Jim Inhofe let’s us all know what this Benghazi freakout is all about:
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) suggested that President Obama could be impeached over what he alleged was a White House cover-up after last year’s attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Inhofe, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview Thursday with “The Rusty Humphries Show” that impeachment would become an issue soon over the “greatest cover-up in American history.”
“People may be starting to use the I-word before too long,” Inhofe said.
“The I-word meaning impeachment?” Humphries asked.
“Yeah,” Inhofe responded.
“Of all the great cover-ups in history — the Pentagon papers, Iran-Contra, Watergate, all the rest of them — this … is going to go down as most egregious cover-up in American history,” Inhofe said.
And there you have it. Aided and abetted by the useful idiots in the media.
dedc79
Of all the uses of the word “egregious” in history, Inhoffe’s will go down as the most egregious.
NCSteve
The only difference between the modern Republican Party and an MMOPRG is that MMOPRG players understand that the alternate reality they share with the other players is purely fictional and talking about Pandaria as if it was a real place when they’re at work will only get them a odd looks and a reputation for being crazy weirdos.
Shalimar
It’s so egregious and perfidious, they can’t even find any evidence a cover-up actually happened. Sort of like when JFK had Martin Luther King, Jr. killed, only worse.
Dr. Mantis Toboggan
It would be funny if the president were impeached over this silly matter, rather than his unconstitutional war agains Libya, his illegal drone attacks, or his failure to prosecute torturers.
Zirgar
Looks like President Obama’s Double Secret Probation period is over.
weaselone
So what is it? What illegal activity is being covered up? Will we actually get to find out when they impeach him, or will the documents simply read “We’re impeaching the President because…Benghazi!”?
Violet
Our media is a disaster. The entirety of the news media could disappear and the average person’s understanding of how things in Washington work would improve.
Quaker in a Basement
Would some enterprising reporter please, please ask one of these clowns: “What are they covering up?”
danimal
I can only hope the GOP pursues this as far as it takes them. And they probably will.
Someday in the near future, they will aspire to 27%.
Cassidy
Oh boy, another one. /eye roll
Catsy
PFFFFFFFFFFFFTBWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
No, seriously, that was quite literally my reaction upon reading this. I made that sound at my desk and alarmed my coworkers.
How did anyone on the set–including the interviewer–not burst into laughter?
Amir Khalid
Interesting that two of the cover-ups cited by Senator Inhofe — Iran-Contra and Watergate — happened under Republican presidents.
Afferent Input
Please proceed, senator.
Mnemosyne
@Dr. Mantis Toboggan:
You never did find me the links I asked for below — how many people were killed in drone attacks last week vs. the 50 Americans who were killed by guns?
It’s almost like you don’t want to answer the question.
ranchandsyrup
And all of my conservative friends laughed at me when I said that the 2nd term’s gonna be an impeach-a-thon.
Yatsuno
@Mnemosyne: Trolls gotta troll and firebaggers gotta firebag. I smell the stench of PUMA on this one.
Suffern ACE
@Amir Khalid: It’s also interesting that he put Iran-Contra in terms of a coverup, since at the time, I don’t remember Republicans feeling that it was problematic what those patriots did.
Zifnab
@Dr. Mantis Toboggan: I hear if you say the word “Unconstitutional” enough times in a row, it comes true.
Cassidy
That’s how I read it, anyway.
Cassidy
@Yatsuno: But is he hoping everyone FEELS HIS PAIN!
the Conster
Just a little while ago a CNN
reporterassclown was asked if there was anything new learned from the hearing, and after hesitating, said yes, then said a lot of words, contradicted himself and than admitted really, no. If the press corps can’t identify the hook, they won’t want to talk about it.e.a.f.
Sitting here in Canada and looking at the American federal political clowns makes me feel so much better abut living here. We have our own political clowns. Fortunately not all media give them a lot of time. There are a few other problems the U.S.A. has. Politicans might want to focus on that. yes, what happened in Bengazi was terrible but all the navel gazing, blaming whomever isn’t going to stop it from happening next time. The politicans might want to get back to business and figure out how to improve the roads, schools, etc. of America. These politicians might want to figure out why so many women in America are being murdered instead of trying to figure out why one man was killed in an area which was dangerous.
