Dana Milbank had a column the other day about how it would be great for Obama politically if Republicans gained control of Congress. It was pretty typical TNR-style contrarian wankery, though since this was the first time that anything has ever been good news for Obama, maybe I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Now, I have no idea if Republicans will get control of the House — it seems like a longshot, since they have to pick up 40 seats to do, but I’m no Nate Silver, so what do I know?
It seems worth asking: what would Republicans do if they gained control of the House? Presumably, there would be a lot of absurd, numberless bubble-chart proposals, for sure, but I don’t think anyone would pay much attention to them. My guess is that politically, the biggest thing would do is start lots of investigations. What do you think they would investigate? Anita Dunn and Van Jones, probably, but what else? Would they delve into Obama’s pre-presidential years? Would they hold hearings on his birth certificate? Would they impeach him? Would the press go along with all of this the way they did with Whitewater and Travelgate and Socksgate? My gut feeling is that the answer to the last three questions is “yes”.
Update. There is already an impeach Obama website, per the comments.
I do think that Republican candidates for Congress should be asked whether or not they support impeaching Obama.
Update. Michael Savage is onboard. Does anyone know if Glenn Beck has recommended impeaching Obama?
Update. A friend who is a bit more knowledgeable about Congress writes:
But weren’t the wheels already starting at the Clinton White House by this time? Clinton entered office with a Flowers and Whitewater (they were both campaign issues IIRC) and then the WH Travel Office issue broke in the first or second year of his term.
Obama has nothing right now, other than maybe the little bit of land, and that was clearly not a real issue. He hasn’t lied about it, either. Plus, he seems to be really committed to his wife and family, and his wider family is both small and seem pretty sane.
Republicans need at least a 20 vote majority to impeach, plus the right kind of zealots on the Judiciary Committee. Not every Republican on the Judiciary committee is willing to wipe his/her ass with the Constitution just for political benefit.
And there’s no special prosecutor law anymore. Starr did all the legwork for the Clinton impeachment.
demkat620
Yes. It would be non stop investigations. And of course the media will go along with that.
Ratings. Gold.
Napoleon
All of the above with a special appearance of some Republican officeholder putting a bullet through a pumpkin in his back yard to prove some point or the other. If the Republicans get one chamber of Congress it will be Clinton x2.
In other news it will be great news for my health if I develop hemorrhoids.
The Republic of Stupidity
Considering the source, I’m not sure you’d be looking in the horse’s MOUTH here…
The Grand Panjandrum
I’m sure they would find a reason to publicly address the most pressing issue of this new decade: Does Obama “dress right” or “dress left”? You see it is very important to know such things.
Fergus Wooster
Yes, yes and yes, and more investigations into bullshit our puny reality-based minds have not yet conceived. Or has not yet been fabricated.
I really hate Dana Milbank. He is part of the reason I have had to partially unplug from the political intertrons, for the first time in 10 years.
JenJen
Yes, I think they’d impeach him. On something, because it doesn’t really matter what it is… the goal of “Impeachment” isn’t actual Impeachment. The goal is sucking up all the oxygen in the room.
Oh, and abusing your power, which is bad-ass and “mavericky” if you’re a Republican.
Alex S.
Well… it would be irresponsible not to speculate…
…so I believe they’d shut down the government, and yes, they’d go for impeachment because of communist fascism.
TR
But don’t you understand? If Obama got impeached, and then Biden, and then Pelosi, and then Byrd … that would finally make Hillary the president!
PUMA Power!
danimal
Agreed, they’ll impeach. The GOP base would demand it. It’s hard to tell what impeachable offense they would charge, but there’s plenty of time for that. The goal would be to tarnish Obama prior to the 2012 election.
DougJ
Well… it would be irresponsible not to speculate…
You know, if they really do have a chance to win, then it really would be irresponsible not to try to figure out what they plan to do if they win.
licensed to kill time
The prospect is too terrible to contemplate. Why does Dana Milbank hate America so? Leave America alooooooooooone!
Johnny B
Finally, someone has written about what we can look forward to in the event the GOP takes control of the House. I’ve been telling anyone who will listen that the first order of business will be a full blown investigation of Obama’s birth certificate followed shortly thereafter with Articles of Impeachment. You see if you’re base has been repeatedly told that the President is a National Socialist who wants to impose sharia law on the country, then the only proper thing to do is impeach him. I remember reading somewhere after the Clinton impeachment trial that Gingrich was against impeachment but was hamstrung by his base who demanded one.
Of course, Dana, Sally, and Friends will all support impeachment. My God, look how arrogant Obama has been to the popular kids living in Georgetown!
