Darrin Bell / King Features Syndicate
Saturday, May 11, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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The May 5 political cartoon by Darrin Bell makes a powerful and important point, although Brian Greenspun on April 28 nailed elements of impeachment complexities in his column “For now, voters should decide ‘impeachment’ in 2020.” The Democratic House of Representatives has a legislative responsibility to deal with public issues such as health care, climate change, jobs, taxes, immigration, etc., but it also has the responsibility to educate the public.
Bell’s cartoon vividly points out the education value of the impeachment investigative hearing process by the fact that public interest in the Nixon impeachment increased from 19% after two years of media news to 57% after congressional hearings — a real show of how the investigative hearing education affects public interest.
Impeachment is a two-step process — the investigation and the trial, both of which are important and have their own relative value. An inherent benefit of impeachment hearings is that they cannot be stonewalled by an administration. Richard Nixon’s impeachment never reached the stage of a Senate trial. I’m sure Greenspun would agree that a Democratic House can both educate and legislate.
