I wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, arguing that the Chief Justice should not permit Senator Mitch McConnell to swear a false oath: Senate rules require that a Senator “solemnly swear” to be “impartial.” McConnell has expressly stated that he cannot be “impartial.”
My essay triggered a ton of responses, many of which argue that many Senators have already made up their mind. That makes my argument itself, the claim is, selective and hence, partial.
These replies belie a fundamental misunderstanding about the meaning of the word “impartial.”
Consider a version of the President’s own favorite hypothetical:
Imagine that the President, walking down Fifth Avenue, surrounded by network and smartphone cameras, takes a gun and shoots someone. Imagine 10 cameras capture the event clearly. Imagine video images are then blasted from one end of the world to the other. And then imagine, contrary to the President’s own understanding of the law, he is arrested and tried for murder.
Ordinarily, the law seeks jurors who don’t know anything about a case. But…
