The editors of the Wall Street Journal approve of Joe Biden’s choice for Attorney General:

Joe Biden promised to lower the temperature of America’s partisan hothouse, but some of his nominations have not lived up to that promise. One that does is his selection of Merrick Garland as Attorney General, perhaps now the most important cabinet post for domestic politics.

Public confidence in the Department of Justice has been severely damaged in recent years, not least the last four, as it became clear that President Trump’s partisan adversaries manipulated the FBI and Justice Department to try to handicap his Administration. Mr. Trump toward the end of his term also increasingly demanded that the Justice Department be weaponized in reverse. Attorney General Bill Barr refused and did his best to depoliticize prosecutorial decisions.

The Biden Administration will face pressure from the left to pursue Republicans who worked in the Trump Administration, banana-republic style, along the lines Sen. Elizabeth Warren called for in her presidential campaign. Vice President Kamala Harris said in 2019 she would have “no choice” but to prosecute Mr. Trump for obstruction of justice if elected President.

But Mr. Garland, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals judge whom President Obama unsuccessfully nominated to the Supreme Court in 2016, is unlikely to have signed up for a job of political recrimination. For more than two decades he has been a mainstream center-left judge with a calm temperament and no demonstrated interest in settling scores or legal “Resistance.” In his remarks Thursday, Mr. Garland quoted Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson who said prosecutors should serve “the law and not factional purposes.”

At least since 1961 Attorneys General have served as the enforcers for the administrations they serve. Not as in “law enforcement enforcers” but as in gangland enforcers. For all I know that goes right back to the beginnings of the republic although I have never heard of such a role for Edmund Randolph, Washington’s AG. Perhaps it’s related to the increasing role of partisanship.

All signs suggest that Merrick Garland is not suited for such a role and IMO that is an extremely healthy development. He is well-suited to oversee a reorientation of the Department of Justice in the direction of its legitimate role. Housecleaning is much in order there.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal in essence concur with the assessment I made yesterday:

Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are demanding that Mr. Trump be removed from office immediately—either by the Cabinet under the 25th Amendment or new articles of impeachment. There’s partisan animus at work here, but Mr. Trump’s actions on Wednesday do raise constitutional questions that aren’t casually dismissed.

In concise summary, on Wednesday the leader of the executive branch incited a crowd to march on the legislative branch. The express goal was to demand that Congress and Vice President Mike Pence reject electors from enough states to deny Mr. Biden an Electoral College victory. When some in the crowd turned violent and occupied the Capitol, the President caviled and declined for far too long to call them off. When he did speak, he hedged his plea with election complaint.

This was an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election. It was also an assault on the legislature from an executive sworn to uphold the laws of the United States. This goes beyond merely refusing to concede defeat. In our view it crosses a constitutional line that Mr. Trump hasn’t previously crossed. It is impeachable.

Mr. Trump’s many opponents are crowing in satisfaction that their predictions have been proven right, that he was never fit to be President and should have been impeached long ago. But Mr. Trump’s character flaws were apparent for all to see when he ran for President.

Sixty-three million Americans voted to elect Mr. Trump in 2016, and that constitutional process shouldn’t be easily overruled as Democrats and the press have demanded from nearly his first day in office. You don’t impeach for anticipatory offenses or for those that don’t rise to the level of constitutional violations. This week’s actions are a far greater dereliction of duty than his ham-handed Ukrainian interventions in 2019.

The related but separate question is whether impeachment or forced removal under the 25th Amendment now is in the country’s best interests. The latter seems unwise unless Mr. Trump threatens some other reckless or unconstitutional act. After Wednesday he has promised to assist an “orderly transition” of power. A Cabinet cabal ousting him would smack of a Beltway coup and give Mr. Trump more cause to play the political victim.

Impeachment has the virtue of being transparent and politically accountable. If there were enough votes to convict in the Senate, it would also seem less partisan. The best case for impeachment is not to punish Mr. Trump. It is to send a message to future Presidents that Congress will protect itself from populists of all ideological stripes willing to stir up a mob and threaten the Capitol or its Members.

But impeachment so late in the term won’t be easy or without rancor. It would further enrage Mr. Trump’s supporters in a way that won’t help Mr. Biden govern, much less heal partisan divisions. It would pour political fuel on Wednesday’s dying embers.

