As if Democrats didn't screw the impeachment pooch for themselves earlier by having a House case so weak that they had to ask the Senate to call their witnesses for them, and then presenting long, long, long-winded opening arguments that sent scores of Senate jurors fleeing the room, they have some hella bizarre logic in finishing out their case: insult the jurors.

That's some persuasion strategy.

It's as though they aren't interested in winning, not even with that tiny number of weak Republican swing senators they need to persuade, who were more insulted than anyone.

House manager Adam Schiff did the final honors in his closing argument, and the New York Times ran this gleeful headline:

Emotional Schiff Speech Goes Viral, Delighting the Left and Enraging the Right

Enraging?  Really?  Oh, honey, we're long past outrage.

The content of the piece was useful, however, beginning with what Schiff actually said.

First, there was Thursday's declaration that "you know you can't trust this president to do what's right for this country," and then on Friday, he invoked a news report that Republican senators had been warned that their heads would be "on a pike" if they voted against Mr. Trump.

The piece then went into a long string of quotes from assorted Democrats beating their fins together, with one far-left activist calling it "a speech for the ages" and the august Debra Messing tweeting, "I am in tears."

As a sort of afterthought, it followed with the Republicans, saying they had "the opposite reaction":

"I don't trust Adam Schiff," Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, shot back.

On Fox News, Mr. Schiff was filleted. "Amateur Thespian Schiff Tries Out Some New Lines," TV monitors broadcasting the network declared Thursday, as the host Tucker Carlson mocked the congressman, calling him a "wild-eyed conspiracy nut."

And if Mr. Schiff had made any inroads with Republicans in the Senate chamber, he may have undercut them on Friday with his "head on a pike" remark, drawn from an anonymously sourced CBS News report. Mr. Schiff used it to liken Mr. Trump to a monarch, but the implication was that Republicans were terrified of crossing him.

"The whole room was visibly upset on our side," said Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, "and it's sad, it's insulting and demeaning to everyone to say that we somehow live in fear and that the president has threatened all of us to put our head on the pike."

Memo to the Times: This is a trial, not a word contest.  Democrats are presumably out to win it.  The entire Senate impeachment trial is about changing the opinions of a few Republicans.  The buried lede is that they just trashed their own case for impeachment by satisfying their urge to insult and offend Republicans, who happen to be the jurors.  What's it they say about emotional intelligence being the capacity to delay gratification a little longer for the big prize?  They don't have it.

That's some strategy for winning.

And it's not the first.  A day earlier, Jerry Nadler insulted the very swing senators the Democrats need to get their witnesses and vote off the ground, stating that anyone who didn't agree to impeach President Trump was engaging in a "cover-up" and was effectively treasonous.  Fox News reports how well that went down:

[Swing Senator Susan] Collins told Politico she was "stunned" by Nadler's comments, and confirmed to the outlet that she wrote a note that made its way to Roberts after a tense back and forth between Nadler and White House Chief Counsel Pat Cipollone.

"It reminded me that if we were in a normal debate in the Senate, that the rule would be invoked to strike the words of the senator for impugning another senator," she told Politico. "So, I did write a note raising the issue of whether there'd been a violation of the rules."

Collins said she gave the note to the secretary for the majority, Laura Dove, and "shortly thereafter, the chief justice did admonish both sides. And I was glad that he did."

That was what got Supreme Court justice John Roberts to intervene, effectively telling Nadler to knock it off in general terms.  Swing senator Collins wasn't the only one who was insulted:

Also included in that group is Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who said this week she was offended by Nadler's presentation.

"I took it as offensive," she told reporters Wednesday. "As one who is listening attentively and working hard to get a fair process, I was offended."

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said Democrats took "a huge step backward" in their opening.

"I mean, that's an extraordinary thing to say on the floor of the United States Senate, the middle of the trial, and that's what drew the rebuke and rightly so," Hawley said. "I can tell you, there was an open, open gasping on the Senate floor when Nadler was saying these things. I mean, It's really, really extraordinary."

 Again, these are people the Democrats are trying to persuade. Collins herself said early on that she was in favor of calling witnesses as the Democrats wanted. These days the news coming out is that growing numbers of Republicans want to scrap the whole mess and cut if off now.

And the latest headline from the Huffington Post is:

Democrats Growing Nervous About Next Week's Vote On Trial Witnesses

Umm, well, yeah. They insult their jurors and wonder why they haven't got the votes? Cause, effect, something even a toddler can understand. Yet this apparently never figured in their calculations and now they're worried? Life is full of surprises.

That's the real story here - we have the world's stupidest impeachment managers -- putting all those years of effort into impeachment and when they finally get to the Senate finish line, they punk it for themselves for that little ape-like satisfaction of insulting Republicans, the very Republicans they need to win over. 

Somewhere, President Trump is smiling. When he says "winning" he means winning. Democrats have just proven they're so against Trump they're against even the idea of winning itself.

Image credit: CNN via shareable YouTube screen shot.