Once upon a time over in GOPWorld, you were a chicken if you weren't willing to vote to shut down the government the way the crackpots and nihilist Hate Talk Radio-inspired zombies who pass for the Republican base were demanding. But that is sooooo the day before yesterday... which is when we did our most recent post of crazy teabagger, Kerry Bentivolio, a random piece of gutter trash who managed to grab a House seat because Steve Israel wouldn't help the Muslim Democratic candidate.Times move fast these days if you want to keep up with Ted Cruz and his psychotic father, and Saturday the NY Times reported that the new "You're A Chicken If" theme for the Republicans is the reluctance to a dwindling number to refuse to try to impeach Barack Obama. And it's not just the obviously unhinged lunatics like Bentivolio who want to go down that path. “If I could write that bill and submit it, it would be a dream come true," he shared with his Tea Party constituents in Oakland County. He's using taxpayer dollars to hire experts to help him make his dream come true.
While many members of Congress have used their August break to engage in conversations about immigration policy, the federal budget and the impending implementation of the Affordable Care Act, some Republicans have taken the opportunity to raise the specter of-- if not quite the grounds for-- presidential impeachment.At least two other House Republicans told voters this month that the impeachment process could happen. And last week, Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who has called himself a friend of the president, told constituents that the nation was “perilously close” to an impeachment situation.Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, lamented to one voter who asked about the prospect of impeachment that the Senate, controlled by Democrats, would probably not yield the needed votes for conviction. (This logic has not impeded Mr. Cruz from seeking to stop a short-term spending bill unless money is drained from the health care program.)There is also a grass-roots movement in which citizens across the nation have been hanging signs on overpasses that call for impeachment.The lawmakers have not laid out any specific charges of high crimes and misdemeanors against Mr. Obama, though the health care law and I.R.S. scrutiny of applications by conservative groups for nonprofit status seem to be among the motivating factors.Some were also sketchy on the details of how exactly to proceed with a course that Republicans also pursued against the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton. But the movement, somewhat like the one questioning Mr. Obama’s birth certificate, appears to be a lighted match. (There is a new instruction manual, “Impeachable Offenses: The Case for Removing Barack Obama from Office” by the WABC radio host Aaron Klein and the blogger Brenda J. Elliott, that the authors plan to distribute to lawmakers.)Mr. Obama’s supporters seem something short of terrified. “I think there are a lot of challenges ahead,” said David Axelrod, a longtime adviser to Mr. Obama. “But impeachment is not one of them.” He added: “The bottom line is that it would be enormously self-destructive for the Republicans to waste time on what is a plainly empty expression of primal, partisan rage.”...Republicans would most likely tread carefully into territory that burned them politically in the past. “I do think that sufficient questions have been raised about the legalities of several things this administration has engaged in,” said former Representative Bob Barr of Georgia, who was a House manager during Mr. Clinton’s impeachment process and is running for Congress again.Mr. Barr cited the postponement of the employer mandate in the health care law, “improper use of the Patriot Act” and actions on immigration as some of these potential illegalities. “I am not saying these are impeachable acts,” he said, “but they raise sufficient questions.”
But here's a dynamic to consider. One-- or all three-- of Lindsey Graham's drooling teabagger primary opponents, Nancy Pace, Richard Cash, Lee Bright, start campaigning to the extreme right wing secessionist base of South Carolina Republicans. For teat sliver of the state population, it would be a very popular platform. What does Lindsey Graham do, especially if Tim Coburn and, say, Ted Cruz-- not to mention Heritage fuehrer Jim DeMint-- start clamoring for it? That's why we're lucky grassroots Democrat Jay Stamper is ignoring the pundits and the Beltway powerbrokers and running for the seat. Could the same dynamic come into play between teabagger Matt Bevin and Miss McConnell? What if Wyoming neo-Nazi Tom Bleming and his female doppelganger, Liz Cheney, start hollerin' about impeachment? What does Mike Enzi do? Watch Tennessee if Joe Carr figurers out how to spell impeach.