Forget Republican Spin: Why They'll Vote To Impeach Obama In 2015

Michael Tomasky on why he wouldn't be surprised if Republicans mount an impeachment effort after the November elections, even if they know they would not get the necessary votes to convict in the Senate:

... The question here is, what’s the point in their minds of impeaching him? If it is a rational point—to remove the high misdemeanant from office—then the above scenario holds water. But I think the point isn’t rational; it’s emotional. To punish him for daring to act like the president. Hoist that big historical asterisk skyward and place it next to his name. Try to ensure that future generations see his as a less-than-legitimate presidency. And, not least, get their right-wing kum-ba-yah-yah’s out, give the base a song they can really dance to.  [snip] 

I can hear the rationalistas: no way they’d do it. They’re too smart for that. They know it didn’t work last time. They’ll be too mindful that it might hurt them in 2016. I say nonsense to all that. They’ll do it because it’s who they are. They keep showing us who they are. Someday, Washington might actually believe them.  (our emphasis)

Tomasky addresses the problem with the Republican- wired Beltway media buying the Republican spin, people like Politic-hos' Mike "Payola" Allen,  NBC's Chuck "Not My Job" Todd, and the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle's "politics- is- only- a- horse- race" tout Chris "The Lizard" Cillizza. These are some of the clowns who willfully and regularly catapult right-wing talking points into the "mainstream media," the latest one being that "Democrats are the only ones talking about impeachment!"  Bullshit.

Come next February or so, let's see who's right about the intent of the Republican crazy caucus:  the blinkered,  Republican- wired Beltway political "ho's" "pros" or Tomasky and the rest of us.

Today's Cartoons - Impeachment Twofer

(click to enlarge)

(Jim Morin, The Miami Herald)

(Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

"Lust For Impeachment"

E.J. Dionne, Jr., writes today that, given the madness gripping the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party, talk of President Obama's impeachment cannot be taken lightly:

Yes, Democrats are happy to use the danger that the House will go there, by way of dramatizing the GOP’s refusal to work with Obama on issue after issue and the right wing’s open hatred for a president they cast simultaneously as a power-hungry lawbreaker and a weak steward of the nation’s interests. But the underlying cause is a breakdown among conservatives of the norms and habits that governing requires in a system of separated powers.  

The last time the country reelected a Democratic president, House Republicans impeached him despite strong public opposition. With many in the ranks already clamoring for a replay of those glory days, it’s fair to wonder if Boehner will hold fast and resist the impeachment crowd this time. His record in facing down his right wing is not encouraging.  (our emphasis)

Between their utter ignorance of Constitutional law and the din from their lizard-brained, tea bagger base, Republicans have already demonstrated the capacity for making the most outrageous threats and taking the most extreme actions when it comes to this President, as Dionne demonstrates in his op/ed (including their lawsuit stunt, see posting below).

Salon's Kim Messick does a good job of analyzing the forces that have led the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party, and especially its most rabid purists, to this point:

Because the Tea Party — really just the most feverish and obdurate part of the Republican “base” — has decided that there are worse things than losing elections. Having been told for years that its resentments are righteous and that the righteous must give no quarter to the wicked — no compromises! no negotiations! — it has quite reasonably opted to stand on “principle” ( as Ted Cruz puts it) even if this means coming up short at the ballot box. To put this point just a bit differently, it no longer thinks of governing as its primary purpose. It would like to govern, of course; it has an agenda, one it longs to enact; but its principal concern is to preserve its identity as the last redoubt of “pure” Americanism.

Messick notes the forces at play:

The party is now riven into three parts: a donor class that, like the rank-and-file, mainly wants to win elections and to govern the country in a (relatively) responsibly conservative way; a ferocious cell of right-wing fabulists that prefers defeat to the slightest modulation in its hatred of the modern world; and a network of entertainers and “journalists” with an entrepreneurial investment in promoting the second group at the expense of the first. 

That's why Dionne and many of us remain dubious that this impeachment contagion can be isolated; there are just too many carriers, too many interested in keeping the rhetoric amped up for these yahoos to be satisfied with a lawsuit that's not likely to do any damage to the President.

A President Deserving Impeachment

Before the current impeachment howling of frothing nitwits (=cough= Sarah Palin =cough=), and before the prurient Republican prosecutors of Bill Clinton's penis in the 1990's, there was a time when an American President richly deserved impeachment.  That was 40 years ago today.

On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee recommended the impeachment and removal from office of Republican Richard M. Nixon.  The Committee passed three articles of impeachment based on Nixon's high crimes and misdemeanors committed as a result of the Watergate break-in and cover-up.  On August 8, 1974, rather than face a trial in the Senate, Nixon resigned the office of President.

For those of us who lived through that period, the current "impeach the tyrant!" manifestation of Obama Derangement Syndrome is particularly maddening on several counts:  first and foremost, sorry but there's no "there" there;  and second, in recent decades it's only been deployed flippantly by desperate Republicans whenever Democrats are winning both policy debates and national elections, as a means of de-legitimatizing Democrats and to get their knuckle-dragging Republican base excited enough to drive their Medicare-subsidized mobility scooters to the polls.

The high crimes and misdemeanors of Richard Nixon struck at the heart of American democracy, as does the idle threat of impeachment by his smarmy Republican descendants.

The Caucus Room Conspiracy, 2014 Edition

Congressional Rethuglicans and their enablers have tried almost everything in the last 5 plus years to undermine and destroy the Obama Administration, and with it the nation's first African-American President.  They've tried filibusters in the Senate, shutting down the Federal Government,  and voting "no" on every major piece of legislation that Obama's proposed.  Obama followed eight years of Rethuglican mismanagement and corruption:  the 9-11 attack predicted a month earlier and briefed to Dumbya, a war launched on false premises known at the time to be false, the response to Hurricane Katrina, and the greatest financial and economic free-fall since the Great Depression, etc.

In January 2009, the Rethuglican / Stupid Party was in free-fall along with the economy. Their "solution" to avoiding political oblivion was to make President Obama fail as his Rethug predecessor had failed.  Thus, on the evening of Obama's inauguration, Rethuglican Congressional leaders gathered at an expensive DC restaurant, The Caucus Room, to plan Obama's political demise:

"On January 20, 2009, a night when most Americans were out celebrating the end of the Bush years and the beginning of a new era, a group of powerful Republicans was planning the end of Obama presidency before it even really began.

At the Caucus Room restaurant right here in Washington, DC, GOP leaders drew up a plan to intentionally sabotage Obama at every point possible.

On the guest list for the 'invitation only' meeting were Republican Congressmen Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Pete Sessions, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra and Dan Lungren. Republican Senators Jim DeMint, Jon Kyl, Tom Coburn, John Ensign and Bob Corker were also in attendance. The whole thing was orchestrated by Republican propaganda mastermind Frank Luntz.

Over the course of four hours, this group of the most powerful conservative lawmakers in the country committed to a plan of action. They promised each other that they would filibuster and obstruct any and all legislation supported by the new President Obama." (emphasis added)

So the Caucus Room Conspiracy continues, with talk of suing the President and even impeachment by the flakier elements of the right.  Anyone expecting a change with the election of a Democratic President in 2016 would be mistaken:  this is about the corruption of power, dirty money and political nihilism practiced by the Rethuglican Party, period.