House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., talks to reporters about the release by the White House of a transcript of a call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelenskiy, in which Trump is said to have pushed for Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his family, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Media and Democrats have been talking about how to convince people to be on board with impeachment.

Most Americans really aren’t buying that the Ukraine call is worthy of impeaching anyone.

Democrats haven’t even been able to allege an impeachable offense which just shows how silly this process has been so far.

Negotiating with foreign leaders is completely within the purview of the president and not Congress’ purview.

“Quid pro quo” fails because the Ukrainians didn’t even know that the aid was potentially being held up. And Democrats don’t think Americans understand the term.

They’re casting around how to dress up this ridiculous accusation with the right words.

So they’re vacillating between “extortion” and “bribery” according to Byron York at the Washington Examiner and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY).

Ds have been testing various words in impeachment campaign. Some like 'extortion.' Some favor 'bribery' because it is specifically mentioned in Constitution. But both connote difficult-to-prove crimes. Ds might end up settling on 'abuse of power.' https://t.co/pCgHoS5QI4 https://t.co/kPDALji8z2

— Byron York (@ByronYork) November 11, 2019

From Washington Examiner:

“We have a crime — extortion,” Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum Wednesday.

“You’ve already decided there was a crime?” asked MacCallum.

“Yes, that’s why we’re doing this,” said Swalwell. “A crime was committed. We’re now looking at the suspect, the president, who confessed to the crime, by the way.”

The Democratic idea, apparently, is that Trump withheld U.S. military aid for Ukraine as part of a demand that Ukraine investigate the Bidens and events in Ukraine connected to the 2016 election. That is the alleged extortion to which Trump has “confessed,” according to Swalwell.

Except President Donald Trump confessed to no such thing, there was no statement of holding up military aid to investigate the Bidens in the transcript and even the person who presumably would be the alleged “victim,” the Ukrainian president, doesn’t support that any such “crime” occurred.

Media on NBC’s “Meet the Press” had some suggestions for the Democrats on how to better their sales pitch.

The Washington Post’s David Ignatius admitted it would be difficult to convince Americas that this “disqualifies the President from office” and that it was looking “purely partisan.”

From Newsbusters:

As a result, Ignatius eagerly offered advice to Democrats on how to change that image problem: “The one thing that will break through, I think, is if this can be dramatized so that our diplomats struggling against the President feel like soldiers in a battlefield, and their commander abandoned them.” He argued: “…if that gets through…It makes it a very different process.” [….]

“Again, if there’s a simple way to dramatize this, where, where these people sound like soldiers, fighting our fight for us, and they got undercut, then it’ll be different.”

Oh, please. Notice how he says “fighting our fight for us,” nice journalistic objectivity there. Because attacking Trump is “fighting for us.” It is the president who sets foreign policy not anonymous NSC folks.

PBS NewsHour correspondent Yamiche Alcindor echoed Ignatius’ thought and offered an additional twist.

I will say that Democrats are very, they’re very focused on how to tell the story this week. And I’m told, from Democratic aides, that they wanted Taylor to be there because he’s a Vietnam vet. He’s gonna be able to tell this story in a simple way. And they wanted Marie Yovanovitch there because I’m told she cried in her testimony, and they essentially want someone who’s going to be emotional to say, “I was a victim of the President trying to do this for his own political gain.”

They think dressing folks up and having them cry is really going to get folks on board?

Isn’t this so like Democrats, words and acting pitch over actual substance?

Americans are not so easily taken in.

HT: Twitchy