Some people have been talking about impeaching Pres. Obama. But this is totally impractical. And it's not for the reasons that such as Charles Hurt of The Washington Times give. Yes, impeaching Obama is really a scheme that can't be done. And Speaker John Boehner is right to dismiss it out of hand, even if such as Sarah Palin have called for it. (In fact, most of the impeachment talk comes from Democrats these days — trying to use this as a way of rallying their base!) But Hurt's reason — that the GOP is very bad at getting its ideas accepted by the American public — is not the real reason.
The real reason is that our Constitution makes it impossible to impeach a president and win, unless you can get substantially unanimous agreement. To get two thirds of the Senate to agree to convict a president like Obama, who still retains a lot of popularity, is an impossible task. The Senate would not remove Bill Clinton, who lied before a grand jury, and it is very clear that no Democratic Senator (and right now they are a majority, and even the most optimistic polls for the GOP do not expect the Democratic numbers after November's election to be reduced below the middle forties, certainly not below 33, which would be necessary to get an impeachment through!) will vote to convict Pres. Obama.
So even if the House voted to impeach, all that would do is get some Obama supporters to be angry. It would not actually remove the President. So what good would that do?
The real reason is that our Constitution makes it impossible to impeach a president and win, unless you can get substantially unanimous agreement. To get two thirds of the Senate to agree to convict a president like Obama, who still retains a lot of popularity, is an impossible task. The Senate would not remove Bill Clinton, who lied before a grand jury, and it is very clear that no Democratic Senator (and right now they are a majority, and even the most optimistic polls for the GOP do not expect the Democratic numbers after November's election to be reduced below the middle forties, certainly not below 33, which would be necessary to get an impeachment through!) will vote to convict Pres. Obama.
So even if the House voted to impeach, all that would do is get some Obama supporters to be angry. It would not actually remove the President. So what good would that do?
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