The strategy the House impeachment managers are employing as they "make their case," has become apparent, and if not countered, Republicans may win the battle but lose the war.

The Laurel & Hardy of the House (Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler, assuming that the original comedy duo were hopelessly corrupt and wholly untethered to honesty) tell us of the existence of "overwhelming evidence" for crimes like bribery, extortion, and various solicitations of felonious behavior (and more!), proceeding to characterize the ordinary conduct of the president's constitutional prerogatives as proof of their allegations.

We hear them breathlessly describe all manner of malfeasance, all attributable to the horrible Orange Man who stole Hillary's birthright in 2016 with a crushing electoral win, but what have we not heard?

We have heard next to nothing about the actual articles of impeachment, the supposed abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

The Democrats impeached on a fallacious basis.  To accept their premise, one must be willing to believe that House Democrats have supernatural knowledge of the unspoken thoughts of the president and all others involved.  The foundation of their case is the president being guilty of something Orwell usefully coined as "thoughtcrime."  The American people have soundly rejected that concept.

While unhinged, the Democrats are not entirely unthinking.  I suspect they have always known their impeachment articles are ludicrous — and never expected to gain a conviction with them.  They only needed them to unlock the door to the Senate trial, where they can argue anything but those articles.

With wall-to-wall coverage and a complicit, echoing media covering the Senate trial, they can make wild, insupportable accusations of the very crimes for which they could not find evidence — certainly not enough evidence to include as an article (the aforementioned bribery, extortion, etc).

They will smear the president with these already disproven accusations during their 15 minutes of fame on the Senate floor, hoping the viewing audience will believe these smears to be the actual articles, leading to a general public outrage when the Senate acquits the president of the real articles, which were laughable from the start.

The president's team needs Senate Republicans to cut off the Dems' strategy at the knees by pushing for a vote to limit the House manager's statements to the delivered articles only, with threat of removal from the floor should she stray.

This is hardball time, folks.  If we're smart, the Dems will soon discover they foolishly brought a knife to a gunfight.

The author writes from Omaha, Nebraska and welcomes visitors to his website, www.dailyherring.com.