Roger Kimball at American Greatness refutes the left's sore loser narrative that while Trump was found not guilty, it was not a vindication that he was innocent.

He also lists the seven Republicans who voted (along with ALL the Democrats - nope, nothing political about this impeachment!) Two were a surprise, additions to the five usual suspects who voted with the Democrats that it’s constitutional to impeach a private citizen. They are Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, and oh boy, are they already hearing from the folks back home, who quickly censured them.

But that’s nothing compared to GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, whose vote for impeachment in the House earned him a heated letter from 11 of his own relatives, calling him a “disappointment to God,” among other things.

All these Republicans claim to be unbothered by all those furious folks back home, which is usually a sign of having been in Washington so long that you think agreeing with the Washington Post is more important than representing your own people. They insist they were standing on principle, which is a noble thing and maybe they’re sincere in that. But in this case, I think their principles are misguided.

Defending the Constitution is pretty high on my list of principles, as I think it should be for all Republicans. This farcical “impeachment” of a President who left office a month ago...built on a false charge that he incited a riot with a speech in which he urged followers to protest peacefully, a riot that we now know was being planned up to two months prior to the speech Democrats blamed it on...following a rushed House impeachment process that was allegedly so urgent, they had no time for any evidence, investigation, defense or due process. And then, Nancy Pelosi proceeded to sit on it for a week and half before sending it to the Senate. And the “trial” there was yet another travesty.

All these things combined make a mockery of the serious, last-resort process of impeachment. It’s as if a potentially dangerous tool that should be handled only by trained adults has fallen into the hands of a posse of drunken teenagers. Impeachment of a President was so grave that it had happened only twice since 1776 up until last year. Now, as one wag pointed out, if you’re 18 months old, you’ve lived through half the impeachments in US history. It’s now been diminished to a cheap political attack tool that will be trotted out every time the White House and Congress are in the hands of opposite parties. And expending so much time and money on it when the nation was facing real crises made both Houses of Congress look like out-of-touch, partisan loons. They think it harmed Trump, but it really tarred themselves.

While I’ve never been a Senator, I have been a juror. And I can assure you that if a prosecutor came into court seeking a drastic punishment, then showed me “evidence” that consisted of emotional appeals, hearsay, old comments lifted out of context that had nothing to do with the case at hand, debunked fake quotes from the defendant, misleadingly edited video and falsified evidence, I don’t think a “not guilty” verdict would violate my principles.

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