Daytime Drama

   All the major TV networks suspended their daytime programming to cover impeachment hearings by a House committee. Radio and key web sites also carried the hearings live as the process dominates the news cycle.
   There is little dispute over many of the facts disclosed in the inquiry. Instead, presidential defenders attack the process, with the attitude that this kind of behavior "happens all the time. Get over it," and even if it is irresponsible or even potentially illegal, it's not impeachable. Or as White House spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway put it, the process "is not following the rule of law."
   True, but impeachment is not a civil or a criminal law process. Other defenders deride the process as "purely political." But this too is true. It is indeed a political process, even as it uses civil and criminal violations as evidence of inappropriate political behavior.
   Moreover, the Constitution is quite specific on examples of impeachable behavior -- treason and bribery. It also lists "other high crimes and misdemeanors" as grounds for impeachment, but does not define these.
   The Constitution also specifies that an official may still be liable for civil or criminal prosecution after being removed from office through impeachment by the House of Representatives and trial in the Senate. That's why Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. Moreover, that constitutional provision applies only to federal offenses, not to state or local laws.
   As to whether "hush money" payments constitute bribery or whether withholding financial and military aid to a foreign government to force a "favor" constitutes extortion or a high crime or misdemeanor, that's for constitutional lawyers on the impeachment committee to decide.
   Ordinary citizens, however -- if indeed there be such -- know wrongful behavior when they see it, and they know that bribery and extortion are, in ordinary language, wrong.
   To say that such behavior is OK because "everybody does it" may be an acceptable excuse for a young teenager, but to adults on a congressional investigating committee it is a childish copout.
   Another interesting tactic is the White House attempt to claim immunity not only for the president but by extension to every member of his staff. Whether this claim survives a congressional or a court challenge also bears watching.