Sterling
Didn’t we all know they’d want to impeach Obama in the second term? They aren’t interested in legislating or deal making, so they’ve got nothing else to do with their time.
gene108
@Quaker in a Basement:
If you knew what somebody’s trying to hide, you wouldn’t have to impeach them to find out.
President Obama is guilty until proven innocent.
Turgidson
@Shalimar:
They’re covering up the cover-up. Just give that brilliant investigator Darrell Issa time. He’ll get to the bottom of this.
This is what happens when you start with the conclusion and work backwards to find anything that can support it. They decided Obama was evil the second he became the frontrunner for the 08 nomination if not before. Thus, he does evil things, and eventually he’d get caught, and the GOP would be ready with the impeachment papers, since they kept the Clinton docs as a template for use against any future Democrat with the temerity to win THEIR presidency. Thus, they concluded before the bodies of our fallen were cold that there had to be some uniquely Obama evil at play. The lack of any actual evidence beyond some unfortunate but not calculated, deliberate or criminal fuckups by the agencies only convinces them further that the conspiracy is worse than they had thought and the rabbit hole will be very deep indeed once they find it.
And they want to damage Hillary for 2016. Even these lollygaggers are smart enough to realize that she’ll bury them if they don’t find a disqualifying scandal to put on her neck. This isn’t it, I don’t think. But that doesn’t mean they won’t try, dammit.
They’re going to keep making sweet love to this flightless bird for some time yet.
mouse tolliver
At the very least I think the press has found Obama’s Whitewater. They’re going to be all over this even if the general public doesn’t give a shit. Tweety was up to his old tricks last night along with Lisa Myers. They see another Clinton scandal in this. The MSM has decided to accept the GOP premise that revising the talking points was a scandal in and of itself. So here we go!
Suffern ACE
@Quaker in a Basement: If I were conspiracy minded, I believe that they might be covering up is the extent of CIA involvement in post-Khadaffi Libya.
But since everyone of them favors that…who knows?
Anyway, this President has to go sooner or later anyway. We need someone in there who’ll get those boots on the ground in Syria and quit the dawdling.
Hill Dweller
Kudos to Jonathan Karl for using e-mails, which were obviously a turf war between State and CIA, as evidence of something nefarious. F’n hack.
The best part is the main character in the email drama is Victoria Nuland(a former Cheney aide).
Catfish N. Cod
What is worth impeaching Obama?
For being a Democrat.
The Repubicans looked on Carter with contempt, but they did not want to move against him; the country was still too raw from Watergate for that. But I am come to believe that there is something visceral in the Republican Party that feels emotionally forced to bring down a Democratic President. Maybe it is a way of sidestepping the shame of the Nixon Administration: see, you’re just as bad! Maybe it’s just because of the epistemically closed system that has basically rejected alternate viewpoints as unfit to be even considered. And maybe it is simply that the paymasters have become more ruthless and less interested in honoring those things that keep us from being the sort of dysfunctional chamber pot that most governments in history have been.
But whatever it is, victory by the ballot is simply no longer enough for the iron triangle of the Beltway, the Murdochian media, and the base. They want the Democrats pulled down. And the only silver lining I can find, a lining I thank the Deity for, is that they still want to use legal means to do so. Once you start denying the legal legitimacy of the executive power, it’s not terribly far before the din that erupted in Charleston a hundred fifty-three years ago erupts again.
It’s not ni(clang); it’s not Presidenting While Black. Bill and Hillary got exactly the same treatment, though it did not yet extend to failing to approve appointments and trying to choke agencies. Obama’s crime and sin is Presidenting While Blue.
Chris
@Suffern ACE:
That would involve possibly implicating Petraeus, who’s been an idol to them.
Mike G
These are the same Republiclowns who demanded everyone shut up and obey and not ask questions of the Cheney-Bush criminal administration about 9/11.
liberal
@Catsy:
What makes it really funny is that even if the basic allegation the Rethugs are making—that Obama’s team didn’t do enough to protect our guys in Bengazi—it still wouldn’t compare to the other examples, not even nearly.
Except the Pentagon Papers. I don’t see how the government having classified info it doesn’t release (rightly or wrongly, for better or for worse) is a “cover up”. Besides which, Noam Chomsky pointed out IIRC that for all the brohaha about the PP, they weren’t exactly in high demand at the library.