In the event that the Republicans manage to take control of both the House and Senate, I think, without a shred of irony, that Obama and Biden should immediately resign the Presidency and Vice Presidency. The next Republican majority will be even more loony than the last and they will have no interest in working with Obama. Best let them have it all so the American people can learn (maybe) what it means to have lunatics run the asylum. Apparently, the last lesson on this score didn’t take.
Tecumseh
I think this is all based on Villager fallacy that post ’94 Government was somewhere up there with Athens as a democratic ideal. This, of course, totally ignores the fact Clinton was unable to do much of anything and that the Republicans wasted two years by trying to impeach him. This also goes with Villager fallacy that bipartisan is better than partisan, that Obama not doing what he says he wants to do is a bad thing for Obama and that somehow the Republicans would be responsible and sane.
Sometimes I wonder if pundits actually read their own newspaper
El Cid
They would pretend that Democrats had launched all sorts of investigation, the media would go along with that pretense, and since our national memory is about a month long, then everyone will go along with a goose/gander analogy.
rootless_e
Remember Tweety explaining how if Gore conceded, he would be a kind of shadow president?
JenJen
@Tecumseh:
Word. If all you ever watched was “Morning Joe,” you’d think his time in Congress was like Athens 400 BC.
DougJ
If all you ever watched was “Morning Joe,” you’d think his time in Congress was like Athens 400 BC.
You mean with all the slaves and societally sanctioned pederasty and so on?
Zach
They’d investigate his real estate purchase with Rezko for sure. And perhaps accuse Michelle Obama of quid pro quo for one of her professional gigs. And, of course, ACORN and white voters being intimidated.
They’d also investigate Pelosi for purportedly lying about what she knew and said about torture when it was secret. Everything security related would be particularly insane because Hoekstra would be on the case… it makes me hope he becomes MI governor instead. That state’s lost, anyway.
ajr22
As if the Republicans have plans, they just make shit up as they go. They just see, respond, and spin. The only real plan they have would be to offer massive tax cuts to big business. I mean lets be real, for all the waiving around of their “plans” if they had control would they offer their health plan NOPE.
scarpy
I frankly wish there was a way to give the GOP the Senate, but have the Dems keep the House. I think that given the weird-ass way our system works, you need both parties to have skin in the game if there’s to be any hope of working on major issues. But giving the GOP the Senate would leave them hamstrung enough that they couldn’t do too much damage.
As far as investigations, we may as well get used to the idea. It will come, and unless and until Dems are ready to fight on that field with the same kind of fire, the GOP will have no reason to think twice. The Dems don’t need both chambers. They just need their own scary thugs.
Zach
What would actually happen if Republicans make huge gains in both chambers is that they’d have an easy time passing legislation because of spineless, centrist Dems who are afraid of voting against spending cuts and tax cuts and guns and jesus.
Citizen Alan
Is there anyone who doubts that the Republicans will initiate endless investigations with the goal of creating a pretext for an impeachment if they regain the House? Is there anyone who can even suggest otherwise with a straight face?
The default Republican position is that if Republicans are not permitted to rule the nation and pursue whatever insane agenda seizes their despicable fancies then Republicans will destroy the nation by any means necessary. They are traitors to their country. Every one. Without exception. And Obama’s failure to perceive this basic fact is what will doom his presidency — if not to a loss in 2012, then to complete impotency from 2013 to 2016 as he has to fight off impeachment for some ludicrous trumped-up pseudo-scandal.
JenJen
@DougJ:
As delightful as that may sound to Joe Scarborough and his guests, sadly, no. I’m referring more to the “Gosh Bill Clinton was the best President ever when he started working with us and then we impeached him” stuff.
rob!
A-C-O-R-N–ACORN!
And somehow they’d force Comedy Central to replace Stephen Colbert with James O’Keefe.
Alex S.
@DougJ:
I know, it’s just my favorite meme here!
Ash
Wait, wtf was Socksgate? Please, oh dear god, tell me it wasn’t about the cat?!
JenJen
@Ash: I believe it was about the cat. As in “That heartless harpy Hillary unloaded Socks the Cat on lowly staffer and Presidential loyalist Betty Currie .”
ETA: Here ya go… link
Mike E
@JenJen:
The beginning of the Grover Norquist Era of Neutered Pets.
slag
Aren’t they still bitching about some guy Obama supposedly booted out of some fairly irrelevant administrative office? And wasn’t Michelle somehow implicated in this malicious conspiracy?
I’m pretty sure that episode with become the first Travelgate-style inquiry.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Daughter-gate. (Did Sasha & Malia pressure classmates into trading their pudding for apples!?)
Puppy-gate. (According to Drudge, Bo regularly defiles the White House lawn!1)
Granny-gate. (Why hasn’t President Obama’s mother-in-law come forward to deny the serious allegations Sarah Palin has laid against her?!)
