And it will be invoked without mercy. A new, fuzzier standard has been set-in politics, in law, and in ethics. It is a new, unsettling standard in terms of what we expect of presidents, of the Senate of the United States, and of ourselves. Pundits used to write about a revolution of rising expectations. In some ways, we now live in an era of lowered expectations.
Analysis abounds, as usual.
But we have all grown sick of this trial by now, and sick of trying to find some significance in it. Now all we want to do is change the channel. But as soon as we do, it pops up again. And the reception still isn't clear. Still, as the film rolls on again and again without conclusion, there is a kind of peace to it, a kind of conciliation.