Political realism suggests that Jeff Jacoby is not exactly wrong to pooh-pooh the idea that US senators should be expected to be impartial in an impeachment trial (“Lindsey Graham and the impeachment pearl-clutchers,” Opinion, Dec. 18). Yet after quoting the oath that senators will take at the commencement of President Trump’s impeachment trial—“in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws”—Jacoby simply drops the subject. My question for Jacoby is: Does this oath mean nothing? Or does he now subscribe to the Trumplike belief that words mean anything a given person says they do?
Daniel Penrice
Cambridge
Note from KBJ: Are you just making things up, Daniel? What is your evidence that President Trump believes that "words mean anything a given person says they do"? If anyone believes this, you do.
