Jack & Jill Politics

Yeah, you heard me. Sounds crazy as hell, don’t it? But at a time when GOP candidates who dress up in their spare time like Nazis have a shot at getting elected in Ohio, nothing should surprise us. The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait recently said about a week ago:

“Hear me now and believe me later, if Republicans win and maintain control of the House of Representatives, they are going to impeach President Obama.”

Evidence of any wrong-doing? Well, obviously they’ll start with the premise that that Kenyan Muslim Marxist somehow faked his birth certificate and birth announcements in Hawaii. If you don’t vote in this election, this is the kind of nonsense we might be forced to fight. Think it can’t happen? Think I’m just tryin’ to spook ya? Think again.

From The Atlantic’s list of people salivating over the prospect of lynching that nigger good impeaching President Obama:

• Me Too, With a Caveat Goldberg’s National Review colleague Daniel Foster tosses “five dollars or a six-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon” on the pile, with the addition of an adverb: “I’ll bet that the Republicans will not unsuccessfully impeach Obama.” Huh?

The question of the bet, I take it, is whether the Republicans will frivolously impeach the president. But I want insurance against some kind of Watergate-scale infraction that shocks the nation and obviously calls for dramatic action.

• Could Obama Pull a Watergate? Andy McCarthy joins the National Review debate by wondering what “Obama would have to do at this point to shock the nation.”

• Pros and Cons Though House Republicans might “please their constituents” with an impeachment move, and “it’s going to be open season for investigations,” Politico’s Ben Smith points out that “Republicans may recall that the Clinton impeachment worked out poorly.”

Do We Have the Right Personalities for This? “Neither John Boehner nor Eric Cantor are Gingrich-style bomb throwers,” comments James Joyner at Outside the Beltway, and “Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton.” True, he says: “American politics has become more absurd theater than rational debate,” but all the same, “if the GOP is going to take down Obama, politically or legally, it’s going to have to be something much more serious than what the Sean Hannity’s of the world have been complaining about so far.”

Let em try, I say. In the absence of manufactured scandal, the Obama Administration is untouchable, I believe. I think I agree with Ben Smith. This gambit would likely backfire — investigations can be launched in both directions plus I think the American appetite for a witch hunt with racial overtones at a time when so many are struggling economically is pretty low. And hopefully, reasonable Republican minds will hold sway. What say you?