Pelosi has long resisted calls to impeach Trump, to the chagrin of more progressive lawmakers and activists. But the latest revelations finally brought a cavalcade of more centrist party figures around on the issue.

If true, of course, Trump’s conduct was patently corrupt. “If the president used his office to get a foreign government to investigate a political rival, with an eye toward undermining that rival, that’s a clear abuse of power that assaults the basic premises of American democracy,”  The Nation’s John Nichols.

But I admit I’m puzzled — not about why Trump’s behavior here was bad, but why this was the offense that got so many reluctant Democrats to stick their neck out. There’s been any number of earlier abuses — from the merely venal (like altering a hurricane forecast with a sharpie) to the unapologetically corrupt (like putting military officers in Trump hotels and charging taxpayers for vacations at his own properties).

I also recall there was something about Russia, a fired FBI director and, oh right, that time he called Nazis who’d just beaten people and killed someone in Charlottesville “very fine people.”

At every juncture, and countless others, pundits wondered whether this was the last straw, only to have a fresh truckload delivered the next day. (In fact, the Trump campaign now makes a killing  Trump-branded plastic straws, to trigger the sea turtles I guess.)

To me, the Ukraine-Biden gambit looks like a lot of other things Trump has accustomed us to expect from him. Is there some deep reservoir of public affection for Biden or Ukraine that Democrats feel they can draw on to get their case across this time? It seems unlikely.

The fact that we’ve grown desensitized to such abuses could itself be the best reason to finally prosecute one. But, truthfully, there are about a thousand other things I’d rather see lawmakers build a case around.

For instance, after taking buckets of fossil fuel money, the president  back power plant emissions limits, launched against automakers who agreed to increase their fuel efficiency, and wanted us out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. He’s repeatedly  government climate scientists to cover his tracks. Is destroying the planet impeachable?

What about caging thousands of children, or  to separate them from their parents after a court ordered him to stop? Or openly  US and international law on the treatment of refugees? Or allegedly encouraging border officials to break the law, with the  of ?

Speaking of attacking rivals, what about tweeting incendiary racist slanders against Democratic Representatives Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and other progressive women of color, all but openly encouraging extremist against them? What about  a foreign leader, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to block those members of Congress from an official visit to the top US aid recipient?

Impeachment is as much a political tool as a legal one. If Democrats feel they need the Ukraine story as a legal hook to start the process, that’s one thing — but I hope they won’t forget to make a political case against these much more egregious abuses along the way.

Otherwise, they risk sending the message that the worst thing a president can do isn’t to attack the people or the planet, but a fellow elite.

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In the last days of his life, an old video of John McCain surfaced on the internet. It’s 2008. He’s running for president and fielding questions from voters in Minnesota. A middle-aged woman takes the microphone.

“I can’t trust [Barack] Obama,” she complains of McCain’s Democratic opponent. “He’s an Arab.” The Arizona Republican shakes his head. Obama is “a decent family man and citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with,” . And adds: “He’s not [an Arab].”

Standing up for a rival was classic McCain, many believed, and his handling of the incident got praise at the time. No wonder it’s circulating again now, after a later presidential candidate made that woman’s slanderous race-baiting look tame.

Still, too few people asked: Do real Arabs not make “decent family men” or citizens? Can one not have principled “disagreements” with them?

More concretely: McCain was then campaigning on a pledge to expand the Iraq War, which he’d championed from the beginning. That war had killed perhaps a million Arabs. It would lead later to a devastating occupation by the Islamic State (IS), and yet more US military intervention.

Throwing an entire ethnic group under the bus may not have been McCain’s intent, though he’d had his brushes with bigotry before. For years he referred to East Asians by a , opposed making and reportedly had a habit of calling women, , the c-word.

But it’s not really about McCain or what’s in his heart. It’s more about how the DC-based media reported him, and how admiring Americans interpreted his behavior.

Sporadically, the late Republican senator did take some principled stands. As a prisoner of war who suffered torture himself, he took on multiple Republican presidents to keep the US from resuming it (though he steadfastly supported the wars in which that torture took place). And last year he cast a surprise, decisive vote against the GOP’s effort to kill Obamacare (though he’d voted against Obamacare earlier).

Mostly, though, McCain was a reliable vote for his party’s worst ideas and contributed many of his own (like putting Sarah Palin a heartbeat from the presidency). And despite his well-known feud with Donald Trump, he voted in support of the president’s agenda .

McCain supported the $2 trillion corporate tax giveaway that could tear our safety net to shreds. His unrelenting passion for military conflict was a thing of caricature (“bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,” ). And his support for empire-crumbling military budgets was so renowned that his colleagues named this year’s  after him. Trump  when he signed it, but sign it he did. Some feud!

The point isn’t that McCain’s odes to honor or civility were somehow dishonest. To him, I’m sure they were genuine.

