Impeachment, 2014

In 2014 there will be a serious effort in the House to impeach Obama. 

House Republicans know that their antics during the government shutdown have put control of the House in jeopardy. Team Blue could regain control in 2014. So they know this could be their last chance to impeach Obama, the man they hate even more than they hated Clinton. 

Boehner will go along with it, because he knows the teabaggers will throw him out of his job otherwise. Boehner doesn’t love Obama enough to throw himself on a grenade for him. Perhaps he even dreams that they could successfully impeach both Obama and Biden, which would mean….President Boehner. 

Yes, I know, my sphincter puckered too. 

Now, you may be thinking “There’s no way they could be that crazy and self-destructive”. First of all, these are the same guys who immolated themselves in the shutdown. The same guys who have indulged themselves in progressively crazier expressions of anti-Obama hate and conspiracy theories. And most of all, they are much, much crazier than the guys who impeached Clinton. 

Take a look at the Clinton impeachment team, and they look like sages of sanity compared to the current House teabaggers. Bob Barr got fed up with the Patriot Act and Bush’s wiretapping and left the GOP entirely. Asa Hutchinson ran the DEA. Jim Sensenbrenner, still in the House, wants to repair the damage done to the Voting Rights Act, so blacks can vote. Henry Hyde warned against Bush’s plan to invade Iraq. Lindsey Graham has so often played the moderate Voice of Reason that teabaggers want to throw Graham himself out of office. Today, the Clinton impeachment managers would be the sane, liberal wing of the GOP. 

Any impeachment plan would be considered by the House Judiciary Committee. You know who’s on that committee? Darrell Issa, the House’s main conspiracy theorist. Steve King and Louis Gohmert and Trent Franks, whose public attacks on Obama are so insane that they are practically keeping Rachel Maddow in business. And Jason Chaffetz, author of the Extortion 17 theory. These guys dream of impeaching Obama every night. They would love to be on television all summer as the impeachment managers, telling all of America, for weeks, how much they hate Obama. 

“Well, perhaps because these guys have no credibility, wiser heads will prevail and they won’t go forward.” Again, there are no wiser heads to stop them. Wiser heads would have stopped the shutdown. This is the House. And in the Clinton impeachment, the people driving the case had no credibility either: remember that the Clinton case was all about oral sex, and was driven by men who also had a long list of infidelities themselves. They knew this, and went forward anyway. They also knew that the votes weren’t there, to remove Clinton in the Senate, and they still never even slowed down. There is no brake pedal on this. 

The Obama impeachment effort itself will actually make it easier for the Republicans to lose the House, but the tea caucus doesn’t care. They are now being led by the Nihilists from The Big Lebowski. 

“We believe in nothing, Obama! Nothing! And tomorrow we come back and we cut off your Chonson!”

When the Republicans build their case, they will try to build a coalition, or rather two coalitions: people in the House who hate Obama for different reasons, and people in the national population at large who also have a wide range of beefs against Obama. They hope, in this way, to cobble together enough votes in the House to impeach, and enough supporters across the country to stem the current anti-GOP tide and even hold on to the House. They will see this as a winning strategy. 

And of course, they need a wide range of issues, because they need to impeach Obama on a long list of alleged offenses. Because each accusation, by itself, is laughably flimsy and easy to refute. 

So they will round up the people who still consider themselves national-security conservatives even after the Bush fiascos, with accusations about murdering our boys in Benghazi; Egypt; Libya; Syria; the War Powers Act; and a thing called Extortion 17, wherein Obama allegedly leaked information to the Taliban which led to the killing of the SEALs who killed bin Laden. 

People who fear Latinos: accusations about Fast and Furious, immigration and the border; promoting food stamps for illegals.

People who believe the “Obama = dictator” meme: accusations about the IRS probes; the Czars; executive orders; the AP reporters; NSA surveillance; detentions; the magical kill switch that can turn off the entire internet; planning for martial law.

People who believe all the lies about Obamacare.

People who hate Eric Holder: accusations about filing lawsuits against states; DOMA; fighting on the voting laws.

Solyndra. No one really understands what their point is on this one, but certain teabaggers still jump out of their chairs, Pavlov-like, when they hear this word. 

People who don’t understand how money works: accusations about refusing to give in to the teabaggers on the government shutdown; the auto bailout; nationalizing industries; deficits; the debt ceiling; the stimulus.

People who loathe Obama himself, just because: the birth certificate; faked college history; being a Muslim, being a Communist, the alleged Apology Tour.

People who believe everything Big Oil tells them: EPA regulation; oil drilling; the Keystone pipeline.

Gun nuts: small arms treaty; faking gun data; plotting to take our guns.

People who still don’t want blacks voting: voter fraud.

And people who don’t understand what the Constitution actually says. 

So get the popcorn ready. The Impeachment Circus is coming to town.