Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, argues that House Speaker John Boehner's plan to come up with a reason to file suit against President Obama has nothing to do with politics and is instead all about restraining a lawless president who is tearing the Constitution asunder with his dictatorial ways:
WALLACE: Chairman Goodlatte, the president says, it's all politics, a stunt, he calls it.
REP. BOB GOODLATTE, R-VA.: Absolutely not, Chris. This is all about the United States constitution. Article 1 says the president of the United States -- I'm sorry, the Congress is the legislative body. All legislative powers herein granted shall rest in the Congress of the United States. Article 2 says the president shall faithfully execute the laws.
So, it's not about our wanting to stop him from doing his job. It's our wanting to do the job that the Constitution prescribes and not to take powers resting in the Congress and to, through not enforcing laws or changing laws that have been passed, taking power from the legislative branch.
It's very important and this should be bipartisan. People are standing up to protect the balance of power, the check against a too powerful executive branch. It's been done in the past. It needs to be done again.
That sound pretty political to me—almost like a pledge to tea partiers that if they just turn out in 2014 like they did in 2010, maybe this time the House will finally impeach President Obama. But who knows, maybe I'm giving Goodlatte too much credit. Maybe he actually believes the nonsense that he's spitting out.
Either way, it's hard to see how this doesn't lead to a serious effort by Republicans to impeach the president. Speaker Boehner might be saying that this isn't about impeachment, but in so many ways, it is. And even though this may be the longest of long shots, there's only one way to guarantee that House Republicans don't try to placate the tea party by impeaching the president, and that's giving the speaker's gavel back to Nancy Pelosi.