, that is begging the question that the elections themselves are meant to resolve.

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