It's funny how Republicans were horrified at talk of impeachment when Dubya was in the White House, committing impeachable offenses on a daily basis, but now that there's a Democrat in the Oval Office again, they're back to thinking it's a good idea. Via Mother Jones:
Yesterday's fringe is the new mainstream, so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that prominent Republicans are stepping up calls for President Obama to be impeached. Over what? They're not entirely sure, but the details can come later.
So spying on citizens, invading sovereign nations, torturing civilians—not impeachable. Stuff to be determined later? Totally impeachable.
But the vague concept of impeachment is actually more reasonable than the specific reasons some Republicans think the president should be impeached. Like Newt Gingrich:
Sometime presidential candidate and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich suggested back in February that the President could be impeached for his decision not to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act.
Yeah. Let's all pause for a moment to try to wrap our minds around the idea that serial cheater Newt wants to impeach the president for not adequately defending the sanctity of marriage.
And now Herman Cain is on board, also convinced that the president's refusal to expend his every ounce of energy on discriminating against gay Americans is an impeachable offense. If only it weren't for those damned Democrats in the Senate:
[I]t would be a great thing to do but because the Senate is controlled by Democrats we would never be able to get the Senate first to take up that action, because they simply don’t care what the American public thinks. They would protect him and they wouldn’t even bring it up[.]
Perhaps nothing tops Rick "Don't Google Me!" Santorum, though, trying to play the role of—get this—the reasonable guy:
[T]o me the rhetoric that Rick Perry used was sort of the rhetoric I would expect from a John Conyers, talking about President Bush and saying he should be impeached. We don't do that. We don't impeach people, we don't charge people with treason because we disagree with them on public policy. You might say that they're wrong, you might say lots of things about how misguided they are, but you don't up the ante to that type of rhetoric.
Yeah, you crazy extremists! We don't impeach people just because we disagree with them. Now, getting a blowjob, on the other hand …
(I'll save you the Googling. Yes, Santorum voted to convict President Clinton on all charges during his impeachment trial, back when Santorum actually had a job.)
Is it a sign of the end times when Multiple Marriage Newt thinks not defending marriage is an impeachable offense, and Rick freakin' Santorum has to be the voice of reason? (They'd love that, wouldn't they?)
Maybe it's just example #1,000,001 that the Republican Party has completely lost its mind.