Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., makes a statement at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 5, 2019. Pelosi announced that the House is moving forward to draft articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

It looks like Nancy Pelosi has decided that the time has come for the various House committees to celebrate an early Festivus with the Airing of Grievances and draft articles of impeachment.

“The president leaves us no choice but to act, because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit,” Pelosi said in remarks at the Capitol.

“The president has engaged in abuse of power undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections. His actions are in defiance of the vision of our founders and the oath of office that he takes to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Sadly, but with confidence and humility, with allegiance to our Founders and our heart full of love for America, today I’m asking our chairman to proceed with articles of impeachment.”

In her remarks, Pelosi gave no indication of how quickly the process would move. Nor did she say how narrowly crafted the articles of impeachment would be.

Democrats have been divided over whether to focus solely on Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine or to include other questionable conduct, including his alleged obstruction of the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian election interference in the 2016 election.

This is not a sign of strength and it is no coincidence that it comes after yesterday’s disastrous dumpster fire of a hearing that showcased for the nation as nothing else has the sheer partisan nature of the entire proceeding. My colleague, Joe Cunningham, calls this exactly right:

It is very easy to see what the strategy was meant to do.

With a coordinated launch and slow roll-out, Adam Schiff thought he could maintain control of the narrative and drip-drip-drip the evidence that President Donald Trump had committed some impeachable offense over weeks and weeks in order to win the public’s support for impeachment. He did so at the expense of his party leader and Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, who was opposed to such actions. He essentially threw her under the bus in order to make a name for himself as the guy who brought down Trump.

This is the same Adam Schiff who proudly told America that he had irrefutable evidence that Trump had coordinated with the Russians. He just knew Robert Mueller would deliver Trump’s head on a platter. And now he wants all of us to know that he’s got Trump this time.

He is, essentially, Wile E. Coyote. And he has blown himself up just as many times.

Pelosi, on the other hand, has bigger fish to fry than providing spank material to Bill Kristol, Tom Nichols, David French, Jim Swift, and assorted lower level NeverTrump minions as well as to the radical left. She has to think about how the Democrat freshmen who won districts that were represented by Republicans are going to fare in an election when the major item on the agenda is a blatantly partisan attempt to oust the president based on manufactured outrage. She has to think about how the party, at large, will fare when the only Democrat campaign message that will be discussed is “impeach Trump.” She has to consider how an impeachment that will result in the Democrat front runner having his deep and endemic corruption exposed to the public will be received by the voters. She really has to worry about writing Donald Trump’s campaign ads for him.

This is not a sign that the Democrats have made their case. It is a sign that they have made the best case they can make and if the process drags out, then the Democrats are going to pay a steep price in November. She has permitted the Schiff-show to go on, she sees it is going nowhere, and now it is time to push the bug-eyed little Machiavelli aside and get on with business.