Rafer Janders
I love that when Inhofe has to come up with great political scandals, all he can come up with are acts of malfeasance by Republican administrations.
Violet
@Yatsuno: I only just caught that you changed your name. Was that because of the disappearing replies? Looks so funny to me!
liberal
@Catfish N. Cod:
I don’t think that’s it.
While I completely disagree with people who say the Rethug Party is much more nastily constituted now during Obama’s term than during Clinton’s (IMHO is was pretty much thorough radicalized by 1994), it wasn’t nearly as crazy in the late 1970s.
Waldo
Is there no Democratic senator with enough courage to stand up and say this a bigger non-story than the Y2K bug, the Mayan Calendar and Al Capone’s tomb all rolled into one?
You know, for balance.
gene108
@mouse tolliver:
Scandals against popular Democratic Presidents are good for ratings, so if not Benghazi then there’d have to be something else to get eyeballs on the T.V. screen.
Unlike Whitewater, Obama doesn’t have a “slick Willy” image with the American public.
It’ll be hard to make people think, in his second term, that he’s somehow totally corrupt.
GregB
These monsters will not stop dismantling this nation until it looks like Somalia in the 90’s.
They are a pack of amoral ratfuckers who are so selfish and narcissistic they think the world must revolve around them at every moment and if it doesn’t they’ll blow the thing to Kingdom come.
patrick II
I watched a luke russert led panel discussion on benghazi on msnbc this morning. When they started talking about impeachment l turned it off. Well dressed people behind desks on television, such insight and authority.
liberal
@Rafer Janders:
Maybe not the PP itself, but Vietnam was definitely a bipartisan crime.
Hawes
Ironically, I bet they drop this soon in favor of the IRS scandal in Cincinnati.
Chris
@liberal:
I’d agree with that. Movement conservatism was still in its infancy; it still hadn’t even reclaimed the Republican Party (that would come in 1980), much less the country.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Dr. Mantis Toboggan: I missed the part where having the backing of Congress makes these illegal.
liberal
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I know people argue otherwise, but I don’t see a reasonable understanding of the Constitution which allows the executive to start a war w/o Congress declaring a state of war first, unless it’s a situation where the President is responding to an emergency (like an attack on our forces), which wasn’t the case in Libya. Treaty obligations don’t matter, because while treaties are the law of the land, they can’t trump the constitution.
The fact that this rule has been broken by the executive a long time ago doesn’t make it right (though it also means that Obama’s “crime” has to be understood in that context).
Suffern ACE
@mouse tolliver: They may have LIED and MISLED a REPORTER in an interview!
Mike in NC
When DeMint exited the Senate, he had to give his King of the Morons crown to Inhofe. Fits well, Jim!
liberal
@Chris:
Right. Parts of the Republican Party have been nuts for a long, long time (since the 1950s witch hunts, for sure, and I presume long before that), but the fact that the entire party has been captured by the right, and on both both social and economic ideological “axes”, is pretty new.
Chris
Hooooooo, boy. The conservative hive mind’s latest toy that three various friends have all mentioned in the last couple hours –
IRS Apologizes For Targeting Conservative Groups.
My initial reaction is somewhere between “after fifty years of the FBI targeting antiwar groups the shoe’s suddenly on the other foot? You poor babies” and “wow, someone’s finally looking into whether political organizations shilling for the GOP might deserve a revision of their tax-exempt status? Say it ain’t so!”
jrg
Go for it, sparky. There might be a half dozen moderates remaining that don’t think the GOP is completely intransigent and unhinged. Better get the word out.
scav
Same crowd bleating “Cover-up! Macic T-word not immediately released to public on every news-channel known! within seconds!” will simultaneously protest and make illegal all leaks, breaches of priopritory information and defund statistics gathering and basic research.
liberal
@Suffern ACE:
That’s the other funny thing: while I don’t think government officials should twist the truth, it’s not like they don’t regularly do so, and as you imply it’s not like these ones were under oath (even granting the claim that they’re lying).
Citizen_X
@Turgidson:
You know, if they could contain themselves, and just keep asking leading questions, it might just damage her by 2016. But restrain themselves? For two years? No way. Considering how popular Bill was the last time they tried impeachment, this time Hillary will pound them in hearings, Obama will leave office w/approval in the 70s, and Clinton will crush them in the election.