But in emphasizing McCain’s personal style over his actual politics, his eulogizers imply there’s some “honorable” way to implement an agenda like Trump’s (or 83% of it, anyway), as long as you don’t talk like Trump himself.

Personally, I disagree. Whether they realize it or not, I think the “straight talk” people praise McCain for is actually what most of them can’t stand about politicians: They say noble words but cast ignoble votes.

I don’t mean to suggest that Trump’s personal style is a welcome change from McCain’s. It’s not. But politics can’t just be a theater for elites, where standing up for one rival outweighs supporting a war that killed a million people.

Actions matter more than words, and that’s the straightest talk I can think of.

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When I saw footage of the alleged sarin gas attack in Syria, I felt ill. The whole episode, which killed up to 100 civilians in Syria’s Idlib province, was ghastly. But worst of all was the kids — glassy-eyed, discolored, and limp as their little bodies were carried away.

Donald Trump apparently felt the same way.

“That attack on children had a big impact on me,” , condemning the Syrian regime’s “heinous” targeting of “innocent people” and “even beautiful little babies.” Then he fired 59 cruise missiles at the Syrian air base supposedly used to launch the chemical attack.

Even some of Trump’s critics applauded that move. But it was a huge���ڱ�����-�ڱ��DZ�.

The Obama administration faced a similar crisis in 2013, following a much deadlier chemical attack on a Damascus suburb. Back then, Trump was unambiguously against intervening. “DO NOT ATTACK SYRIA,”  in all caps. “VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN!”

An informed change of perspective is a good thing — but only if it’s informed. Though it might’ve felt good to see the Syrian regime pay a price for its crimes, there’s no way a strike like this can ease civilian suffering.

For one thing, it was a pinprick. Within days, Syrian planes were taking off  and bombing  town. But escalating the war risks provoking a devastating conflict with Russia or Iran — Syrian allies who could step up their support in response.

Even if that war succeeded in ousting the regime, the country would only plunge deeper into chaos — just as Iraq and Libya did after we ran their similarly horrible governments out. Islamist extremists would be well positioned to fill the void in Syria, too: al-Qaeda-linked forces currently hold Idlib, while the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) controls much of the east.

Either way, it’s innocent people who pay the price. Just ask the families of the  reportedly killed by US-led airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in March alone. Many of those were children, too.

Airstrikes, in short, are a recipe for humanitarian catastrophe. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing the US can do to help suffering Syrians. It’s just going to require another big flip-flop.

For starters, Trump should give up on his “Muslim ban.” Both versions of that order, now held up in the courts, would have indefinitely banned all migration from Syria — and suspended refugee resettlement from everywhere.

Trump has said that’s necessary because Syrian refugees are “” and we don’t know “who they are.” But the US admitted  from 2011 to 2016, all after years of vetting. (Syria’s tiny neighbor Lebanon, with a population less than metro DC, has taken .)

During the campaign, it  Trump that children might be affected by his anti-refugee policies. “I can look at their face and say you can’t come here,” he said about Syrian kids in February 2016. “They may be ISIS.”

That’s chilling. I hope Trump now understands there’s a direct line from that policy to the “beautiful little babies” murdered in Idlib.

Another welcome about-face would be to ramp up relief for those Syrians who remain. Trump’s “skinny budget” proposal nearly zeroes out humanitarian aid, but food and medicine are much cheaper than Tomahawk missiles, which run . And they’ll save a lot more suffering Syrian kids.

Getting more deeply involved in Syria’s war is a grievous mistake. The silver lining is that it proves Trump can change his mind. Now that he cares about the fate of Syrian children, I hope he’ll open up our country — not bomb theirs.

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In a desolated patch of Mosul, Iraq, people are still digging through the rubble. Rescuers wear masks to cover the stench, while anxious family members grow desperate about missing loved ones.

The full story of what happened in the al-Jidideh neighborhood isn’t yet clear, but the toll is unmistakable. A New York Times ��dzܰ��Բ����������� stumbling across charred human limbs, still covered in clothing, while a man stood nearby holding a sign with 27 names—extended family members either missing or dead.

All told, 200 or more civilians may be dead there following a US airstrike on the densely populated neighborhood. The military has acknowledged the strike, but says it’s still investigating the deaths. If the allegations are true, this was by far our deadliest attack on innocents in decades.

The carnage comes amid a push by the US and its Iraqi allies to reclaim Mosul, Iraq’s second most populous city, from the Islamic State (or ISIS).

That’s making life terrifying for the city’s residents, who’ve endured years of depredations from ISIS only to fall under US bombs—and to face possible human rights abuses from Iraqi soldiers they don’t trust. “Now it feels like the coalition is killing more people than ISIS,” the UK’s Telegraph newspaper.

