民主党人承认，他们周二失手了，当时他们允许众议院共和党人阻止了一项弹劾国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯的努力。现在的问题是，这一尴尬的失误是一次性的混乱，还是更大问题的症状。在进步派中，不满已超越了赫格塞斯弹劾失败的具体细节，延伸为对本党领导层的更广泛批评，他们经常认为领导层无能。进步派策略师、左翼超级政治行动委员会“值得一战”的执行主任科宾·特伦特是将此次失败谴责为深层软弱标志的人之一。
Democrats admit they fumbled Tuesday when they allowed House Republicans to block an effort to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Now the question is whether the embarrassing misfire can be chalked up to one-off disorganization or is symptomatic of a larger problem. Among progressives, irritation goes beyond the specifics of the failure of the Hegseth effort and into a broader critique of the leadership of their own party, which they often contend is ineffective. Corbin Trent, a progressive strategist and the executive director of a leftist super PAC A Fight Worth Having, is among those who condemn the Hegseth failure as emblematic of a deeper weakness.
特伦特将矛头指向众议院少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯（民主党-纽约州），后者被广泛预期将在新一届国会成为议长。“这又是一个信号，表明领袖杰弗里斯不堪重任，”特伦特对本专栏表示。投票结束后，杰弗里斯立即对记者说：“这不是结束。这只是开始。”特伦特曾于几年前担任众议员亚历山德拉·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯（民主党-纽约州）的通讯主任，他补充说，上周中期选举的结果不应让民主党有任何自满的理由。
Trent pointed the finger at House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who is widely expected to become Speaker in the new Congress. “It’s yet another signal that Leader Jeffries isn’t up to the task,” Trent told this column. Jeffries, in the immediate aftermath of the vote, had told reporters, “This is not the end of it. It's just the beginning.”Trent, who several years ago served as communications director for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), added that the result of last week’s midterm elections should not give Democrats any grounds of complacency.
他认为，这次选举“是对现行做法的否定，看来这个信息没有被接收。太多民主党人以为自己是被选中的。我认为共和党被拒绝的程度远大于民主党被选择的程度。”赫格塞斯事件的核心是周二的一项表决，共和党试图借此搁置弹劾赫格塞斯的行动。弹劾推动来自他们自己党内的一名成员——众议员托马斯·马西（共和党-肯塔基州），一位自由意志主义者，一直是特朗普总统的强烈批评者，特别是在对伊朗战争问题上。共和党绝不可能有大量成员支持马西。
The election, he contended, was “a repudiation of the way things are done, and it appears that message was not received. Too many Democrats think they were chosen. I think Republicans were rejected far more than Democrats were chosen.”The core of the Hegseth issue is a Tuesday vote in which Republicans were attempting to bottle up an effort to impeach Hegseth. The impeachment push came from one of their own members — Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a libertarian who has been a strong critic of President Trump, particularly over the war on Iran. There was never any chance that a significant number of Republicans would back Massie.
但在投票前，关注焦点在于共和党议员缺席是否会让这位肯塔基州的“标新立异者”推动其议案。令几乎所有人意外的是，缺席投票的民主党议员比共和党议员更多，有11名民主党议员未出席。这使共和党得以扼杀弹劾行动——至少目前如此。马西理论上可能再次尝试，而一个更合理的情景是：民主党在新一届国会成为多数党后弹劾赫格塞斯。
But prior to the vote, speculation had centered upon whether Republican absences would allow the maverick Kentuckian’s measure to advance. To the surprise of almost everyone, more Democrats than Republicans missed the vote, with 11 Democrats failing to show. That allowed the GOP to kill the impeachment effort — at least for now. There is a theoretical possibility Massie could try again, and a more plausible scenario in which Democrats impeach Hegseth once they assume the majority in the new Congress.
尽管如此，周二的混乱引发了长达24小时的骚动，多名未投票的民主党议员称自己被困在交通堵塞中。一些人建议众议院本应延长投票时间。民主党众议员梅拉妮·斯坦斯伯里（新墨西哥州）的办公室表示，“与其他国会议员一样”，这位女议员“因一起交通事故以及投票期间警方护送一辆巴士，被阻挡在国会大厦外无法进入投票”。
Still, Tuesday’s debacle sparked a chaotic 24 hours, in which several of the nonvoting Democrats have said that they were stuck in traffic. Some have suggested the House vote should have been kept open longer than it was. The office of Democratic Rep. Melanie Stansbury (N.M.) said that “like other Members of Congress,” the congresswoman was “blocked from entering the Capitol to vote due to a traffic incident and a police escort of a bus during the vote.”
