All this impeachment poppycock is making me nuts.
Some goofball right-wing members of Congress — not to mention a few bystanders perched in the political peanut gallery — are saying the House of Representatives needs to impeach President Barack Obama.
For what, you say? I don’t know exactly. For issuing executive orders in keeping with his constitutional authority? For the flood of illegal immigrants who are coming into the country, as if the president himself could order it stopped? For tweaking the Affordable Care Act after it became law?
The right-wing loons contend he’s broken laws. They haven’t cited specific laws — because he hasn’t broken any law.
Many of us have lived through two impeachable events involving presidents.
* The first one occurred in the early 1970s. President Nixon’s re-election campaign hired a team of goons to break into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate office complex. When word got out that they were captured, Nixon then ordered the FBI to block the investigation. Then that became known and all hell broke loose.
The House Judiciary Committee and a select committee of senators conducted hearings. The Judiciary Committee then approved articles of impeachment. Nixon resigned in August 1974 rather than face certain impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate.
* Then came the episode involving President Clinton. A special prosecutor was hired by Congress to examine the Whitewater real estate dealings allegedly involving President and Mrs. Clinton. The prosecutor then began snooping around allegations that Clinton fooled around with a young White House intern. A federal grand jury asked Clinton about it. He lied when he denied any involvement with the woman. Oops. You can’t perjure yourself. The House impeached him on those grounds, but the Senate acquitted him.
Two specific incidents resulted in a near impeachment and the real thing.
The stuff involving President Obama? It’s all political hucksterism, meant to inflame the Republican base, get ’em riled up.
Sure, the president has made mistakes. Has any president skated through office without blundering here and there? Of course not.
Do these blunders require an impeachment? No.
To his credit, House Speaker John Boehner says he disagrees with the impeachment yammering.
Good. Now he needs to take the tea party yahoos within his caucus who keep fomenting this nonsense to the woodshed.