In other words, please proceed, Senator.
Violet
@liberal: I agree. I also think the Republicans/conservatives have jumped the shark. It’s one of those things that’s hard to see in real time, but you can see it in retrospect. The Teabagger era is going to be their last hurrah. Sure, there will be some victories here and there, but overall that era is done.
The Republicans’ brand right now is old, white, angry, crazy and stupid. That’s not really a brand they can build on.
gbear
@Quaker in a Basement: They’ve actually tried, numerous times. I think even Chris Wallace asked John McCain what was being covered up, and McCain’s reply was ‘Don’t you care about American lives!?
There’s no winning the argument when all you get in return is clown time.
Gravenstone
@Amir Khalid:
Properly re-emphasized.
Breezeblock
The Rusty Trombone Show?
Hungry Joe
@Quaker in a Basement:
No.
liberal
@jrg:
Actually, as far as I can tell, there’s a lot of people who themselves aren’t knuckledraggers who seem to think that the GOP is still a respectable party.
Only explanation I can come up with is that an urge to cut rich people’s taxes buys you a lot of goodwill.
PeorgieTirebiter
@Suffern ACE: yea, but the reporter was provocatively dressed.
liberal
@Violet:
I agree, especially since the demographic trend is going to really hurt them, but as many commenters here have pointed out, they still might kill the nation before they render themselves irrelevant.
jrg
@liberal: They might not be knuckledraggers, but they are not moderates, either. The ones I know put up with the morons in their party because it’s in their best interest to do so. The point is that this makes the tepid “both sides do it” horseshit sound more like what it is. Horseshit.
Suffern ACE
@liberal: Oh. I agree. But that’s what comes from being a supporter of the party in the government. You end up having to defend our foreign policy activities as part of the normal course of business. It’s kind of like all of those progressive complaints that the CIA wasn’t being listened to in the run-up to Iraq…the CIA is hardly a progressive cause or an agency like the NRLB or HUD that should get a lot of progressive energy. But sometimes you need to deal with the government that you have and not the one in the land where everyone just says what they actually think to be true and the world is populated by basically decent people.
Turgidson
@gbear:
Yeah, beyond the “old man yelling at cloud” visuals of that, it was of course awfully rich to see John f’in McCain, who can barely go ten minutes without agitating for a new war, anywhere, against anyone, that would inevitably get thousands of Americans killed, talking like that about the deaths of four people. I agree that those deaths were tragic and we should do what we can to prevent future attacks, but geez, man. A little consistency plz. And his fury at that point was about Rice’s fucking talking points anyway, not the actual event, if I remember correctly.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@gbear: I can’t wait for the answer to be “If we can’t go after a Democratic president when someone dies, then how can we expect Democrats to keep Republican presidents in check?”
jibeaux
Right before talking about impeachment, Inhofe also talked about how Hillary was aggressive, and women aren’t supposed to be aggressive, so….something. We’re into “if his IQ drops any lower, they’ll have to water him twice a day” territory.
Catsy
@Violet: It’s especially funny if you speak any Japanese. XD
liberal
@Citizen_X:
Hmm…but I think Hillary is a weaker politician (all told) than either Bill or Barack.
Rafer Janders
@liberal:
Yes, but the scandal itself, the break-in into Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office, the attempt to gag the New York Times from publishing, etc., that all happened under Nixon.
liberal
@jrg:
I’m mainly thinking of people who write for the Washington Post, putting aside people who are completely nuts like Krauthammer.
I can’t believe anyone in this day and age who (a) isn’t a Nazi, (b) has an IQ over room temperature doesn’t see that the Republicans are a radical, radical party.
IMHO Krugman put it best when he used some old writings by Kissinger to label the Republicans a “revolutionary power.”
The shit with the debt limit is one of the best examples.
liberal
@Rafer Janders:
Sure, but big whoop-de-doo.
The real scandal isn’t the attempt to crush Ellsberg, but rather the fact we murdered 2 million+ human beings on the other side of the planet for no good fucking reason. Though I suppose the attempt to crush dissent and whistleblowing is a natural, organic outgrowth of that, and hence is part and parcel of the same crime.
