The Houstonian Approach to Impeachment
In the 1930s, when segregation was the law of the land, sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court, and embedded into governmental, social, educational policy, Charles Hamilton Houston, the dean of Howard Law School and his student and protege, Thurgood Marshall began mapping out a strategy for overturning Plessy v. Ferguson, the case that gave us "separate but equal."
Their strategy was complex and would require a long series of incremental cases over many years that would gradually build the case for overturning Plessy. Many people in the legal and political community were harshly critical of this plan, attacking Houston, Marshall, and the NAACP lawyers, saying incrementalism was too slow and displayed weakness when they needed to show strength. They badgered them to go at Plessy head on. But Houston and Marshall knew that if they did, they would lose and Plessy would be forever cemented into American jurisprudence and life.
So, they tuned out the naysayers and stayed on the path, carefully and brilliantly laying the groundwork for an eventual assault on Plessy.
And it paid off when in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned Plessy, thanks to the long line of cases and extensive record laid out by Houston and Marshall over more than two decades. Unfortunately, Houston didn't live to see the decision, and many people have no idea who he is today. But there's a reason that Houston is known in many quarters as "The Man Who Killed Jim Crow." He's a national hero.
I look at impeachment the same way that Houston looked at the desegregation fight. While it may feel satisfying to launch an all out impeachment assault immediately, it's not the smart move. Pelosi and the other Democrats are following Houstonian process, carefully laying the groundwork so that their efforts actually have results beyond the initially satisfying but ultimately Pyrrhic short-term outcome. Of course, unlike in Brown, we're not looking at decades or years. We're looking at weeks or months. But in the scheme of things, those weeks and months are worth it in order to achieve the end we're all seeking.
You can read more about Houston here: http://newsreel.org/transcripts/roadtob.htm
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