Not all that long ago, media pundits and senior Democrats were touting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to send on the impeachment articles to the Senate as some brilliant 8 dimensional chess tactic.

And fast forward to… nothing. 

The strategy has collapsed. There’s little interest in an extended Senate trial by Democrats who fear Sanders, Warren, and Booker being sidelined by the trial, and worry that Hunter Biden may be called as a witness, damaging four of their 2020 candidates at a crucial time.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein broke ranks with fellow San Francisco Democrat Nancy Pelosi when she urged the House speaker to end her blockade of the Senate trial to adjudicate impeachment charges against President Trump.

“If we’re going to do it, she should send them over,” Feinstein said, according to a tweet posted by Laura Litvan of Bloomberg News. “I don’t see what good delay does.”

Nor does anyone else.

And even the House is starting to give way.

A top Democrat in the House, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, said Thursday that “it is time” for Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate.

The call from Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, came as several Democratic senators this week called on Pelosi to send the articles to Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., so the impeachment trial can begin.

“I understand what the speaker is trying to do, basically trying to use the leverage of that to work with Democratic and Republican senators to try to get a reasonable trial, a trial that would actually show evidence, bring out witnesses,” Smith told CNN. “But at the end of the day, just like we control it in the House, Mitch McConnell controls it in the Senate.”

“I think it was perfectly advisable for the speaker to try to leverage that to get a better deal,” he continued. “At this point, it doesn’t look like that is going to happen. And yes, I think it is time to send the impeachment to the Senate and let Mitch McConnell be responsible for the fairness of the trial. He ultimately is.”

A Democrat admitting the existence of reality? Clearly, he’s a moderate. A true believer would insist that the House should seize the authority to try Trump in the name of the ‘Living Constitution’.

But after weeks of the media claiming that Pelosi is an unimaginably brilliant strategist, where’s the off-ramp from this circus?