MattF
All you people looking for a reason. Ha Ha, silly rabbits.
DougJ
@Ash:
It was something to do with using franking privileges (free postage) for letters sent in reply to letters that Sock received.
maus
@demkat620:
I honestly think it would get much worse ratings than the Clinton investigations, people have so much more to do with their time.
On the bright note, it would effectively kill the networks, so that’s a start.
cat48
Did anyone read Friedman today? It seems people from other countries at Davos are asking about the “political instability” in the US. An impeachment would make us totally untrustworthy in the rest of the world.
I’m not sure the entire press would go along with an impeachment right now for fear our money supply might be cut off.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
If we’re comparing them to the 1994-2000 congress, nothing positive. The only good thing most people remember about government in that period was the elimination of the deficit, and that was primarily due to the actions of Dems in 1993. Not much of the Contract With America was ever signed, was it? Even if you’re conservative it’s hard to think of anything during those years that would be pleasing to you, excepting the impeachment. So yeah, the Repubs might turn government into a big circus again, and Obama might join them on a desultory fiscal intiative or two, but I wouldn’t expect much else.
MikeJ
Remember that the shit didn’t hit the fan with Clinton until he made Newt ride in the back of Air Force One. I wonder what republican leadership will interpret as a snub from Obama. The floor is open.
Cat Lady
Joe Biden probably has used the wrong phone. Also too.
MacsenMifune
Did anyone mention tax cuts, or is that just a given.
JenJen
@DougJ: Wow. We’re getting our Socks-Gates confused. OR MAYBE THERE WAS MORE THAN ONE I MEAN MANY, MANY!
DougJ
We’re getting our Socks-Gates confused. OR MAYBE THERE WAS MORE THAN ONE
What’s the other one? How he gave Socks to Betty Curry?
Napoleon
I through this out there in 2 other threads in the last several days and it was totally ignored, but I think it fits with the theme of this thread, but before the Republicans will even have the chance to pick up one side of Congress I would think that Congress will have to raise the debt limit again. A few days ago a vote came up to raise it and the Senate, which still has Kirk from Mass since Brown has not been seated voted 60-40 to raise it. Next time it will be 59-41 if all the Republicans vote against it and if that is what they do on closure the US becames a defaulting debtor nation like an Argentina or some 8th tier African nation and the entire government budget will be in complete ruins with borrowing cost going through the roof.
Does anyone not think they will do exactly that?
Napoleon
@MikeJ:
Being President while being black.
Zach
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): “Not much of the Contract With America was ever signed, was it?”
True, but I wish Dems would emulate the Contract With America and change their committee chairmanship rules. Had Democrats done the same thing at the time, John Murtha wouldn’t be on the periphery of a criminal probe, Dingle wouldn’t have needed to be forced out to allow a rational Cap and Trade bill to come into existence, and Jane Harman would have to answer for approving torture for years while it was still secret.
Derelict
Of COURSE they would begin investigations. They’d investigate everything you’ve ever heard of, and a whole bunch of things you’ve never heard of.
And they would impeach just as surely as the sun rises. They would have no choice since the TeaBaggers have taken over the party. Failure to vote articles of impeachment would be political suicide for them.
See, Republicans put impeachment of a Democratic president on the table first and foremost. and they’ll exploit anything, no matter how trivial, to do it. It is one of their highest goals. As we’ve seen, Democrats will not impeach no matter how egregious the crimes or how voluminous the evidence.
DougJ
FELINE FAN CLUB SCANDAL is how it is described here.
DougJ
Does anyone not think they will do exactly that?
I’m not sure. They did vote for the bail-out in the end.
freelancer
Jesus Christ, that YouTube video is something else. I have a graph the world needs to see. (ETA- I didn’t make this graph, I just found it)
http://graphjam.com/upcoming/?pid=20550
BR
Maybe we can get an astroturf campaign going supporting the right-wing base’s desire to impeach Obama. That way there’ll be demand for the base and the GOP will have to take a stand on it, which is kinda lose-lose for them.
Plus given that 50% of why the base probably wants to impeach Obama is that they think he is ineligible to be president in the first place, it’ll bring back birtherism in full force.
cat48
@Napoleon:
I think it is possible. I worry about that.
General Winfield Stuck
He will. When he learns to spell it.
Alex S.
Well, the Republicans have to come up with something new to keep the outrage going. I mean, they’ve already lost 3 news-cycles in a row (O’Keefe, SOTU, House GOP).
jenniebee
After following the impeach Obama link (and I need to buy eye-bleach in bulk now, tyvm) I think my favorite quotes are a tie between:
In 18th century language, a ‘misdemeanor’ meant ‘mis-demeanor,’ or bad behavior.”
Johnson wept.
