Extend a hand, not a hammer

First, let me congratulate Democrats for taking the U.S. House of Representatives from the Republicans.

Whether that is good news, however, depends on what the party whose standard bearer is not a septuagenarian pre-adolescent does with its new-found power.

I would request that the Democrats do not use their new-found hammer to take revenge, even if that means putting a lid on U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, who has shown herself to be as immoderate as a leftist as the near-extremists on the right who are emboldened by President Donald Trump.

The key power the House has for a party that lacks the White House or the U.S. Senate seems to be the power of the probe.

The House apparently can investigate just about anything it deems worthy of a deeper look, whether for the good of the nation or one party’s 2020 campaign.

I will admit to thinking the sooner we remove Trump from the White House, the better off this nation will be under either party, but I can wait two years. Leaders in both parties would deny Trump a second term.

Will vengeful House Democrats whip up a half-baked scheme to impeach the president? That would be the self-serving thing to do.

I would hope instead they look for real wrongdoing in areas like Russian interference with the 2016 election, illegal tax dodges or improper profiteering.

That would be less spectacular but a better service the country.

If the Democrats’ performance in their attempts to discredit U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh sets the precedent, my hopes are limited.

At least one of the witnesses who accused Kavanaugh of bad sexual behavior in his youth in Senate testimony has apparently now admitted she lied.

That is enough to collapse the whole effort to discredit Kavanaugh, despite the painful credibility of Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of trying to rape her when he was 17 and she was 15.

Not that Kavanaugh helped himself with his desperate tirade at that same hearing.

If the Democrats are going to benefit from the House’s investigative powers, they’ll have to improve in both caution and temperament.

I know that’s hard to ask after two long years of enduring childish name-calling, smears and lies from Trump and the lackeys who have stooped to ride his coattails.

I also know, however, that I am not the only one who is concerned about the damage the Democrats could do to their chances to unseat a Trump-warped GOP by fighting fire with misdirected flames.

That’s why I would urge Democrats in the House to listen before they call hearings and curb the urge to turn something that could be upstanding into another bumbled bout of grandstanding.

Also, and I know this might be too much to ask, I would respectfully request that some Democrats reach across the aisle for Republican support on issues like health care, Social Security and immigration.

These are issues in which unity is possible and which represent an opportunity to deflate extremes on both sides of the aisle, which would do both parties a favor.

Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at: [email protected]