Where Is the Red Line of Impeachment?

American Thinker

In the business world, a diligent board of directors would have long ago fired CEO Obama.

 Sometimes  it takes only a year of less than expected earnings to result in the  termination of a corporate CEO.  A couple of underperforming years and a  few reasons more, and a CEO would have his bags packed and stowed  underneath his buck-stopping desk.  A long list of problems —  especially one suggesting even a hint of fraud — that fails to generate a satisfactory board response would stir  shareholders and lenders to demand the resignation of not only the CEO  and other key employees, but also its directors.  For without  remediation, the company’s stock prices would tumble as shareholders  divest and banks pull the plug.

 Our government’s CEO is Barack Obama, its board of directors is Congress, its workforce  consists of a growing multitude of Big Government bureaucracies, and its  bank is the unaccountable monopoly of the Federal Reserve.  Anymore,  hardly anyone with any power in that vast organization seems to  represent the interests of We the People (the shareholders).  

The  Democrat-media complex can ridicule political opposition as “fringe” or  “extremist,” but the ominous ticking of the 17-trillion-dollar debt  clock is becoming harder to ignore.  The growing debt transforms our  shares from an asset into a liability that gravely impacts our national  security. Our future generations will no longer expect the reward of  dividends in their pursuit of happiness.  Instead, and not by choice,  they inherit more than their fair share of risk — the labor of digging  out of this financial mess, the difficult task of restoring real freedom  and liberty, and the rebuilding of our national status and defenses  abroad.

 Not only has the financial value of our shares turned upside-down, but the attached voting value has become diluted.  A significant proportion of voters contribute no financial stake with payment of taxes, and furthermore, they (and other “privileged”  citizens) vote for politicians who promise generous dividend  redistribution schemes.  The specter of fraudulent elections,  questionable campaign methods, foreign donations, IRS involvement in limiting political speech, and potential citizenship for millions of illegals who “overwhelmingly support big government” — all serve to further erode the possibility of a voting majority that values a return to the Constitution.

 Back in early December, liberal law professor Jonathan Turley admitted before Congress that Obama has “become the very danger the Constitution was designed to avoid.”  Several more ObamaCare delays and hundreds of new regulations later, and columnist Charles Krauthammer describes it all as “the stuff that you do in a banana republic.”

 We  fret, we complain, we comment at conservative blogs, we watch Fox News  — but nothing seems to change.  Nothing — except more strokes of  Obama’s pen and the “coincidences” of the frequency of IRS (and other federal agencies) harassment of people — such as Ben Carson and Catherine Engelbrecht — who dare to speak out.

 We’re becoming numb to the overwhelming “magnitude of the misdeeds.”  And so we twiddle our thumbs while Big Government meddles and Obama bullies and his congressional orchestra fiddles — and our nation burns.  Maybe it’s already “over and we just don’t know it.”

 Law professor Elizabeth Price Foley explained that “the ability of courts and Congress to stop [Obama] is shockingly  limited.”  She concluded that even if “the House passed articles of  impeachment, would two-thirds of Harry Reid’s Senate convict the first  African-American president? The question seems to answer itself.”

 Such  a conclusion raises more questions in our analogy with the business  world: why have a board if it has no power?  Why rely on remedies in  courts in which no one has standing?  What if the media — or a CEO’s  race — shielded him from the consequences of his performance?

 Conservative columnists, such as Powerline‘s John Hinderaker, are beginning to acknowledge the growing list of grounds for impeachment.

 The I-word was also recently uttered by Krauthammer, when he admitted that if a  Republican had done what Obama has, “people would be up in arms and  would be impeaching.”

 But prominent Republicans such as Paul Ryan, even after blasting Obama’s lawlessness, laugh at the suggestion.  Others warn that impeachment talk puts the midterm  elections at risk.  The political fallout of the Clinton affair is often  cited as another reason to avoid the I-word — as if lying under  oath about an affair with an intern is somehow comparable to the  destruction of our Constitution.  Even after his admission that Obama’s  offenses are legitimate grounds for impeachment, Hinderaker concluded  that “[f]or political reasons, impeachment is not an option, and I don’t  mean to suggest that Republicans should start talking about it.”

 Such attitudes led Andrew McCarthy to conclude that although impeachment is the proper remedy for the long and  provable list of Obama’s offenses, “it’s not guilt that matters; it’s  political will.”

 Indeed — there seems to be plenty of guilt to go around, but scant “political will.”

 After Sen. Ted Cruz’s filibuster and the government shutdown, I suggested another analogy based on the story of Tilly Smith.  Tilly  was the brave little girl who recognized the signs of the impending  tsunami on a Thailand beach in 2004, warning people in time to save a  hundred lives.  She didn’t stop to evaluate the “will” of her fellow  beachgoers as they lounged in their chairs.

 Cruz  chose to issue a loud warning rather than participate in a strategy  that relies on an after-the-fact “I told you so” message.  Cruz, like  many of us, recognizes that this is not merely a political game — the  tsunami of President Obama’s lawlessness harms citizens and may  ultimately destroy, beyond repair, the beach that represents our form of  government.

 A few days ago, and before the latest ObamaCare delay, columnist David Limbaugh asked, “At what point do Americans scream ‘enough’?”  Perhaps the question should be: At what point will Americans decide that it does make a difference, and scream the warning “impeach”? 

 It’s wishful thinking to imagine that this administration is setting the precedent of a “new  superpower” that a future Republican president can use to restore what  Obama has transformed.  The Democrat-media complex — even though “getting sick”  of defending, for example, ObamaCare — still sets the “red line” in  political discourse — no matter where that line exists under the rule  of law.

 And until a majority of Americans realize that the office of the presidency is much more special than any person who occupies it, the red line of impeachment for this president will never be crossed.

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