Let me begin by noting I am 72 years old; have been involved in political campaigns since I was 8 because of my mother’s involvement in the League of Women Voters; watched TV coverage of the McCarthy hearings at that age because my mother watched; because of that and my career at a journalist I personally knew every governor of my state since 1957; participated in my first presidential campaign in the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon race; and have followed and been involved in politics ever since. I mention this not to brag, but to establish my bona fides as knowing what the hell I’m talking about.
In every major scandal or dispute in my life, there has been a word or phrase that epitomized the issue. In Watergate, it was the “tapes.” In the Clinton scandal it was the “dress.” In GWB’s presidency it was the “lie” about Iraq; In Carter’s presidency it was “Tehran.” In Obama’s years, it was “birther.” The tapes brought down Nixon and the dress nearly brought down Clinton. The lie about Iraq should have sent several people to prison, and the birther crap seriously hindered the Obama presidency.
In more than 1,000 days, Donald Trump has proven to be the Teflon Don. Despite more than 14,000 lies, despite disastrous trade decisions, despite clear corruption and self-dealing, Trump has survived.
But he’s not going to survive impeachment because he decided he’s bigger than the United States, bigger than the law, and bigger than the Constitution. And now he knows all those assumptions were wrong — all because of one word: deliverables. The Schiff report outlines it all.
Of course the first mistake was the one every conman avoids — including too many people in the con, so many that the con comes back to you.
The second mistake was assuming that you’ve selected the “best people” to pull off the con. I mean, let’s be real. If YOU were looking to pull off a con, would you ally yourself with Rudy Guiliani, Lev Parnas, Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry, Mike Pence, and the rest of the cast of characters in this slapstick comedy? I suspect you could find people living under a bridge who are more reliable than these clowns. Certainly more loyal.
And then, would you not care that they shot their mouths off or exposed the plot to subordinates who could testify against them, and, by extension, you?
To get to my point, the conspiracy was so widespread they had to start speaking in code, and the key code word in the whole debacle is “deliverables.”
Deliverables means something is being delivered. If you “want nothing”, if you “want no quid pro quo”, then there is nothing to be delivered. And yet the “best people” in this scenario keep talking about “deliverables.” And they use that term when they talk to everybody — Rudy, Sondland, Mulvaney.
Deliverables in this contest can only mean one thing — that which you want delivered, i.e. dirt on the Bidens.
The word itself is the smocking gun. We want to address corruption in Ukraine, something nobody has addressed to date, including Trump. But we don’t talk about corruption, we talk about “deliverables.” Why? Because we don’t want people to know what we are actually talking about. And, most importantly, we ain’t talking about corruption.
As the impeachment moves ahead, the word “deliverables” is going to play a major role, because it defines the motive, loud and clear.