PaulW
Questions to ask the Republicans:
1) How are the Democrats able to make this cover-up work so well when you and your fellow Republicans are certain this is a bigger crime than illegal wiretapping and break-ins and slush funds like Watergate, or bigger than a massive arms deal with Iran to pay for even more gun deals and funding for Contra rebels that Congress specifically barred like Iran-Contra, or bigger than Whitewater that turned out to be a land deal gone wrong and where the only crime was that Clinton had weird tastes in interns?
2) What exactly is the Obama administration hiding that is so illegal that you claim it’s an impeachable offense?
3) Can you point to any existing evidence presented at any of the 11 congressional hearings already called on Benghazi that points to signs of a cover-up or signs of something that would be deemed an impeachable offense?
4) If the failures at Benghazi are impeachable, why didn’t you impeach George W. Bush for the failures at embassies in Pakistan, Turkey, Yemen and Syria between 2002 to 2008?
5) If you are wrong about there being something illegal there, are you willing to admit you are wrong?
liberal
@jibeaux:
I remember one exposure to Hillary hatred, some anti-Hillary cartoon on a fellow academic’s door (before I bailed on academia).
I can understand whipping up hatred against one’s opponents, but the hatred of Hillary has some visceral component that I don’t quite get. Though I guess one could claim it’s the same way with Barack. (NB: not much of a fan of Hillary myself, but it’s not visceral; it’s because she’s too hawkish for my tastes.)
MomSense
@Turgidson:
I think that what is driving this is that when the Benghazi thing happened, the Republicans smelled October (September) surprise. Fox, the Republican spinners, and the Romney campaign jumped on it and made such a stink that they can’t just let it slide now. Besides, the whole point of all the investigations and impeachment talk is to prevent anything from happening.
Davis X. Machina
@liberal: Willie McCovey was no Hank Aaron, certainly no Willie Mays.
Still would want him on my team. Still in the Hall.
Hungry Joe
My favorite line from “All the President’s Men” isn’t “Follow the money,” but something like (also from Deep Throat), “What you don’t understand is that these are not smart guys.”
Well, things have changed. These people are idiots. Seriously. As kids, when we were in class with the likes of Inhofe and Gohmert and Palin, we rolled our eyes, shook our heads, and sometimes face-palmed a la Woody Allen’s child in “Annie Hall.”
liberal
@PaulW:
To be clear here, I think the claim (which I saw being made all the time during Bush 43’s reign) that you can only impeach for a crime against an actual statute is just not the right way to read the impeachment clause. It’s rather for serious political crimes.
That being said, the notion that the Bengazi thing (even if it’s worse than it appears to be) amounts to a serious political crime is laughable.
liberal
@Davis X. Machina:
I’m just addressing how well Hill would stand up, whether we like her or not. I think Bill and Barack have attributes or other things on their side which allow/would have allowed them to weather things better.
Catsy
@liberal: The Hillary hatred goes back, in large part, to the fact that in the 90s Hillary Clinton was a strong, intelligent, independent woman who didn’t live in her husband’s shadow even though he was president. She was accomplished and had her own career despite raising a daughter. She was a living, breathing rebuttal of the entire conservative fantasy of what a woman’s place was in the world, she was the First Lady of the United States, and they fucking HATED her for it.
That’s not all of what’s behind the Hillary hate. But it’s a big part of what started it.
liberal
@Hungry Joe:
True, but sadly, you don’t have to be smart to be deadly if you have the support of the rich sociopaths whose taxes you’re trying to cut to zero or some large negative number.
PsiFighter37
What a moron. Just be straight up and say you don’t like a black man in the White House. I’d at least respect him for being honest about it.
Please proceed, Senator Asshat.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
I’m still convinced that the dude who did the anti-Mohammed video had some right-wing ties (or at least some right-wing donors to the project) that the Republicans are trying to direct attention away from. There’s still something very weird about that whole thing and the fact that there were organized protests in Egypt and Syria that same night (distractions from the planned attack? attempt to create confusion?)
But, again, we can’t get those questions answered because the Republicans are so busy looking for evidence that Obama personally ordered the terrorists to attack.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
You have to remember that we’re dealing with the same people who declared that a blowjob was a serious political crime. Hopefully Obama is smart enough to keep his pants zipped, both literally and figuratively.
