To Impeach or To Not Impeach or To PRETEND to Impeach. That is the question ?

harleysportster
atheist
harleysportster's picture
Posts: 3359
Joined: 2010-10-17
User is offlineOffline
To Impeach or To Not Impeach or To PRETEND to Impeach. That is the question ?

 Second term presidents, regardless of party, seem to always catch the worst on that second term if you ask me. However, quite a number of them seem to catch it on the first go-around, which makes one wonder why anyone would want to be a president anyway ?

www.huffingtonpost.com/lincoln-mitchell/republican-impeachment-em_b_5682356.html

Republican Impeachment Embarrassment

President Obama is in the middle of his sixth year in the White House and is not exactly surfing a huge wave of popular support. With less than three months to go before the midterm election, Obama's poll numbers are stuck in the low 40s. His party is poised to lose a few seats in the House of Representatives in November and may even lose control of the Senate. It is, however, more likely that they will hold onto a very narrow lead in the upper chamber of the legislature. Obama has always had many critics on the right who were never going to be happy with the president. In addition, many progressive are disappointed with the president's inability to live up to their extremely high hopes.

In most regards, none of this is unusual. Second terms are often difficult for presidents. Presidential administrations often seem to run out of energy or ideas as they enter their sixth, seventh and eighth year, while second-term presidents rarely enjoy as much support from the legislature as they did during their first term. Similarly, leaders from the president's own party often seek to distance themselves from the president in anticipation of their own presidential campaigns. We are seeing all of this occur now. Opposition from Republicans in Congress, efforts by likely Democratic nominee in 2016 Hillary Clinton to separate herself from the Obama record or simply the absence of exciting new proposals coming from the White House are hardly without precedent.

As Obama's presidency winds down, one of the stranger stories to emerge has been the impeachment -- or, more accurately, the Republicans threatening impeachment but not really meaning it -- saga. Impeaching a president is difficult, as it requires a vote by the House of Representatives followed by a trial and vote by the Senate. Two presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, have been impeached. Neither were convicted by the Senate. As long as the Democrats retain control of the Senate, or have close to 50 votes there, it is almost certain that efforts to impeach Obama would lead to the same result.

While it may be reassuring to some to recognize that the likelihood of President Obama being impeached and convicted is extremely small, the possibility of his impeachment and the way it has been raised by some Republicans in Congress as more or less another legislative tool is concerning. The reasons given by some Republicans in Congress for wanting to impeach Obama are essentially that they don't like what he has done as president. Members of Congress who do not like what a president is trying to do have numerous tools at their disposal. They can try to block the president's legislation, attack him in the media or run against his party. The Republicans have not been bashful about pursuing any of these solutions. Trying to impeach the president, absent a compelling reason that rises to the standards of high crimes and misdemeanors, is playing too incautiously with constitutional structures and arrangements.

The most striking thing about the efforts to impeach the president is not that this idea was mentioned by conservatives in Congress, but that the idea has completely backfired on the Republican Party. Because of the unabashedly and purely partisan nature of the impeachment proposals, the Democrats found it very easy to fight back using the Republican threat of impeachment as a way to rally their base, raise money and bolster support for President Obama.

In recent weeks, Democrats have worked hard to keep impeachment in the news while Republicans have tried to bury any discussion of impeachment. It is now the Democrats, not the Republicans, who speak about impeachment more, as the issue helps Democrats seeking to ensure Obama is not impeached, but not the Republicans. Given that there is little chance of Obama being impeached and even less chance of him being convicted before his term ends, some have accused the Democrats of behaving cynically or of playing politics on this issue.

The Democrats are, of course, playing politics with this issue, but for Republicans to criticize them for this reflects a degree of chutzpah that is laughable. Threatening impeachment, even if only a few members make that threat, and then getting righteously indignant when the president rallies his supporters to oppose impeachment is absurd. It demonstrates a degree of political aimlessness and lack of strategic thinking that has too frequently been seen in the Republican Party in recent years. The Republicans were foolish to let any discussion of impeachment make it into the media or even be floated in Congress, but once they made that mistake they called foul when the other party responded predictably, reasonably and effectively. Regardless of what you think about Obama, the impeachment discussion, such as it is, has further underscored that the Republicans are not ready to govern, and in fact may not even be interested in doing that.

 

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno


iwbiek
atheistSuperfan
iwbiek's picture
Posts: 4298
Joined: 2008-03-23
User is offlineOffline
"extremely high hopes" is

"extremely high hopes" is right. i would say impossibly high hopes. i was happy when obama won, both times, mostly because i didn't want another fuck-up, jesus-invoking, redneck republican with a hair-trigger in the white house, but i was not elated. i certainly didn't cry or celebrate or find the whole thing terribly inspiring in 2008. i know lots of folks who did. even my slovak wife was excited about him (as much as a foreigner outside the US can be), but my attitude was always "wait and see." all in all, i'm mostly pleased. it certainly has been a nice rest after that goddamn piece of shit bush administration, but i never expected him to live up to the rhetoric. no one could.

"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson


digitalbeachbum
atheistRational VIP!
digitalbeachbum's picture
Posts: 4895
Joined: 2007-10-15
User is offlineOffline
 They will not impeach him.

 They will not impeach him. The republican party wastes more time doing fucking nothing. They need to focus on getting shit actually done rather than beat their dicks.


Beyond Saving
atheist
Beyond Saving's picture
Posts: 5520
Joined: 2007-10-12
User is offlineOffline
digitalbeachbum wrote: They

digitalbeachbum wrote:

 They will not impeach him. The republican party wastes more time doing fucking nothing. They need to focus on getting shit actually done rather than beat their dicks.

I'd much prefer that all politicians sat around beating their dicks than actually achieving their stated goals. I'd gladly part with $1 billion per elected official in taxpayer money if they all agreed to go on vacation and not pass another law. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper and a lot less damaging for our country. 

If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X


digitalbeachbum
atheistRational VIP!
digitalbeachbum's picture
Posts: 4895
Joined: 2007-10-15
User is offlineOffline
Beyond Saving

Beyond Saving wrote:

digitalbeachbum wrote:

 They will not impeach him. The republican party wastes more time doing fucking nothing. They need to focus on getting shit actually done rather than beat their dicks.

I'd much prefer that all politicians sat around beating their dicks than actually achieving their stated goals. I'd gladly part with $1 billion per elected official in taxpayer money if they all agreed to go on vacation and not pass another law. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper and a lot less damaging for our country. 

I'd agree with that but they won't do it either. I'd rather have wiser and more efficent statesmen than politicians. I'd rather they stop playing the games and get on with being a part of the community.

I'm convinced that the be a politician that you must either be born with out a conscience or have no morality.