It's hard to decide which of the two star witnesses the Democrats chose to kick off their impeachment show was more embarrassing when it comes to the central question underlying the entire inquiry: the alleged impropriety — the Dems now call it "bribery" — of asking Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden's spectacularly lucrative ($50K/month) involvement with Burisma.  If Biden's Burisma bounty deserves investigation, then it is more than a bit silly to castigate the POTUS for promoting a Ukrainian investigation of it.  Touting such a request as worthy of overriding a presidential election with impeachment and conviction is a hard sell.

Of the two witnesses, deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent was more forthright.  He admitted there was a "perception of a conflict of interest":

And he is all in favor of investigating what happened to taxpayer dollars:

George Kent: "To summarize, we thought the [CEO of Burisma] had stolen money. We thought a prosecutor had take an bribe to shut the case."
GOP counsel: "Are you in favor of that matter being fully investigated and prosecuted?" https://t.co/Tbcm4X2OaU pic.twitter.com/RybEdDQuZN

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) November 13, 2019

Of course, as Tristan Justice of The Federalist points out, he was already on the record about this in the closed door testimony whose transcripts have been released:

Kent also testified in a private deposition that he voiced his discomfort over the situation to the White House in 2015 where administration officials brushed off Kent’s concerns.

"I raised my concerns that I had heard that Hunter Biden was on the board of a company owned by somebody that the U.S. Government had spent money trying to get tens of millions of dollars back and that could create the perception of a conflict of interest," Kent told lawmakers behind closed doors in October. "The message that I recall hearing back was that the vice president's son Beau was dying of cancer and that there was no further bandwidth the deal with family related issues at that time... That was the end of that conversation."

Kent's State Department colleague Ambassador William Taylor was even more damaging, at least in one way.  He just sat there in silence — five whole seconds of it, an eternity on national television:

This clip. Five solid seconds of awkward silence when Taylor is asked whether Hunter Biden's appointment to Burisma board "raises questions." pic.twitter.com/s05HbdfaXK

— Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) November 13, 2019

Neither witness had an answer when Rep. Ratcliffe asked them where the impeachable offense is:

Graphic credit: Twitter video screen grab.