Suffern ACE
@Catsy: It’s kind of like the flare up about Rosalyn Carter attending cabinet meetings back in the 1970s. Democrats can’t keep their women in place. Now, I think Nancy Reagan was far more politically active in the workings of the White House than Rosylnn, but the charges stick that Democratic women don’t know their places.
Stooleo
Slipped my wife a Rusty Humphrey last night, she was not happy ’bout it.
Kurzleg
@Hill Dweller: Thanks for the tip! I had to Google her and was not surprised in the least to learn that she’s married to PNAC’s Robert Kagan. Gee. Zus.
Roy G.
We haven’t seen such a gross investigative farce since OJ swore to track down Nicole’s killer.
PsiFighter37
@Stooleo: Uh…please don’t proceed further with that thought…
AHH onna Droid
@Cassidy: u mean uppity.
Arclite
They really can’t stand a black man in the WH.
Trollhattan
Inhofe: stupid senator or stupidest senator?
Despite a hard-charging Cruz I believe our Jimmy takes the cake. re. His favorite hobby horse, there’s some stirring in Republican ranks that climate change actually requires dealing with. We’ll have to see about that.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-coming-gop-civil-war-over-climate-change-20130509?page=1&utm_source=feedly
lumpkin
According to my copy of the constitution, the president can be impeached only for Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
I don’t think that bureaucratic CYA’ing falls under that rubric, but on the other hand, it’s basically up to the house to decide if they want to impeach or not and it’s a simple majority vote. I hope they go for it – maybe people will finally see what a bat-shit crazy bunch they’ve elected to the house. NOT.
They don’t do anything else meaningful anyway, so why not another ridiculous shitshow? They need to time it carefully to fall between trials of jilted lovers and discoveries of kidnapped women to get any decent TeeVee coverage out of it though.
Citizen Alan
I thought the I-word was “Inhofeisafuckingmoron.”
joe gamba
@dedc79: Inhofe got it right, god bless his little heart. It’s just that he slipped up on the object of the impeachment. Darn! Who could have known?
Inhofe himself and the other egregious little-minded republicans are certainly raising incompetence and malfeasance to an art form.
gene108
@liberal:
Oh please, if we hadn’t done that, who’d be doing our manicures and pedicures now?
Citizen_X
Oh boy. Michele La Cray-Cray says BOTH Benghazi! and 9/11 were judgements from God: “It’s no secret that our nation may very well be experiencing the hand of judgment,” she said at a D.C. prayer event called “Washington: A Man of Prayer.”
So, that means either A) she approves of both attacks–just like al-Queda–or B) she hates God. Who are you with, Congresswoman, God or America? Pick a side, we’re at war!
Sloegin
This is a test run for all future R scandal investigations. Why clutter up a perfectly good congressional circus with an actual scandal when you can just gin something on the fly?
It was this or too many White House staffers using their phones at work for personal business.
gene108
@Mnemosyne:
Lying under oath was the crime.
You’ll note, Bush, Jr. and Cheney made sure as hell none of their statements about anything were ever under oath or legally binding in any way.
I doubt you’ll ever get another President to ever testify under oath, thanks to the Clinton impeachment.
Chris
@lumpkin:
But it’s all in the hands of the legislature, isn’t it? I mean, theoretically, you could impeach Obama for changing the carpet in the White House, and as farcical as it would be, if enough people vote to impeach and enough people then vote to convict, it’s legit. They decide what constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
ETA: I mean, not just whether you impeach, but the nature of the crimes for which you decide whether to impeach or not. Theoretically, they can do it for any reason. Right?
agrippa
I think that this is all a most excellent of the time of our HoR. Passing a Bill of Impeachment would be their crowning achievement.
It would, also, be great comedy.
Suffern ACE
@gene108: Yeah. I don’t think shuffling Monica out of her white house job to some job in the Pentagon even reached the level of abuse of power.
agrippa
@Dr. Mantis Toboggan:
I agree
El Cid
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Patricia Kayden
Well is anyone surprised? Haven’t they been angling to impeach President Obama since November 2008?