All the more so because Democrats aren’t likely to behave responsibly or with restraint. They are already stumping for impeachment articles that include a litany of anti-Trump grievances over four years. Mrs. Pelosi’s ultimatum Thursday that Mr. Pence trigger the 25th Amendment or she’ll impeach also won’t attract GOP votes.

Democrats would have more impeachment credibility now if they hadn’t abused the process in 2019. A parade of impeachers that includes Russian-collusion promoters Reps. Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler would repel more Americans than it would persuade. The mission would look like political revenge, not constitutional enforcement—and Mr. Trump would play it as such until his last breath. Mr. Biden could gain much goodwill if he called off the impeachers in the name of stepping back from annihilationist politics.

If Mr. Trump wants to avoid a second impeachment, his best path would be to take personal responsibility and resign. This would be the cleanest solution since it would immediately turn presidential duties over to Mr. Pence. And it would give Mr. Trump agency, a la Richard Nixon, over his own fate.

This might also stem the flood of White House and Cabinet resignations that are understandable as acts of conscience but could leave the government dangerously unmanned. Robert O’Brien, the national security adviser, in particular should stay at his post.

We know an act of grace by Mr. Trump isn’t likely. In any case this week has probably finished him as a serious political figure. He has cost Republicans the House, the White House, and now the Senate. Worse, he has betrayed his loyal supporters by lying to them about the election and the ability of Congress and Mr. Pence to overturn it. He has refused to accept the basic bargain of democracy, which is to accept the result, win or lose.

It is best for everyone, himself included, if he goes away quietly.

What we have before us now isn’t just a Democratic problem or a Republican problem.. It’s an American problem. If it hasn’t already happened, a bipartisan delegation of senior legislators should give the president the truth in person. It’s over. It’s time to go.

Remember that “prevailing wisdom” I wrote about yesterday. At The Hill Joe Concha provides a good example of it:

You may see lots of the Schiffs and the Swalwells and Ocasio-Cortezes in the media.

Those folks may have the passion. But they won’t have the power. What happens next will likely mean a further fracturing of both parties. Because compromise may be embraced by the electorate but is also increasingly a dirty word in the D.C. swamp and political media that are built on conflict.

Read the whole thing it’s a pretty good piece.

Contrary to Mr. Concha what will happen is that Nancy Pelosi will get things passed by the House by tailoring legislation to fit the preferences of “the Schiffs and the Swalwells and Ocasio-Cortezes” and they’ll be blocked in the Senate because to get things through the Senate they’ll need to court the Manchins and Sasses.

The other tragic aspect of yesterday’s events, beyond the fact of them, is that everybody seems to think that they’re in the right. Those who’ve hated Trump all along are filled with “I told you so”s. Far from seeing what they’re doing as a coup attempt they see what they’re doing as a reaction to a coup attempt. There is no meeting of minds.

I’m seeing lots of calls for Trump’s impeachment and removal or his removal under the 25th Amendment:

Washington Post

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S refusal to accept his election defeat and his relentless incitement of his supporters led Wednesday to the unthinkable: an assault on the U.S. Capitol by a violent mob that overwhelmed police and drove Congress from its chambers as it was debating the counting of electoral votes. Responsibility for this act of sedition lies squarely with the president, who has shown that his continued tenure in office poses a grave threat to U.S. democracy. He should be removed.

David Landau and Rosalind Dixon, New York Times

The magnitude of the current crisis calls for both of these measures. The threat the president poses to our democracy is not short-lived and must be cut off urgently and decisively — before it leads to even greater degradation to American democratic processes and traditions. It will need to happen quickly, even with other demands pressing on our country’s leadership like certifying the election results, rolling out the coronavirus vaccine and calming a nation in crisis.

To do this, the cabinet and Congress must deploy the 25th Amendment and impeachment in sequence.

Bret Stephens, New York Times

It wasn’t hard to see, when it began, that it would end exactly the way it has. Donald Trump is America’s willful arsonist, the man who lit the match under the fabric of our constitutional republic.

The duty of the House of Representatives and the Senate, once they certify Joe Biden’s election, is to reconvene, Wednesday night if possible, to impeach the president and then remove him from office and bar him from ever holding office again.

