Welcome to the commentary magazine podcast.

I am John Puff, where it's the editor of commentary today is Thursday November 14th, 2019, and with

me as always, senior editor A. Greenwald, hello A.

Hi John.

Associate editor Norrothman, hi Noah.

Hi John.

And in Washington, senior writer Christine, Rosen, hi Christine.

Hi John.

We had the first day of the impeachment here, public impeachment inquiry hearings yesterday.

And I think it is fair to say that nothing that happened yesterday changed anything from

anything the day before yesterday, which really I think is not the purpose of a public hearing,

right, which is in theory to start establishing the means by which your case, the case for

our impeachment in the case of the Democratic majority, starts building up steam.

And I, I, watching with as dispassionate and I, as I possibly could, think that while

the accounts of acting ambassador Taylor and the State Department of Official George Kent,

without the confusions and mess and problems in the execution of foreign policy and the

Trump era were interesting and well taken and troubling, they were interwoven with these

factoids, pieces of data suggesting the untoward behavior that should or could justify

impeachment.

And in doing so muddy the waters because they were making a case about policy failure and

policy mess and that has no place in an impeachment hearing because the president's policy is

not anything for which he should be thrown out of office and we've had, you know, 45 presidents

...