Hardly a day goes by without someone or some group insisting that President Obama should be impeached and removed from office. Reasons for such a step include the President’s use of executive orders to make law, his refusal to enforce existing law, spying on citizens by the National Security Agency, the debacle in Benghazi, IRS targeting of conservative groups, and more. These and other Obama deficiencies are real.
But impeachment by the House isn’t likely to be followed by conviction in the Senate. The Republicans in the House can approve impeachment with a simple majority vote. But getting two-thirds of the Senate (67 in number) to convict their president isn’t realistic. The Senate is currently top-heavy with Democrats, and expecting them to oust their party leader is expecting something that isn’t realistically possible. And practically everyone who clamors for impeachment knows this.
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So why is there so much discussion about impeachment? Two answers follow. The first is that some Republicans feel that calling for such a process impresses voters in their districts. Incumbents seeking reelection or ambitious outsiders hoping to win nomination and election for a House or Senate seat believe that the public is disgusted with Obama to the point where they want him removed. If pressed about the possibility of success, even these impeachment pleaders would have to admit that the goal they seek is unlikely to be achieved. In almost all cases, these GOPers are playacting while getting some media attention which is their real goal.
The second reason why impeachment is being discussed is that Democrats themselves are raising the issue. They want to paint Republicans as deeply partisan ogres who are ganging up on a wounded president. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi recently pointed out that some Republicans (John Boehner for one) are even planning to sue the president “on a path to impeach” while she and fellow Democrats are busily working to “create jobs.” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest claims that some Republicans are “hoping to get into office to impeach the president” soon after they win election. But even MSNBC’s Chris Hayes suggested that impeachment talk might “be a masterful stroke of Democrats running a false flag operation.”
Occasionally, realism surfaces. Congressman Steve Stockman (R-Texas) has labeled calls for impeachment “foolish.” He believes that Mr. Obama and his advisors want the impeachment process to move forward because it will fail while it generates sympathy for the president. He believes that this “is the only chance the Democrat Party has to avoid a major electoral defeat” in November.
Congressman Steve Scalise (R-La.), the newly named House Majority Whip who recently replaced primary loser Eric Cantor, notes that Democrats are capitalizing on talk of impeachment with fund-raising appeals. He adds that Democrats “will do anything they can to change the topic away from the president’s failed policies.”
Summing up: Impeachment by the House will not lead to conviction and removal of the President by the Senate. And Democrats dearly want calls for impeachment to continue because they help the Democrat cause.
John F. McManus is president of The John Birch Society and publisher of The New American. This column appeared originally at the insideJBS blog and is reprinted here with permission.