New York Times

The president needs to be held accountable — through impeachment proceedings or criminal prosecution — and the same goes for his supporters who carried out the violence. In time, there should be an investigation of the failure of the Capitol Police to prepare for an attack that was announced and planned in public.

This is not just an attack on the results of the 2020 election. It is a precedent — a permission slip for similar opposition to the outcomes of future elections. It must be clearly rejected, and placed beyond the pale of permissible conduct.

The leaders of the Republican Party also bear a measure of responsibility for the attack on the Capitol.

Matthew Continetti, National Review

There will be time to sort through the wreckage of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. There is not as much time — a little less than 14 days — to constrain the president before he plunges the nation’s capital into havoc again. Incitement to trespass, harassment, and destruction cannot go unanswered. The Constitution offers remedies. Pursue them — for no other reason than to deter the president from escalation. There must be a cost for reckless endangerment of the United States government. Trump must pay.

David French, Time

The American system is under great strain – greater strain than I’ve ever seen in my entire adult life. But the system is strong. It contains the means of dealing with a deranged president. Even now, mere days before the still-certain inauguration of Joe Biden, the House can impeach Trump. The Senate can convict Trump. Together they can banish Trump from public office.

In addition, Article I, Section 5, Clause 2 of the Constitution grants each house of Congress the ability to expel a member on a 2/3 vote. The House and Senate should give those members who objected to the counting of the electoral votes – and who stoked the fear and paranoia of the mob – an opportunity to withdraw their baseless objections. If they refuse, they should be expelled.

The Dispatch

Maintaining the honor and integrity of the Party of Lincoln has fallen on too few hands these last four years. Sens. Mitt Romney, Ben Sasse. and Pat Toomey, Reps. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinziger, Mike Gallagher, and others haven’t always spoken out as much as some Trump critics would like, but they have spoken up when it has mattered most, specifically right now. Discarding this president and presidency at the finish line isn’t ideal, and many will say “too little, too late.” But given the stakes, we say, better late than never.

So, we call on the House to impeach President Trump. We call on the Senate to convict him and to disqualify him from holding “any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.”

We also recognize that the 25th Amendment permits the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to remove the president if they deem him “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” If those closest to the president in good faith find that he has become so unmoored from reality that he cannot discharge his duties, as all outward indications would suggest, then they have an obligation to act.

These measures are difficult. They require political courage. Because they require courage, they may be unlikely. But how much violence and chaos must our nation endure before we understand that cowardice has a cost? Trump has abused his office. He has violated the public trust. And now he has incited a violent attack on the Capitol and Congress. He must be removed.

If President Trump had a shred of decency or grace, he would resign and spare the country from the coming ordeal. He’s shown few signs of either of those during his term of office. Tom Paine put it best: “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

What will happen following Trump’s resignation or removal is that Mike Pence will become president. We are in all likelihood in for a very chaotic few weeks and that is likely to be true whether he stays or leaves. If he stays, will he continue to rouse his supporters? All indications are he will and the disorder in the capitol will not only be repeated it may well spread.

The events also call the 2024 presidential election into question. Will Trump be eligible to run again? Will supporting his removal qualify or disqualify one from seeking the office?

Update

Wall Street Journal

Mr. Biden will become President at noon on Jan. 20, and until then the police need to restore order with as much force as necessary. Republicans especially need to speak against trespass and violence. As for Mr. Trump, to steal some famous words deployed in 1940 against Neville Chamberlain : “In the name of God, go.”

The storming and invasion of the U. S. Capitol is not “protesting” or “demonstrating” or any other acceptable exercise of free speech. It is rioting. It needs to be denounced. President Trump needs to denounce it and tell his supporters that it is over.

I have just heard Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell give what I believe to be the most statesmanlike speech of his lengthy career in support of the Congress’s tallying and approving the votes of the Electoral College which elected Joe Biden the next president of the United States. Hatred of him on the part of Democrats is such that I doubt he will receive credit for it and its opposition to the most partisan members of his own caucus suggest he’ll receive little credit for it from Republicans either.

The facts corroborate his assertion that Democrats have repeatedly challenged election results over the last several decades. A slippery slope has been created that threatens confidence in our political system permanently. The only way to stop that slide is to declare “this far and no farther”. Both political parties must accept the results of this election and the Republicans who think otherwise are not covering themselves in glory as they apparently believe.