Let them do it and hopefully, in 2014, people will vote their behinds out of Congress like what happened to the Repubs in 1996.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Violet:
I’ll believe that when you break the GOP’s death grip on state legislatures. Until then they will continue to gerrymander their way into a substantial Congressional presence; if not a majority, at least a large enough minority to cause real mischief.
cckids
@Chris:
Well, eggs, omelets, you get the idea. He’ll just have to take one for the team.
gbear
@Citizen_X: Michele is going to go seriously, irretrievably off the deep end pretty soon. Same-sex marriage is going to be legal in MN by August. Fear of teh gay used to be her signature issue when she was a legislator in MN, so the legalization of gay marriage in MN is eventually going to set her off like a fourth of july fireworks finale. It’s going to be spectacular, and I can’t wait. It will bring tears to my eyes.
lumpkin
@Chris:
>>Theoretically, they can do it for any reason. Right?<<
My point, exactly and a lot of the republicans in the house have demonstrated that they would go right down that rathole without hesitation.
Might as well get it over with. If the public pukes over this and throws out a bunch of republicans in the next election, then maybe the healing can begin. If not….we will continue to get what some of us deserve and keep getting it harder.
kc
The phrase “Second Amendment remedies” comes to mind.
Roy G.
Channeling Johnny Cochrane: ‘If the charge is a reach, you must impeach!’
LittlePig
@Chris: They decide what constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Bingo. He will be impeached. Then the Senate will say ‘ha ha ha, no’, and that will be the end of that.
Until the House impeaches him again for putting his feet on the Oval Office or some such.
joes527
You left out the faked moon landing and the CIA having JFK off’d
Which are actually more apt comparisons.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
I agree that there was something weird about the way the video happened, the aliases, etc.
Trollhattan
@cckids:
“Collateral damage.”
Tokyokie
Gee, would this be the same James Inhofe, who, after being lightly reprimanded by the FAA for trying to land his private plane on a closed runway with a big X painted on it and scaring the crap (apparently literally) out of the construction crew working on the runway, then introduced legislation to curtail the FAA’s authority to regulate private pilots? Why yes, it would be.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/07/991892/-Sen-Inhofe-bravely-stands-up-to-FAA-on-behalf-of-himself#
True liberty apparently means having the freedom to land airplanes on top of people. Goldurn meddlesome gummint burrocrats.
A friend of mine who used to work the D.C. bureau for a newspaper, once told me a story of riding on the Capitol shuttle while sitting near Bob Dole, who was talking with another guy. Jim Inhofe approached and exchanged pleasantries with Dole, and after he left, Dole turned to his companion and said, “There went the only thing keeping Orrin Hatch from being the stupidest member of the U.S. Senate.”
It’s not merely that Inhofe is stupid, or that he is a willing stooge for any malign cause willing to fund his re-election campaigns. My late aunt, who was a retired bank executive, not some sort of flaming liberal, once ripped into my mother over dinner for voting for Inhofe, because my aunt considered him too stupid to be qualified for public office. Inhofe isn’t merely somebody who’s found it politically expedient to act stupid, he really is every bit as stupid as he seems, probably stupider. But what I think makes him so profoundly offensive is that he proudly considers his abject ignorance to be his primary qualification for holding public office.
I’ve long believed that at this point the only act of true public service Inhofe could offer would be committing seppuku. But then, that would require a measure of courage and integrity, so it’s beyond Inhofe’s capabilties. So if the GOP is bound and determined to pursue groundless impeachment charges against a popular and overwhelmingly re-elected president, then please make Inhofe the face of those efforts.
And hasten the party’s death from its own ignorance.
liberal
@Catsy:
Probably. I guess that I’m one of those males who doesn’t get all that frightened of or upset by such females.
Patrick
As I recall, Republicans gladly called anybody who criticized Bush, at a time of war, a traitor and other sickening names.
Now, Inhofe wants to impeach our President while we are still at war in Afghanistan (and in Iraq). Per their own logic, Inhofe is a traitor.
liberal
@Mnemosyne:
Well, their excuse was that it wasn’t the bj, but rather the perjury. (Don’t get me wrong; I thought the whole thing was absurd.)
Jacquie
I’ll just idly point out that Huckabee was telling Politico the same thing a few days ago. No link because fuck ’em.
liberal
@Chris:
Exactly. And this really is the way it should be.
Bokonon
Greatest cover-up in American history? Bigger than Watergate? Bigger than Iran Contra?
I guess the Republicans would know all about that, then.
liberal
@Tokyokie:
The story I heard about Dole through family connections to (Harkin, I think it was) was that he came out of some meeting in the 1990s with a bunch of Republicans (probably Senators) and said something about it being really nasty in there. (Which says something, given the source.)
