Posted on 01/14/2014 12:45:29 PM PST by SeekAndFind
She’s asking rhetorically, not egging Senator Mitch McConnell on. The obvious logistical problem, as many a Republican officeholder has noted when asked about this by an angry constituent, is that impeachment is DOA in the Senate as long as it’s controlled by Democrats. The House can force a Senate trial but what’s the use of that when we all know what the verdict will be? (For that reason, this question is better aimed at Boehner than at McConnell.) And no, retaking the Senate next year doesn’t solve the problem. You need two-thirds of the chamber to convict an impeached president; Republicans won’t be remotely close to 67 seats, no matter how big this year’s November wave is.
The political problem is that Republicans fear impeaching O would do more to hurt them than it would the president. Not only did Clinton weather the storm, so did his approval rating. If you’ve got a weak president in office like Obama who’s facing a debacle from his signature legislation between now and the next presidential election, why make any sudden moves to mess with that dynamic if you’re a Republican? They’re probably going to get a good result from SCOTUS on Obama’s NLRB power grab; if they want to push back against executive overreach, court battles might be fruitful high-publicity ways of doing it with minimal political risk — certain difficulties notwithstanding.
To solve their political problem, the GOP would have to convince a majority of the public (probably a big majority) that impeachment is warranted. But that’s the thing — even when the president’s guilty of encroaching on another branch’s powers or suspending parts of the law that are politically inconvenient to him, you’ll never find a majority of Americans willing to entertain a punishment as severe as removal from office for that. To make impeachment stick, you need to show that the president’s motives for acting were rotten and selfish, like Nixon’s; O, by contrast, always takes care to present his motives for ignoring Congress as civic-minded, something he does for the good of the people, not for himself. Tim Scott once suggested that Obama could be impeached if he tried to raise the debt ceiling unilaterally, but the public would never support that, I suspect. He’d simply say that he was driven to desperate measures to protect the country’s creditworthiness; at best you’d get a 50/50 split in public opinion on whether he should be punished, and I doubt the ratio would be even that good. Ron Paul once suggested that impeachment should be on the table for O’s drone strike on Anwar al-Awlaki, who was, after all, a U.S. citizen. O defended that by insisting he was acting to protect America from a particularly dangerous terrorist. I’d be surprised if you could get even 20 percent of the public angry enough to support impeachment over that one. A constitutionalist would wave his hand at all of the above and say that motives are irrelevant — if you violate due process or separation of powers, impeachment is an obvious remedy, however allegedly virtuous the motives. That’s what it means to follow the rule of law. How many constitutionalists are out there in the voting booth on election day, though? Fifteen percent of the electorate, maybe? Less?
Exit question: Will any big-name Republican pound the table for impeachment next year? Ted Cruz’s language about Obama’s lawlessness has been especially strong lately. He knows, of course, that the votes aren’t there in the Senate, but he knew they weren’t there for the “defund” effort either and he pushed that anyway. The key, then and now, was getting the House to act. O would survive but some conservatives would love Cruz for making the effort, which would be helpful to him when the primary campaign starts in 2015.
“How “realistic” is Obamacare?”
Quite realistic, in that it actually got passed and is now law. In that respect, much more realistic than impeachment.
True dat. It would make the BJ Clinton impeachment sh*t storm look like a summer breeze.
p.s. why is megyn asking mcconnell this? If she's gonna ask a dumb question, at least ask the guy who be the one who would have to launch it in the House?
Amazing what happens when one tries.
It’ll never happen. The next POTUS, D or R will be handing out pardons like candy on Halloween.
That is an understatement.
qualified? Really? qualified for what?
Impeachment needs to be done....only Obama Supporter RINOs will fight it. It also puts on record who supports Obama.
I am so tired of the GOP excuses
Amazing the lengths people will let wishful thinking take them too.
You’re defeated before you begin. The Democrats thank you for your help.
Cut her a little slack. Who else in the media even asks the question?
“You’re defeated before you begin.”
Well, that’s kind of my point. Impeachment is doomed to fail, so it’s an exercise in futility, wasting time, resources, and energy that should be devoted elsewhere.
Clinton was not in fact made stronger by impeachment. Or rather, the Democrats were not. Has it not been for Clinton, Gore would have been elected President in 2000, for many of the same reasons that Bush I was able to succeed Reagan. But Gore, unable to assume even the appearance of neutrality, had to act as cheerleader for a President whose actions bothered even many Democrats.
You miss the point or ignore it. To be clear: YOU are defeated before you begin. Many Republican apparatchik are Vichy surrender monkeys. I hope you are not one, but your attitude is defeatist.
F&F, AP, IRS, NSA, Seals... take your pick. None should be pursued?
That’s a good point. The Republicans wait until after the mid-terms and the new congress draws up articles of impeachment early on. Then they’ll have a stronger majority (and hopefully a louder voice) and the charges will have plenty of time to be proven valid prior to the 2016 election, so it’s a lot less likely to backfire (through a false media narrative) on those voting for it.
If the Republicans do win in 2014, win both House and Senate, they will have to do something, or they won’t win in 2016. The best thing would to to impeach Obama in direct reaction to a specific act of usurpation of a Congressional power. Already they have a list as long as that list of grievances against George III in the Declaration of Independence.
“The best thing would to to impeach Obama in direct reaction to a specific act of usurpation of a Congressional power.”
Why is that “the best thing” to do? What do you think it would accomplish, exactly?
I know it would make all of us feel better, but I can’t see how it would actually be productive.
The real question here is why would they chose to start using these powers now? They seem to have no fear at all of ourside EVER regaining the Executive. Why is that?
“...your attitude is defeatist”
No, my attitude is realist. If an action can’t hope to accomplish anything, then what is the point in wasting resources pursuing it? Instead you can devote those resources to something that might accomplish something.
Just calling people “defeatists”, because they won’t enthusiastically support something that is already DOA, is just silly. Conservatives are supposed to be pragmatists, not pie-in-the-sky idealists.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.