The other strong contender is:
It could be easily argued that we have a duty to impeach Barack Hussein Obama.
It could be easy, but we’ll never know, because they leave it at that. The central argument for why they think there’s a legal case for it is that Obama is generically “malevolen[t] towards this country” and that “misdemeanor” means “bad behavior” which means “institutes policies I don’t like.”
The Republican Party: the Party of Ideas. Really, truly, scarily bad ideas.
Classic.
Martin
Since Glenn has already declared Obama to be Hitler, on a number of occasions, I would assume anything shy of sucking on the barrel of a gun would be something he’s on board with.
Tom Hilton
The Republicans in Congress are already trying to figure out how to force Obama to testify under oath about his smoking.
Ash Can
Sure, investigations up the wazoo. And impeachment for sure. And in the third ring, ladies, gentlemen, and children of all ages, they’d be passing bills that, if they made it to his desk, Obama couldn’t possibly sign — handing over more of the treasury to the wealthy, as well as further destruction of the middle class, the environment, education, infrastructure, you name it. And war against Iran would be a hot topic as well.
Yeah, Dana, it’d be great.
And of course the press would be all for it. Drama! Intrigue! Ratings! Happy corporate bosses! What’s not to love?
@cat48:
No way in hell would they be bright enough to figure that out.
Zach
@General Winfield Stuck: “He will. When he learns to spell it.”
Imperative:
Make
Presidency
End.
E pluribus unom!
Change
History!
General Winfield Stuck
@Tom Hilton:
Wasn’t Chairman Mao a closet smoker?
General Winfield Stuck
@Zach: Bravo!
Mari
So far, Obama has been quite happy to sign on to any and all Republican policies adopted by Congressional democrats. Whatever makes you think he’d oppose Republican policies promoted by real Republicans?
fledermaus
If the republicians get control of congress I see it happening if the blue dogs get the numbers to throw the house to the GOP – in grand bipartisan tradition.
MikeJ
@General Winfield Stuck:
The Republicans that want to make an issue out of any smoking lapses Obama may have are proud and happy to smoke cigars made in communist Cuba. I’m convinced that cigars are the main reason the embargo wasn’t lifted decades ago. Assholes love to gloat about how they have access to something that the peons don’t.
cat48
What happened to Firebagger/Norquist Bathtub-Gate?? Did Holder reply?
MikeJ
Which ones? Mental health parity? Lily Ledbetter act? Expanded S-CHIP? Family access to visit relatives in Cuba? The Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program?
Ash Can
@Mari: OK, do you honestly think Obama would be willing to sign off on unlimited offshore drilling? Further bank and insurance company deregulation? Tax cuts targeted expressly for big businesses and/or the wealthiest 1%? War with Iran?
Enough with the if-some-then-all bullshit.
General Winfield Stuck
@MikeJ: Obot narcissist.
Davis X. Machina
Bush would.
Obama ~ Bush
Obama would.
QED
One’s conclusions are ineluctably drawn from one’s premises.
Ash Can
@Davis X. Machina: Ah. Got it. ;)
Shell
Surprise, surprise. If Republicans gained control of Congress they’d waste no time proving themselves even bigger morons then we’ve seen.
Sly
@Citizen Alan:
No, but it depends on the Chairman and their lieutenants of the important Committees: Government Reform and Oversight, and Judiciary.
If the ranking members switched roles, which is fairly common, the most influential Republicans are Darrel Issa, Dan Burton, Lamar Smith, and Jim Sensenbrenner.
So, yeah. That would be pretty bad.
Though, in a perverse way, I’d be interested in seeing how full-wingnut Watermelon Dan would go once he got subpoena power again. Considering he’s a co-sponsor of the Birther Bill and all.
Mari
@Ash Can:
Yes, on all counts.
You’re vastly underestimating how much of federal policy is the direct result of unspoken bipartisan consensus among self-styled ‘serious’ thinkers.
If the ‘serious’ people decide war with Iran–or more tax cuts for the top 1%–is a good idea, then that’s what will happen. Regardless of who is in office.
Chad N Freude
I only made it to 1:11 of the Doc Savage audio. I had to quit when he told me that not only is Obama a Marxist Revolutionary, he is also the most liberal senator in American history. Also, he yells.
jeffreyw
Nice day for a walk through the countryside.
jeffreyw
Made me hungry. Not a problem.
jl
In my considered opinion, Obama should write up all the legislation that would be good policy and politically useful, and that he can get through the House, and Senate with reconciliation, and ram it through with all the high style and delicacy of a piledriver.
If he wants to keep mouthing the idiotic post-partisan tripe, that is fine. If he says it with the right tone, it will be interpreted in the spirit of ‘eat sh*t and die, GOP assbites’.
