In August of this year, the National Review’s Andrew McCarthy published an article on the subject of why talk of impeachment was far from crazy. The same month, New York Times bestselling authors Aaron Klein and Brenda Elliott came out with a book titled “Impeachable Offenses: The Case for Removing Barack Obama from Office.” A poll conducted by Wenzel Strategies found that a majority of respondents thought the IRS scandal was grounds for impeaching the president.
Since then, the president’s perfidy has become more deeply ingrained in the psyche of the American people with revelations that his health care reform law is built on a foundation of lies. So what are the chances that articles of impeachment will be brought against Obama? Suffice it to say your odds of winning Powerball are much greater. Apart from the fact that the Democrat-controlled Senate is not likely to support such an action against the current president, Republicans learned a lesson from their last efforts to unseat a Democratic president. They know this and the Democrats know this.
So why is the Democratic National Committee sending out emails asking recipients to vote Democratic, if only to protect Obama from being impeached? The best answer is why not?
Fox News notes that the email sent out Saturday evening explicitly raises the fear that the president could be removed from office if enough Republicans take control of Congress:
The notice – entitled ‘Impeachment’ in the subject line – was sent to Obama for America supporters and featured quotes from Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, R-Mich., and Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, who raise the possibility of impeaching the president on grounds of alleged presidential misconduct.
‘Republicans are actually excited about the idea,’ the email says, according to the Daily Caller. ‘Show these Republicans that they are way, way off base and give President Obama a Congress that has his back.’ [Emphasis added]
Rhetoric aside, no representative has introduced an inquiry of impeachment to the House Judiciary Committee or introduced a bill of impeachment since President Obama took office in 2009. Democratic desires to remove George W. Bush from office were famously squashed shortly after the party regained the House in 2006, when then-incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said impeachment was ‘off the table.’
The highlighted portion of the email is evidently provided for comic relief. Nothing could be less off base than ridding the nation of a president who surpasses all of his predecessors in his usurpation of power through executive privilege.