A quick note on the two articles of impeachment that are about to pass the House in the coming days. I think they are poorly written. This is what a committee of Democrats came up with over a weekend? Well, honestly, can any academic come up with something great over a weekend? I still have dreams about having to write 20-page papers over a single weekend, which I did back in my University days. Results were mixed. I remember if I started a paper more than a week before the due date, results were far better.

My issue is not with the opening resolution. That’s actually okay, since it paraphrases the resolutions from both the Nixon and Clinton drafts. That’s a little cheeky. Fine.

But I find the language of each article to be intentionally weak. They are intentionally devoid of details. In fact, they allude to crimes and actions, but don’t detail them. The document seems to assume he reader knows the details. I find this unacceptable.

I also lament the dryness and repetition of the language. Both articles begin with the identical summary of the power of the House of Representatives to impeach the president. Why not begin the first article with “President Donald J. Trump abused his power and violated his oath of office”? Why not strengthen the second article to read “President Donald J. Trump abused the power of his office to obstruct both the House of Representatives and to obstruct justice in the Independent Counsel investigation, between 2017 and 2019”? Expand it, Democrats. The Mueller investigation and the withholding of aid from Ukraine are part of one big criminal conspiracy to improve Trump’s odds of winning an election.

These thin articles lack deals and impact. The words don’t punch. The seriousness of the articles are not conveyed in the language. The English language is incredible in that there are many ways to convey a message or tell a story. These articles don’t leverage the inherent strengths of the English language.

There are those who agree and disagree with this assessment. Fred Kaplan of The Washington Post argues that the articles are incomplete and weak. His colleague, Dhalia Lithwick, concedes that they are weak and lacking details, but they had to be in order to reduce the amount of words the Republicans could chew on, rant about and distort.

I will always look to the proposed articles by Brianne Gorod and Elizabeth Wydra as what could have been. They are fantastic. Notice how each article begins:

Article I

In his conduct while President of the United States, Donald Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath to execute faithfully the Office of President of the United States, has abused the office of the presidency by employing the powers of the office to advance his own political interests, rather than the interests of the nation….

Article II

In his conduct while President of the United States, Donald Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath to execute faithfully the Office of President of the United States, has abused the powers of his office to try to prevent his wrongdoing and abuses of the public trust from being discovered….

Article III

In his conduct while President of the United States, Donald Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath to execute faithfully the Office of President of the United States, has been personally enriching himself in violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause….

That is how it should have been done. Start each article with the point and then list details below. These articles would have been home runs. They detail the crimes, and name those who did the crimes (Trump, Giuliani, Mulvaney). They even tie the president’s decision to abandon the Kurds in Syria to his plans for a Trump Tower in Istanbul.

Instead we have the worst-written articles of impeachment in US history. Look, we know Trump will be acquitted next month and will probably be re-elected. But why couldn’t the Democrats come up with articles that would be remembered and admired for decades to come?

The opposition party is like the articles themselves: Lacking clarity, conviction and courage.

We’re so doomed in 2020.