Suggesting some constitutional amendments that would fix some problems of political decision making in our rich first world failed state would be useful. For example,something to address the idiotic mess created by the arrogant and very activist corporate lackies on the SCOTUS with the corporate free speech decision.
IMHO. Also.
Chad N Freude
And another thing, doesn’t there have to be some sort of — oh, I don’t know, an actual crime? — for an impeachment? Is being a Marxist Revolutionary a crime now?
maus
Oh please mister Obama, don’t throw us into that briar patch!
Sure, the Democrats were “better organized” under Bush, but their word turned out to be only to placate progressives, not do anything. It would give the establishment more excuses for not getting anything done if Republicans gained control over Congress, but that’s not “good” for us or the country. The Republicans claim that “gridlock” is good for us, but that only amounts to reforms of our broken systems, not passing invasive legislation.
Tecumseh
So Milbank’s argument seems to be that since the Republicans are completely unwilling to help Obama in any sort of way, they should take over congress because then they’d be happy to work with Obama. Maybe. Hopefully. Which, besides being completely ridiculous logic, also predisposes that an Obama Presidency with a Republican Congress would break the legislative logjam and create brilliant policy measures that will help put the country back in track. The fact that the Republicans have no ideas, still don’t know what they’re trying to be or do, or that a lot of Obama’s stuff is already watered down enough is irrelevant (nothing can be truly moderate unless it’s bipartisan). Not to mention the fact that the RNC is playing footsie with the Tea Baggers and trying to institute a “purity test.”
And, once again, the review of the glories of Clinton/Gingrich administration fails to mention that the Republicans TRIED TO IMPEACH HIM. God only knows what could have been accomplished if none of that happened, not the least of which was a more concerted effort to go after OBL
jamie
I’m thinking they’ll impeach him for being an angry black marxist/ fascist revolutionary
gwangung
And you’re not paying attention. Details matter and you’re simply ignoring them for sloganeering.
Ash Can
@DougJ
Even so, would these Republicans be forced to toe the party line if the party leaders were calling for impeachment? I don’t feel the least bit safe relying on the sanity of the few prevailing over the insanity of the many in the GOP.
@Mari: Uh…yeah.
Chad N Freude
Obama is both Hitler and a Marxist Revolutionary. A guy with that much political talent ought to be the President.
jeffreyw
C’mon you dogs, gotta feed the birds.
Kobie
A multitude of investigations, followed by Articles of Impeachment on some bullshit, trumped-up offense, are 110 percent inevitable if the Republicans take over both.
Chad N Freude
Is the Dana Milbank referred to in this thread the same Dana Milbank who refused to retract a misquotation? Or should we take this Dana Milbank’s observations seriously?
General Winfield Stuck
This is true, but in the current hyper loyal ideological fist the GOP has adopted as it’s pol strategery, the ones that are not willing themselves to wipe their ass with the constitution don’t dare obstruct the ones that are more than willing. To oppose the southern wingnut ideologues will get you the Lindsay Graham treatment, who btw, is something of a southern wingnut himself, though some short of today’s party purity requirement.
And they will use every trick they can to run Obama out of the WH, if they retake the House. It is a monster, the current GOP, that has been being built since Lee Atwater and the Texas Mafia came to town, thru Clinton, and now run by the wants and desires of Limbaugh and Beck and Malkin and their flesh eating followers. That is now a force of un nature that any individual or small group of goopers would not be able to stop. It is why they are so very dangerous right now. And I can’t help but think that if you peeled away the entire onion, what you would find is an ideological nuke set to blow the whole thing up and start the country over from scratch. To rebuild it in a quasi religious corporate fascist likeness. Post Peak Wingnut.
MikeJ
If you think not having a reason to impeach will stop them you’re delusional. And yes, the special prosecutor law has expired, but it had expired before Clinton too, hadn’t it?
There may be individual sane republicans, but when in DC everything they do is in service to the Party. There is no such thing as a independent thinking republican.
Scott
A multitude of investigations, followed by Articles of Impeachment on some bullshit, trumped-up offense, are 110 percent inevitable if the Republicans take over both.
I’m not even convinced they’d investigate anything. Just go straight to impeachin’.
ricky
I believe if the Republicans take Congress they will move forward, not back. They will immediately push their multi prong health care reform bill and balanced budget proposals.
If only Obama had listened to them. Or taken care of Speaker Pelosi when she did not allow them to get through.
jeffreyw
Something smells funny.
jeffreyw
Smells…funny.
jeffreyw
Oh please…
General Winfield Stuck
@jeffreyw: Beautiful scene jeffrey. With Charlie it’s Deer. And they are all over here. He sees them and enters full chase mode. Can’t help himself. Course, the little guy doesn’t consider what he’d do if he caught one.
batgirl
@El Cid: Ah yes, I remember that Democratic investigation into torture by the Bush administration fondly.
pablo
First thing they would do if they got 51 votes in the Senate, is kill the filibuster!
