You won’t hear anything of this in the mainstream Obama lap-dog media, but the topic of impeachment and President Barack Obama broke into the headlines this week after Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn, a self-described “friend” of the President made comments about his actions and lawless governance sliding “perilously close” to impeachable offense. This follows on the heels of what many of Coburn’s fellow Republicans in the House and Senate have been hearing at various town halls across the nation while they are on their August recess. Away from the coasts, out in the heartland, Republicans are being pressed by constituents who legitimately wonder why Congress is allowing the President and his administration to run rough-shod over the Constitution and not be held accountable for their brazenly lawless and reckless actions.
Kevin McCarthy of National Review Online has a column designed to bring this discussion out of the shadows and into the open. In part, he writes:
President Obama, of course, has sworn to uphold the Constitution and is bound to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (Art. II, Sec. 3). In stark contrast, he has usurped the lawmaking power of Congress by unilaterally amending some statutes and expressly refusing to enforce others — not because they are arguably unconstitutional but because he disagrees with them on policy grounds. For years, he has ignored the law requiring the executive branch to propose Medicare reforms when the program’s trustees issue a warning about inadequate funding. He has made recess appointments when Congress was not in recess. He has flouted judicial rulings, including those invalidating the work of illegally appointed officials. His Justice Department openly and notoriously flouts the Constitution by enforcing the civil-rights laws in a racially discriminatory manner. His administration has knowingly transferred firearms to murderous Mexican criminal enterprises, predictably resulting in the killing of at least one federal Border Patrol officer. He has sued sovereign states in order to extort them into acceptance of his gutting of immigration and voter-identification laws.
After willfully empowering jihadists in Libya by instigating an unprovoked, unauthorized war against a regime the United States regarded as an ally and was funding, the president and his State Department were shockingly derelict in failing to protect American personnel they recklessly kept stationed in Benghazi despite repeated attacks. When American installations there were predictably besieged yet again by jihadists on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the commander-in-chief compounded his default by abandoning Americans who were under lethal attack, failing to take action to attempt to save them. As a result of this serial malfeasance, four American officials, including the United States ambassador to Libya, were killed — a scandal the administration has exacerbated by stonewalling congressional investigations; attempting to defraud the public into believing an obscure anti-Muslim video provoked the siege; and shamefully jailing the video producer in a transparent effort to prop up the fraud and in violation of the producer’s constitutional rights.
The president, moreover, oversees an administration that has turned the IRS loose to harass his political opponents, frustrating their capacity to organize prior to the 2012 election. And Obama has stood behind his attorney general despite the latter’s citation for contempt of Congress and multiple episodes of false congressional testimony — most recently in connection with the investigation of journalists covering the administration.
With a record like this, George W. Bush would long ago have been impeached and removed.
No one is saying that impeachment hearings are imminent or even the subject of debate or conversation in the back halls of Congress. And one might argue that the President’s popularity amongst his lapdog media and a low-information (i.e. ignorant) populace would result in howls and cries of racism if Republicans attempted to bring impeachment hearings forward, but the fact is that the Framers of the Constitution put impeachment into the framework for a reason: to police the way the Executive Branch operates and provide the country with a political solution to prevent similar actions and excesses by future administrations.
That the I-word is emerging from the shadows and at least being raised in polite company ought to be a warning sign to the Obama administration. It won’t, of course – Eric Holder, Kathleen Sebelius, and the President’s other uber-political appointees doing the administration’s bidding while he plays golf and endlessly campaigns are all just left-wing zealots attempting to overhaul the country’s socio-economic and political framework as quickly as possible before they’re exposed for what they truly are and voted out of power. But that doesn’t mean the word or topic should be shunned or disregarded simply because it may not be the most politically expedient thing to do. There is a time for political courage, and the excesses and outright lawlessness of the Obama administration ought to be debated, discussed, and challenged wherever and however possible as the Framers designed.
