Sports are the ultimate distraction. After some 12 hours of numbing parliamentary procedure, grandstanding and a few empty amendments and roll-call votes, Democratic Representative Cedric Richmond needed a little distraction. So, he got out one of his devices and turned on the Presidents Cup.
The Congressman from Louisiana’s second district had Golf Channel streaming as the Americans took on the Internationals in the second day of matches at Royal Melbourne in Australia. C-SPAN cameras caught footage of Richmond speaking with colleagues and with the golf on in the background.
As you could imaging, several people were outspoken on the subject, suggesting Richmond wasn’t taking the proceedings seriously or was wasting his taxpayer-funded salary by having golf on in the background.
Of course, markup sessions on particularly sensitive subjects — much less the impeachment of a sitting president — are long affairs.
In fact, committee chair Jerry Nadler forced the sessions to end for the evening and resume at 10 a.m. on Friday morning, infuriating Republicans who were likely hoping the Democrats would make a historic committee vote to advance articles of impeachment to the House floor in the dark of night. That would have been a huge political miscalculation had Nadler done so.
What on earth is Democrat Rep. Cedric Richmond watching on his laptop during this impeachment markup?
To me, it looks like Rep. Richmond is watching the President’s Cup golf tournament.
Richmond’s actions are a DISGRACE. #StopTheMadness pic.twitter.com/NloZVJCtHc
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) December 13, 2019