TR
The current Republican membership on the House Judiciary Committee — which would largely stay in place if they became the majority — is like a who’s who of Republican nutjobs:
The ranking member is Lamar Smith, who thinks the greatest menace in the country is “liberal media bias.” He’s followed by Jim Sensenbrenner, climate change denialist and general crank, and Howard Coble, defender of warrantless wiretapping.
After them, it just gets worse — Dan Lungren, who tried to challenge John Boehner for the leadership position from the right; Darrell Issa, who led the recall effort against Gray Davis in California; Steve King, the Craziest Fucking Person on the Planet; Trent Franks, who thinks trying KSM in federal court will lead to a nuclear attack here; Louie Gohmert, who’s so far gone he’s appeared on Alex Jones’ nutfest radio show; Ted Poe, who held his town hall meeting on health care at a fucking funeral parlor; Jason Chaffetz, the well-meaning Mormon freshman who would put a kind face on the crazy; etc. etc.
It’s a scary bunch. And a nice reminder that things could be so, so, so much fucking worse with the Republicans back in charge.
NR
@pablo: They wouldn’t need to. All they’d need to do is talk about killing the filibuster, and then the Democrats would never use it again, thereby preserving it for the Republicans to use the next time the Democrats took the majority.
Svensker
@General Winfield Stuck:
Oh, I bet he has this heroic image of himself viciously conquering the deer with one mightly chomp of his jaws. Doggy Mitty.
jeffreyw
@General Winfield Stuck: My boys pretty much ignore deer, maybe they know they can’t catch em. We’ve had deer come into the yard when the boys were out, they know they’re safe with my pair.
Cerberus
There would definitely be impeachment. My guess is three potential excuses.
Number 1: Honesty. Unable to think of the proper code phrase, the impeachment heading actually reads, “Impeachment on the grounds that he was recklessly and criminally black during a time of crisis.”
Number 2: Codeword for Number 1. Heavy bets on the old southern euphemism “communist” that they’ve used as a dog whistle so long I bet they’d be surprised to know that the Soviet Union was white. If not that, then probably birtherism or maybe some general charge that barely hides the obvious racist origin.
Number 3: Gitmo. Yeah, you heard me, they’ll impeach him on illegal detention or maybe the Predator Drone strikes or wiretapping the American people or any of the other illegal things Bush did that they haven’t dismantled yet. These people have no concept of history and it wouldn’t take long to get the Fox News viewers trained in the history that all the abuses started under Obama. I’ve most despaired over Obama’s handling of the Brush criminal syndicate not just because of the massive human rights violations and the setting of a horrible example of treatment of war criminals, but also because I guarantee that the Right wing horde would gladly let one of their pet authoritarian projects die if it’d get the black guy out of the Oval Office. Especially as they’d see it as getting back at the hippies to dare protest against them in the first place and thus harsh their getting off on remotely killing brown people buzz they were riding.
But I’m betting the bill would be written before that session of congress was even sworn in.
buggy ding dong
Yes, Whitewater and Jennifer Flowers were campaign stories, one of which was complete bullshit but was the flimsy reed on which all future investigations were based.
If you don’t think they would do the same exact thing to Obama, you just haven’t been paying attention. Hell, one of the rationales for supporting Obama was that it was a clean break from the 1990s and would enable actual cooperation between the two sides.
How is that fucking working out?
They will do to Obama what they did to Clinton. They will do it because that is who they are now.
Laertes
From the link:
Really? That’s the best anyone’s put it? Set aside the substance of this remark and let’s look at the form. Pathetic. Weak, tentative, half-ashamed of itself.
“Seems”…”seems”…”some malevolence”…and then finishing with the weird “unabated.”
No way is that the “best” that anyone’s put it. However evil and stupid the right may be, they’ve got better than this.
freelancer (itouch)
ProBowl open thread plz?
MikeJ
@freelancer (itouch): I’m against bowls.
Kobie
@freelancer (itouch): I’m sure all three people watching it will have fun commenting on it.
Violet
Jeez, I hope they don’t try to impeach him. Nevermind the rational arguments, like there are no grounds, etc., it’s just a massive waste of the country’s time. Ugh. They make me sick.
Anne Laurie
@Johnny B:
Yeah, and Cancer Hag (Wife #1) totally dumped him first, despite what you read in the liberal media. Also, it’s not that Newt’s a donut addict, just that he has a metabolic condition, and it’s meeeean to pick on people with genuine illnesses!
