Four cardinal rules of politics:

1) don’t change your opponent’s soiled diapers;

2) scandals possess short half-lives;

3) don’t strike before having the votes;

4) play your best cards last. 

Political change occurs glacially.  Those lacking necessary patience stymie those who comprehend politics’ rules.  Conservatives braying for Biden’s head have no idea how to effectuate political objectives.  This same mindset -- wisely opposed by Chief Justice Rehnquist -- demanded Bill Clinton be impeached.  What did that accomplish?  How did the nation benefit in terms of lasting impacts on economics, foreign affairs, or legislative action?  (Bush 43 would have subsequently been elected anyway, for other reasons.) 

Politics is not a sporting event to entertain fans of opposing teams.  It is a strategic battle to effect change, accomplished by winning elections.  Which requires attracting crossover voters, not pandering to an existing base.  Those demanding prompt impeachment need to consider how this impacts the upcoming election. 

Impeachment dies in the Senate, absent far more evidence and public support. 

Where are 67 votes?  Where are the lopsided polls?  Emerson (and Trump) on Politics 101: “When you strike at a king, you must kill him.” 

Democrats’ two failed Trump impeachments harmed them more than helped, martyring their target. 

Impeachment will not occur until senators increasingly conclude voting along party lines is suicidal.  That will take a while.  More Joe Manchins and fewer Chuck Schumers and Lindsey Grahams, or Joni Ernsts and John Thunes, are required before the Senate inherits a trial. 

Trump stood a better chance of conviction in a Senate trial than Biden now does.  Seven “Republicans” voted to convict in Trump impeachment 2.0.  Democrats hold ranks; Republicans break ranks.  Anyone thinking Biden has not warehoused truckloads of blackmail leverage -- against former Senate colleagues -- needs better quality drugs.  After half-a-century in Washington, he knows where the bodies are buried.  This could be entertaining if Biden goes scorched earth. 

Democrats have a Biden and a Harris problem.  The Trainwreck Twins.  The longer they remain, the more the public perceives their party as a putrid dumpster fire.  The ongoing drip, drip, drip of corruption evidence adduced in House hearings keeps flooding the zone, dominating news cycles. 

The fiction of Biden being his party’s 2024 nominee is absurd.  His regency is Weekend at Bernie’s on steroids.  Democrats should be encouraged to continue their fantasy.  They know it is delusional but must maintain pretenses. 

Democrats desperately seek solutions.  Their problem is determining how to give Biden the hook, a tool too many conservatives would provide.  Biden is systematically destroying the hollow shell of their imploding party.  Newsome would welcome an early impeachment.  Imagine this happy scenario: Biden serves out his term while another Democrat is the nominee.  The longer he stays, the better for Republicans.  Democrats’ best hope is a 25th Amendment medical crisis, something Republicans should pray never happens. 

No matter what, their Harris problem remains, unless some high-level sinecure can be secured for her. 

Too many begrudge GOP leaders for not convening an impeachment.  Trump’s silence on the subject is strategic.  The election is almost 15 months out, countless political lifetimes. 

Prematurely moving against Biden would be foolhardy.  There are no April, August, or even September surprises.  Only October surprises carry political weight.  Political scandals possess short half-lives.  The Afghan withdrawal disaster of two summers ago remains a distant memory. 

Republicans control this scandal’s timing, so why play strong cards long before the game ends?  Only the 2024 election matters, including capturing the Senate. 

The impeachment chorus must realize a prompt impeachment allows Democrats time to convene primaries to reveal their best candidate.  They are in checkmate.  If Biden survives impeachment, they lose.  If he is removed and Harris ascends, the public is reminded of Democrats’ rotten bench.  Senators voting against impeachment become wounded.  A MAGA win-win-win.  Individual Republicans scoring points by filing impeachment motions are making hollow gestures.

Impeachment will occur in good time, not before.  Senators will face deciding whether to go down with USS Biden.  Speculation on the vote outcome is premature, which is the point.  We don’t know what crops Republicans are germinating.  Whether they yet possess all the facts is unclear. 

If Biden is defenestrated, he becomes Nixon, destroying Democrats’ 2024 election chances, perhaps for a generation.  He has essentially already accomplished this.  Increasingly negative economic conditions in coming months, plus hordes of illegal immigrants, contribute to this outcome. 

If Biden goes, Democrats must still figure out what to do with Harris.  She is electoral poison.  Imagine Trump debating either -- roadkill.  The Trainwreck Twins embody H.L. Mencken’s ultimate fantasy:

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.  On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

The longer Weekend at Bernie’s plays on endless loop, the more defectors abandoning Democrats’ trainwreck. 

The longer House hearings peel back the curtain concealing wholesale corruption, the more the political calendar resembles Groundhog Day -- each day reprises the previous one.  One shoe drops Monday.  Tuesday, another drops, etc. 

Biden, Inc. scandals have reached critical mass.  Democrats and media enablers are frantically inserting control rods, attempting to delay the inevitable explosion.  Each increasingly flimsy Trump indictment portends the explosion’s proximity.  We are witnessing Mark Twain’s description of “the calm confidence of a Baptist preacher holding four aces.”  Preacher McCarthy conceals his cards.  The 118^th Congress was seated Jan. 3, 2021, 1,402 days before the 2024 election. 

It is over 950 days old.  Less than 450 days remain until the election, two-thirds through this timeline.  History becomes increasingly and exponentially compressed during the lead-up to Nov. 5, 2024.  Democrats milked Nixon’s impeachment across 294 days, flipping 49 House seats in the next midterms.  Next year is guaranteed to be tumultuous, as a doomed president and party desperately lash out. 

House Republicans are hoarding aces, holding them close to the vest.  One trump card: 44,000 hours of J6 Capitol videos.  The likelihood approaches zero that these videos are unsealed in 2023.  2024 is another matter. 

Republicans are only beginning to suggest subpoenaing Biden relatives.  The agenda is obvious: target numerous Biden family members and shell corporations; and grant business associates transactional immunity -- beginning slowly in the Fall. 

Are public hearings primarily for obtaining information or advertising known facts?  Or for publicizing DOJ pretend investigations to obstruct House inquiries?  What knowledge are Republicans holding back? 

News cycle control is political gold, with Republicans possessing the upper hand. 

Shoes are now continuously dropping.  Only Trump indictments, and similar magnitude events, provide distractions.  It's wonderful when a plan comes together.  Meanwhile, savor watching Democrats falling on swords to cover for a deviant crackhead and his lying, demented, decrepit, lecherous, perverted, crooked, treasonous (not necessarily in that order) parent person. 

No liberal historians will draft Biden hagiographies.  No ships, military bases, highways, schools, post offices, or dog pounds will be named after him.  No currency or postage stamps will bear Biden’s likeness.  No eternal flame will illuminate his tomb. 

Image: Screen shot from a camera aimed at a television set during a live broadcast