The Republican field of candidates — even when it comprised 17 members — has been using some highly charged language to describe the twice-elected administration of President Barack Obama.

They call his actions “lawless.” They say his executive orders are “unconstitutional.”

Thus, they are accusing the president of two things: of breaking the law and of failing to uphold the oath he took twice when he was sworn in by the chief justice of the Supreme Court.

That makes me ask out loud, right here: Why haven’t the Republicans in the House of Representatives impeached the president?

If you really and truly think he’s broken the law or signed unconstitutional executive orders, then you have political recourse. Isn’t that correct?

It’s impeachment.

Two U.S. presidents have been impeached over the course of the nation’s history.

President Andrew Johnson fired his secretary of war without notifying the Senate and got impeached; he came within a single vote of conviction during a Senate trial. President Bill Clinton got impeached for lying to a grand jury about a tawdry relationship he had with a White House intern; the Senate acquitted him on three counts. A third president, Richard Nixon came within a whisker of being impeached because he blocked an investigation into the Watergate scandal; the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment, but the president quit his office.

These days, candidates for president keep tossing out verbiage that would suggest — if you are to believe it — that the current president has committed a whole array of impeachable offenses. Indeed, when you accuse a president of doing something “unconstitutional,” that by itself implies malfeasance.

Me? I don’t believe it.

I get that it’s campaign rhetoric. Therefore, perhaps they don’t really mean what they’re saying out there — on the stump or on those debate stages.

So, how about saying what you mean, fellas?