In his column in the Washington Post Josh Rogin points out the obvious—the Biden foreign policy team is, basically, a rerun of the Obama foreign policy team:

The Biden administration’s foreign policy leadership team is looking more and more like the Obama-Biden foreign policy leadership team from 2016 — exactly like it, in fact. Can the same people develop new approaches for a world that looks starkly different from when they left government? We’d better hope so.

Multiple sources have confirmed to me — as first reported in Politico Tuesday — that the Biden transition team is preparing to announce a list of senior appointments and nominations for national security and foreign policy positions in the incoming administration. The announcement, to come as early as this week, will include Wendy Sherman as deputy secretary of state, Victoria Nuland as undersecretary of state for political affairs and Jon Finer as deputy national security adviser.

If those names sound familiar, it’s because these are all former senior Obama administration foreign policy officials. Sherman was undersecretary of state for political affairs from 2011 to 2015 and served as the lead U.S. negotiator for the Iran nuclear deal. Nuland, a retired career Foreign Service officer, served as the State Department’s top Europe and Russia official from 2013 until Trump’s inauguration. Finer, a former journalist, held various Obama administration national security posts, including working for Biden in the vice president’s office and later as Secretary of State John F. Kerry’s chief of staff.

These latest appointments reinforce the established pattern: resurrecting the Obama foreign policy team, albeit in different positions. Secretary of state nominee Antony Blinken moved up from deputy secretary of state. The designated national security adviser to President-elect Biden, Jake Sullivan, moved up from the role of national security adviser to Vice President Biden. Kerry is back on the National Security Council Principals Committee (which he served on when as Secretary of State), this time as a special envoy for climate change. Susan E. Rice is back in the West Wing as head of the Domestic Policy Council. Biden’s Defense Department appointments fit this pattern, as well.

I sincerely hope that we can get through the next four years without embroiling ourselves in more wars in the Middle East and North Africa and providing material support to people who hate us in the hope that they will create a more liberal social order.

My experience is that leopards do not, in fact, change their spots. I suspect, for example, that the Responsibility to Protect will rear its ugly head again.

The editors of the Washington Post are outraged that so-called “protesters” are picketing and defacing Nancy Pelosi’s home:

VANDALS RANG in the new year in vile fashion at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) San Francisco residence. They deposited a severed pig’s head in her driveway shortly after midnight Friday and defaced her garage door with slogans related to their ostensible political demands: $2,000 stimulus payments and “cancel rent!”

The attack was part of an often troubling trend toward targeting the homes of politicians and other public figures, of all persuasions, for political protest. The same night that Ms. Pelosi’s home was hit, hostile graffiti also appeared on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) Louisville front door. In New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu (R) has faced repeated picketing of his home in the town of Newfields, led by right-wing opponents of a statewide coronavirus-related mask mandate. Some of the picketers have been armed. Mr. Sununu has canceled his outdoor inauguration ceremony planned for Thursday over concerns the protesters would appear there, too.

It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Although conduct is not speech dignifying bad or even criminal conduct as exercises of freedom of speech has consequences. When months of arson and defacing of public property are rationalized as “peaceful demonstrations” it’s only a small step to arson and defacing of private party and another to assault.

The place to stop is before you step onto the slippery slope. We’re getting back to the level of civil disorder that preceded the American Civil WAr.

I am both perplexed and distressed by this report from CNBC:

Dr. Scott Gottlieb warned that vaccinating Americans against Covid is more critical than ever, especially as the new South Africa variant appears to inhibit antibody drugs.

“The South Africa variant is very concerning right now because it does appear that it may obviate some of our medical countermeasures, particularly the antibody drugs,” said the former FDA chief in the Trump administration in an interview on CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” on Tuesday evening. “Right now that strain does appear to be prevalent in South America and Brazil, the two parts of the world, right now, that are in their summer, but also experiencing a very dense epidemic, and that’s concerning.

What in the world does he mean? “Obviate” means “remove”. It’s derived from the Latin o-/ob- (out) and via (way), therefore to get something out of the way. Does he mean that it resists antibody drugs? I don’t believe that even physicians use “obviate” in this sense. Do they?

If it resists antibody drugs, why would it not be resistant to antibodies and therefore vaccines as well?

As to the misuse of language I suspect it’s a case of what Chesterton called speaking Latin and Greek rather than plain English.