Since Newt spearheaded Clinton’s impeachment for lying about the intern he was not-exactly-boning at the same time Newt was boning a young chick who was not his wife, if we want to know the current Repubs’ line of offense, we need to find out what the current chief Rethugs are doing that they don’t want their base to know about. So, I’m guessing Cantor will accuse Obama of drilling a peephole into the interns’ locker room, or keeping a male lover in Hawaii on the DNC dime, or having a “Southern farm boy” relationship with Bo. But Boehner? What’s his kink, beyond the one involving five gallons of self-tanner and a full-length mirror?
I don’t think even the current crop of office-holdng conservatards are dumb enough to go for an actual money-based corrruption scandal, because even they can understand primary-school-level tit-for-tat politics, and there isn’t a Republican in DC who wants the source of their funding exposed to public scrutiny. Screaming insults about pee-pees is all well & good, but money is just too private and sacred to wave around for talking points.
Comrade Kevin
@freelancer (itouch): People watch the Pro Bowl?
Anne Laurie
@General Winfield Stuck:
Remember John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley (his Charley being a standard poodle)? Charley, “a dog who would turn his path aside for an earnest caterpillar… he feels a little tender towards an underdone steak” went positively Full Metal Apeshite trying to get out of the truck and kill him a bear when Steinbeck drove through Yosemite.
freelancer (itouch)
@Comrade Kevin:
True. I’m not even watching it. Just saw that it was on.
General Winfield Stuck
@Anne Laurie: LOL, that’s Charlie to a tee. Thinks he’s German Shepard on steroids.
Mike in NC
He’ll work it into a chapter in his nest “book”, which ought to be out next month. By the way, it seems that Beck and BillO are currently doing a road show, often with sold out engangements, suckering the drooling yahoos for all they can get. Republicans taking back Congress would really be their worst nightmare.
Ash Can
Can someone explain to me why the Pro Bowl is being played before the super bowl this year? It makes no fucking sense. Did the NFL do this last year too? (If so, shows how much attention I pay to this stuff.)
DPirate
They would save the environment from certain destruction, free the political prisoners, stop torture, give us health care and teach our children.
No, wait, that’s if the democrats won…
I know! They would do nothing different from what is happening right now.
TR
@Ash Can:
No idea why, but it’s a new schedule for this year.
Maybe they realized no one watched the Pro Bowl when it was held after the Super Bowl, so this would be a way to keep the two-week buildup to the SB and maybe hype the PB too.
So far, a surprisingly good game.
freelancer (itouch)
@Ash Can:
No, this is a first. And it’s all to pre-empt a ratings crash of a postSB Probowl.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
Because nobody cares about a meaningless exhibition a week after the last meaningful game. TV ratings have been lousy. Speaking for myself, though, it won’t make any difference either way, since I am uninterested in meaningless exhibitions regardless of when they are played.
Zach
@Ash Can: “Can someone explain to me why the Pro Bowl is being played before the super bowl this year?”
They think it will get better ratings this week rather than after people forget about football. They also sold the rights to ESPN instead of a broadcast network, so we’ll never know whether that contention was right because the ratings will drop anyway. They’ll also make much more non-TV money having it in Miami instead of Hawaii.
E,F,B – They’ll also probably get some ratings from people thinking the Super Bowl is today but thinking wrong. Deception bonus.
Wile E. Quixote
@DougJ
I’m working on a column of how it would be great for Dana Milbank to be thrown into a pit full of deranged lepers hopped up on crank, steroⅰds and Ⅴⅰagra and be repeatedly and savagely penetrated in every single one of his bodily orifices, including new ones that these degenerates would have carved into him to pleasure their diseased, chancre-encrusted engorged members until he was begging for the sweet surcease of death.
I should be done soon, I just need to check some things against my copy of “The Big Book of Contrarian Bullshit” (by the staff of Slate, TNR and McMegan McArdle) and I’ll be ready to submit it to the WaPo when they have their next contest for “America’s Top Pundit”.
Nick
@Citizen Alan:
Yes, I also agree that every Republican should be systematically executed immediately.
pattonbt
The turth is already out there sheeple! Its just being held by Obambi’s Chicago thug, Stalinistic machine!
Once the R’s take back the house and / or senate people will feel safe enough to finally come out from under The One’s oppression and speak power to truth. And we and the rest of the world will finally see what we have known to exist and have been waiting for all these long years…….
The WHITEY Tape!
With this finally in the open our national nightmare will be over. The US-hating, communist, soshulist, nazi, thug administration will be stopped from destorying OUR country! The mass’s eyes will finally be opened!
AxelFoley
Milbank gets paid to write this kinda bullshit?
Citizen Alan
@DPirate:
As furious as the Democrats often make me, you are barking mad if you don’t realize that a Republican House and/or Senate, at a time when the GOP is in the grip of neofascist teabagging lunacy, would be an order of magnitude worse than what we have now.