另一位缺席投票的民主党议员、众议员乔纳森·杰克逊（伊利诺伊州）周二在社交媒体上写道，这些相同因素“导致延误，致使投票在我和其他议员赶到会议厅前就已结束”。杰克逊重申，“我坚持我的立场，即赫格塞斯部长必须被追责并遭弹劾。”但对缺席投票的不满显而易见，尤其是来自更多进步派议员的声音。奥卡西奥-科尔特斯告诉CNN的马努·拉胡，她想“留有余地”，以防一些未投票议员有健康问题或其他重大困难。
Another Democrat who missed the vote, Rep. Jonathan Jackson (Ill.), wrote on social media Tuesday that those same factors “caused a delay that resulted in the vote closing before I, along with other Members, could reach the chamber.”Jackson reiterated, “I remain firm in my position that Secretary Hegseth must be held accountable and impeached.”But the irritation about the missed votes was plain to hear, especially from more progressive members. Ocasio-Cortez told CNN’s Manu Raju that she wanted to “leave room” for the possibility that some members who failed to vote had health issues or other significant challenges.
但她补充道，“归根结底，我们是来干活的。就像我以前在餐厅打工得打卡上班一样，我们也得在这儿打卡干活。”众议员悉尼·卡姆拉格-多夫（民主党-加利福尼亚州）的措辞更为强硬，她对 MeidasTouch 的帕布罗·曼里克兹表示：“我们知道这场表决即将到来，所以人们本该拖着他们那副狼狈的身躯爬上这些台阶去投票。”
But, she added, “At the end of the day, we're here to do a job. And the same way I had to clock in when I worked at a restaurant, we got to clock in and do our work here.”Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) was even more forceful, telling MeidasTouch’s Pablo Manríquez, “We knew this vote was coming, so people should have gotten their raggedy selves up these steps to vote.”
民主党当选众议员理查德·奥赫达（北卡罗来纳州）周二晚在接受 CNN 劳拉·科茨采访时，对未投票的议员说：“我要说，他们不露面真该感到羞耻……他们本有机会最终终结我们所经历的这场闹剧，你知道的，可他们失败了。” 奥赫达表示，一旦新国会宣誓就职，如果弹劾动议提出，他将投赞成票。在这种情况下，民主党可能会重新包装，或直接沿用马西试图对赫格塞斯提出的指控。
In an interview Tuesday night with CNN’s Laura Coates, Democratic Rep.-elect Richard Ojeda (N.C.) said of the nonvoting members, “I say shame on them for not showing up … They had an opportunity to finally get rid of this buffoonery that we have, you know, and they failed.”Ojeda said he would vote to impeach if the measure came up once the new Congress is sworn in. In that scenario, Democrats may reframe, or simply reuse, the charges that Massie was seeking to bring against Hegseth.
马西提出了八项弹劾条款，其中三项涉及赫格塞斯据称在未获得国会必要批准的情况下主导对伊朗的战争。其他条款涵盖的主题包括：加勒比海船只撞击事件导致 200 多人死亡；据报道伊朗米纳卜一所学校遭空袭造成 100 多名学童丧生；以及 1 月委内瑞拉时任总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗被扣押。赫格塞斯强力反击这项行动，将其定性为马西出于个人恩怨，以及更广泛的反特朗普行动的一部分。
Massie introduced eight articles of impeachment, three of which related to Hegseth allegedly leading the war on Iran without the requisite congressional approval. Other articles encompassed topics like the boat strikes in the Caribbean that have killed more than 200 people; the reported killings of more than 100 schoolchildren in an airstrike on a school in Minab, Iran; and the seizure of Nicolás Maduro, then the president of Venezuela, in January. Hegseth has fought back hard against the effort, characterizing it as motivated by personal grievance on Massie’s behalf, and as part of a broader anti-Trump effort.
总统大力支持他的国防部长。但无论 1 月将发生什么，自由派和左倾人士对周二表决失败的不满不容忽视。“这是民主党竞选时大力主张的事项，他们已明确表示意图弹劾皮特·赫格塞斯，” 国际政策中心执行副总裁、参议员前顾问马修·杜斯表示。
The president has forcefully backed his Defense secretary. But whatever is to come in January, annoyance among liberal and left-leaning figures about Tuesday’s failed vote can’t be ignored. “This is something Democrats campaigned hard on, they’ve made clear they intend to impeach Pete Hegseth,” said Matthew Duss, the executive vice president at the Center for International Policy and a former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
伯尼·桑德斯（I-佛蒙特州）表示：“就在一场大规模的浪潮选举结束几天之后，看到这种情况，让人有点灰心丧气。”杜斯补充说，他把这件事视为“领导力的失职”。民主党策略师巴兹尔·斯米克尔说：“也许这一次可以当作重来一次，但新一届国会开议后，将会有更多的问责。对哈基姆·杰弗里斯来说，保持党团团结一致、步调一致将变得非常重要。”《内幕》是尼尔·斯坦内奇撰写的报道专栏。
“Just a few days after a massive wave election, to see something like this was kind of dispiriting.”Duss added that he saw the episode as a “failure of leadership.”Democratic strategist Basil Smikle said: “Maybe this one is the mulligan, but once the new Congress starts there is going to be a lot more accountability going on. It's going to be really important for Hakeem Jeffries to keep his conference focused and aligned.”The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.