Unfortunately, that may not be so far from the truth. AirWars, which tracks civilian casualties in Iraq and Syria, counted of civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in March alone. That’s about triple the count from February.

In fact, AirWars estimates, more US coalition strikes are now causing civilian casualties than strikes by Russia, which was loudly (and appropriately) accused of war crimes for its bombing of Aleppo, Syria last year.

Is this the simple result of the fight heating up in Mosul? Not quite.

In the same month, at least were reported killed by a US airstrike outside Raqqa, Syria—where the real battle with ISIS hasn’t even begun yet—and up to 50 more may have died when the .

Instead, some observers suspect the  designed to limit civilian casualties in war zones. They deny this, but the Times reports that field commanders appear to be exercising to launch strikes in civilian-heavy areas than before.

During the campaign, Trump himself famously promised to “bomb the s—” out of ISIS. That sounds extreme, and it is.

But it’s only a few steps beyond the Obama administration’s approach of gradually expanding our air wars outside the public eye. Trump’s just taking it to another level by putting virtually all key foreign policy decisions in military hands, while gutting resources for diplomacy and humanitarian aid.

The human costs of this will be enormous. The political costs will be, too. The US has been “bombing the s—” out of Iraq for decades now, which has consistently created more terrorists than it’s killed. Extremists are flourishing in Iraq. The same can’t be said for the civilians now burying their dead in Mosul.

Of course, ISIS is guilty of its own innumerable atrocities. But the war-torn sectarian politics that gave rise to the group are a direct result of this military-first foreign policy. There’s simply no reason to believe that reducing Iraq’s cities to rubble will give way to less extremism in their ashes.

Iraqis will still have to wrest their country back from ISIS. But if it’s ever going to get back on its feet, what the country truly needs is a political solution. That’s going to require a surge of aid, diplomacy, and honest brokering—all of which are in short supply now.

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When looked out over the joint session of Congress that had assembled to hear him speak on March 3, the Israeli prime minister almost caught a glimpse of something unusual: empty seats.

That would’ve been a rarity in Washington DC, where bipartisan support for the Israeli government runs deep. Just a few years ago, Netanyahu packed the house for a controversial  on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. This time, nearly 60 Democrats boycotted the address.

That left Republicans scrambling to fill the with staffers and allies. They even awarded a plum front-row spot to GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson.

What changed?

Netanyahu had come to harangue lawmakers about the ongoing nuclear negotiations between Iran and a group of countries led by the . The talks are aimed at restricting ’s nuclear enrichment activities and allowing international inspections of its nuclear facilities.  In exchange, negotiators are offering Tehran relief from sanctions that have badly damaged its economy.

Win-win, right? Well, that’s not how Netanyahu sees it.

The hawkish prime minister, who happens to be facing an election very soon, thundered to Congress that the proposed deal would “” that Iran develops a nuclear bomb. He even alluded to the Holocaust, implying that a deal with Iran would threaten Israel’s survival.

The Democrats who skipped the speech mostly hemmed and hawed about procedural matters. They complained that House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, had violated protocol by not consulting US President before inviting a foreign leader to speak.

A few others fretted that Boehner was turning Israel into a partisan issue by forcing lawmakers to choose between Netanyahu and Obama — who, just last January, threatened to  any legislation designed to sabotage the negotiations.

Obama himself skipped the speech too, citing a policy not to meet with foreign leaders so close to their own elections. US Vice President Joe Biden drummed up a scheduling conflict in Guatemala. Maybe they’re all just too polite to mention the best reason for skipping: Netanyahu is simply wrong about Iran.

For one thing, there’s nothing inevitable about Iran developing a nuclear weapon. As far back as , Netanyahu predicted that Iran could have a bomb within three years. Nearly 25 years later, Israel itself remains the only nuclear-armed state in the Middle East.

That didn’t stop Netanyahu from the same snake oil about Iraq in 2002. The Israeli parliamentarian told Congress there was “no question whatsoever” that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons.

“I guarantee you,” Netanyahu promised, that toppling the Iraqi leader “will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”

And this is the guy Congress is calling in on Iran?

US intelligence agencies concluded back in 2007 that Iran had long since  any attempts to weaponize its nuclear program. The surest way to keep it that way is to cut a deal. If Iran feels secure in its relations with Washington — and remember, the United States has invaded countries to both Iran’s east and west in recent years — then it’s less likely to contemplate developing a nuclear deterrent in the future.

A successful agreement could bring a measure of transparency to Iran’s enrichment program, ensuring that Tehran is telling the truth when it says that it’s only interested in nuclear power. It could also — maybe — bring about an end to the 36-year estrangement between Iran and the United States.

We tried it Bibi’s way in Iraq. The next time he drops by Congress to offer more advice, let him tell it to a few more empty seats.

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