Citizen Alan
@Nick:
I don’t believe I mentioned the word “execution” in my prior post, but more than a few need to be locked up for life for treason. They’re going to burn down this whole country out of sheer petty spite, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t give a damn anymore about hurting anyone’s feelings.
artem1s
Actually Starr was the third special prosecutor and he tried to quit at least once but the GOP wouldn’t let him accept a chair at Pepperdine. The Lewinski thing hadn’t even occurred when the first prosecutor was appointed. The law that allowed Starr to have an unlimited scope of investigation has expired. So if they were to impeach Obama they would have to do it over for every
imaginedoffense. It would be inconvenient but probably not too daunting for their level of asshattery.Ben S.
@Anne Laurie:
Re: Boehner’s kink is that he’s a huge smoker–one of the best-known secrets in D.C. So if anything, at least the GOP won’t go after Obama on the smoking issue…
danimal
@Ben S.: Awww, that’s cute. As if hypocrisy has EVER stopped the GOP from making a political attack.
Nick
@Citizen Alan:
and you REALLY think this is going to happen and the American people are going to love us for it?
priscianus jr
Enough of these masochistic fantasies. Republicans ain’t gonna control no House no how.
Citizen Alan
@Nick:
Of course not. The last ten years have disabused me of any notions as to the character and decency of the American people. I estimate that somewhere between 30% and 50% of the American people would prefer to live under a fascist dictatorship if they could be sure that the dictator shared their social values and promised only to exterminate “undesirables.”
Before he died, Hunter S. Thompson said:
Nothing that has happened since the election of Barack Obama has changed my belief in the essential truth of that statement.
No joy in Mudville
I don’t know, did they ever figure out how Hillary killed Vince Foster? Or maybe they could help Larry Johnson find the “Whitey” video.
There are so many important questions that need answers it’s hard to know where to begin. Perhaps the first thing they would do would be organizational — something like re-creating the HUAC.
As for impeaching Obama, I’m
prettysure the MSM would support that. But I doubt if most Americans, apart from Republicans and Teabaggers, would go for it. I know lots of Democrats who have been critical of Obama, but none of them — N_O_N_E — would support a Republican House impeaching him.Barring some unforeseen disasters between now and November, I doubt if Republicans will take control of the House. However, of one thing I am certain. If they did gain control, they would spend 99% of their time doing hopelessly stupid and irresponsible things. And there would be no guarantees about the remaining one percent.
Karen
I figure if the Republicans have control, they won’t have to impeach. Remember that even though Clinton was impeached he was still President and served his full term.
No, I figure they’ll make the Civil Rights Act null and void by having the Roberts Supreme Court. If blacks or women no longer have the right to vote, then Obama has no right to be President.
What gets me is that there used to be rules. The Constitution. Rights of a US Citizen. And while you can turn around and say, there’s no way it could happen, it’s illegal to make the Civil Rights Act null and void, one thing I learned during the Cheney Administration was that they only law is what Republicans and the Media says it is.
Has anyone read “A Handmaid’s Tale?”
Karen
@Citizen Alan
If you add that it’d be safe and you’d have a guaranteed job, get rid of the extermination part you have Singapore. It’s a benevolent dictatorship but that’s the price for utopia.
Oh, while there is no extermination in Singapore, Chinese women are paid to have babies and Malay and Indian women are paid not to have them. So that’s more of a campaign to prevent “undesireables” from breeding.
bob h
Michelle Bachman will introduce an impeachment bill based on socialism and foreign birth, unless that harridan Mrs. Fox beats her to it.
Karen
If they can’t impeach Obama because they don’t have enough votes with all they did in a span of just 12 months, how long til they use the N word. Taking bets…
Karen
The Republicans need to be careful. One of the teabaggers may come for their head if they don’t jump fast enough..
Remember November
The “Impeach” crowd are knee jerk idiots. In Bush’s case, a lot more people died under his watch. Had Bush been impeached we would have had Pres Cheney. No one sane wanted that. Same goes for a possible President Biden. Had Clinton been impeached we would have had Gore- I don’t think they’re really thinking this through.
DPirate
@Citizen Alan
I do think there is no substantive difference between the two parties but for lip service and flavor of excuses. They have their masters. Just as Coke and Pepsi are both owed by the same parent corporation, the Rs&Ds have the same masters. Likely the self-same ones that run Beatrice. It is just a useful subeterfuge to keep us divided and conquered.
So, yeah, I do believe it doesn’t much matter who is elected.
Karen
@DPirate
You’re wrong there is a difference. Maybe not as much as corporations and banks and all that.
Think of it as D’s may be a molotov cocktail. But the new R party is nuclear war.