Impeach Me, Please!

A very odd, unprecedented meme has developed within the Obama administration. Senior spokespeople and major Democratic fundraising arms are raising the specter of an Obama impeachment. Forget the fact that no serious senior elected GOP politician in the House or the Senate has suggested this publicly. Forget the fact that impeachment would be a non-starter, given the current make-up of the Senate (which must vote to impeach with a super majority), forget that for all of his incompetence, mendaciousness, divisiveness, and lack of leadership, Barack Obama has not committed "high crimes and misdemeanors," The Dems seem obsessed with the subject.

James Taranto comments:

Here's an idea for a satirical political film: A beleaguered president tries to engineer his own impeachment in the hope of engendering public sympathy and turning the political tide in his favor.

If it's too far-out for a satire, maybe it'll work as a documentary. Yes, the White House is talking impeachment. The Christian Science Monitor's Mark Sappenfield reports that senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer broached the subject twice at a breakfast Friday.

First, he "said that House Republicans' recent moves toward a lawsuit against President Obama open 'the door to Republicans possibly considering impeachment at some point in the future.' " Later, he suggested some potential grounds: "He said that if Obama uses his executive authority this year to ease deportations of some illegal immigrants--as he has vowed to do--that 'will certainly up the likelihood that [Republicans] would contemplate impeachment at some point.' "

Republicans would have to be complete fools to undertake impeachment proceedings absent a broad public consensus that the president has to go. In theory, they could do it: Impeachment requires only a majority of the House, so that GOP representatives could approve articles of impeachment without Democratic help. (Or with Democratic help: The Dems could boycott an impeachment vote, so that a majority of Republicans would be enough.)

But convicting an impeached official and removing him from office require a two-thirds vote of the Senate, or 67 votes.

It seems that even the president's wife can't avoid talking about the subject. Again from Taranto:

"In the past 48 hours," the Washington Examiner's Byron York reported Saturday morning, "first lady Michelle Obama, White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, White House spokesman Josh Earnest, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and others have raised the specter of an Obama impeachment."

The DCCC did so in a series of fundraising solicitations, culminating in a shout: "If you're wondering why you're getting all this email on a Friday night, it's simple. THE IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT OBAMA IS NOW A REAL POSSIBILITY."

It's likely that this overblown nonsense coming from the Dems is, as Taranto implies, nothing more than a fundraising ploy. But it might also be a cross between reaction formation and misdirection—a pathetic attempt to change the subject.

This presdient has failed miserably in both the domestic and foriegn policy realms. His domestic policies have lead to a stagnant economy, increased debt, myriad serious scandals, and a level of partisanship that truly does hurt the country. His foriegn policy is a disaster. So the Dems are doing what defense lawyers try to do in the courtroom ... follow the old aphorism, "When you client is guilty, change the subject."