Tokyokie
@Jacquie: Huckabee’s saying it was pretty bad, but Inhofe would be one of 100 senators deliberating the impeachment charges.
Tokyokie
@liberal: Yeah, as I was typing my little skreed, I was thinking by comparison to the current crop of GOP yahoos, Bob Dole’s not such a bad guy. And frankly, that scares the hell out of me. (Although I’ll always give Dole props for at least having a sense of humor.)
Jebediah
@gbear:
Her official portrait should be that picture of her hiding behind the bushes, spying on the scary ghey.
jl
@Jebediah:
“Michele is going to go seriously, irretrievably off the deep end pretty soon.”
‘is going to go’? ‘soon’?
Jebediah
@jl:
I am interpreting that as “off the deep end” relative to her state of sanity now.
Bill
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/10/politics/benghazi-emails/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
I know it’s CNN, but if I’m reading this story right, the worst that can be taken from these “smoking gun” emails is a downplaying of ties between the attack and known terrorist organizations. How that could be an impeachable offense is beyond me. Even if true – and tied to the President – it’s at worst some bad politics.
Earlier this week there was some testimony regarding requests for greater security at the embassy, and a failure to provide it. That seems like it could be much worse that what’s been alleged today, but I’ve seen nothing further on it, and even that doesn’t seem impeachable to me.
I know I shouldn’t hold my breath, but I’d really like someone to explain what the hell this alleged scandal is supposed to be about.
Maude
It’s about rehabilitating Bush. It has nothing to do with 2016.
Joseph Nobles
@Chris: Was just discussing this with a conservaloon on Facebook, if his cutting and pasting from various right wing sites and me laughing and mocking him can be called a discussion. He actually flirted with calling him “Betray-Us,” and when pressed, claimed to have never really liked Petraeus.
AxelFoley
@Dr. Mantis Toboggan:
You’re just as much a dumbass douchebag as Inhofe.
f space that
Local news in DC is really playing this up. New revelations ! Administration not credible ! On the defensive ! Questions from all sides ! NBC has seen the emails. Etc., etc.
Lord help us.
g
How about the “I-word” meaning IDIOT?
g
@Suffern ACE: No, they didn’t use the MAGIC WORD on a TV show!
The Other Chuck
Oh no, please don’t impeach, please don’t throw me in that there briar patch!
Okay, maybe Brer Rabbit isn’t the most appropriate quote, but damn if Obama isn’t giddy with joy at watching the GOP pour gasoline on themselves and light the matches.
AxelFoley
I gotta laugh at you guys who think the GOP is gonna impeach President Obama. If they were going to do that, they would have by now. They know they got nothin’. This is all theater. Sure, the media is playing their loyal lapdogs, but the public has no interest in this at all. They know it’s all bullshit. Notice how that asshat Inhofe doesn’t say that they’ll look into impeaching that President, only that it’s possible the President did something impeachable (which we know is bullshit). If they thought they had something, they’d jump at the chance to get the process rolling.
debbie
I wish I could remember his name, but a Republican insisted that Benghazi was Watergate and Iran-Contra times ten. Who doesn’t love winger math?
gbear
@Jebediah: Yep, off the deep end is relative with Bachmann, but between gay marriage in MN and her ex-staffers ratting on her in IA, I think she’s due for a volcanic blow-up before the summer’s over. Not enough popcorn in the world…
mds
@Bill:
Given that as far back as 2011, Secretary Clinton was criticizing the House GOP for refusing to adequately fund State Department security, I suspect they really don’t want to emphasize that line of inquiry.
marshall
@Sloegin:
I guess you weren’t paying attention during the Clinton Presidency. What, for example, was the actual scandal in the White House travel office scandal?
cat48
I found out what I needed to know this week about Bengahzi. Looks like CIA was responsible for Security in Bengahzi so they CIA tried to blame State for lax security. Probably why it took 12 times! This is from WashPost:
“CIA operations in the area included disarming militias, including ones affiliated with Islamist extremist groups, several months after the U.S. military role in toppling Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi. Virtually every U.S. official assigned to Benghazi was based in the CIA annex — where the agency, not the State Department, was in charge of security”