Reminder: Just because impeachment is absurd doesn't mean they won't do it.
According to
U.S. News, hardline House Republicans
want...
...to stop talking about impeachment...
...because they...
...worry that the constant impeachment drumbeat may be turning off independent voters and mobilizing Democrats to turn out in the midterm elections and vote.
Reasonable concern, no? Certainly, far more reasonable than baselessly impeaching President Obama, which it would seem they won't do until after the elections are over. After all, if they lose in November, they won't be able to impeach (well, technically they could in the lame duck session, but not even they are that crazy ... are they?).
The thing is, if Republicans want to stop all this impeachment talk, they're doing a terrible job of it—and I don't just mean House Speaker John Boehner's pre-impeachment lawsuit. I also mean stuff like this from GOP Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia:
Not a day goes by when people don’t talk to us about impeachment. I don’t know what rises to that level yet, but I know that there’s a mounting frustration that a lot of people are getting to and I think Congress is going to start looking at it very seriously.
And
this from Senate nominee Joni Ernst:
I do think that yes, he should face those repercussions, and whether that's removal from office, whether that's impeachment. [...] He has become a dictator. He is running amok. He is not following our Constitution.
Ernst tried to backpedal those remarks ... by saying that while the president might not be a dictator, "his repeated use of unilateral action sure makes him look like one." Memo to Ernst: Saying Obama looks like a dictator isn't a very convincing way of backing off the impeachment threat.
It's a similar story with GOP Rep. Randy Weber of Texas who said:
The president deserves to be impeached. Plain and simple.
But then tried to say that impeachment wasn't on the table because House Republicans "have so much on our plate right now," which is possibly the least convincing spin imaginable given that this Congress is the most do-nothing Congress in history.
And then there's this from another Texas Republican, Rep. Joe Barton:
If you are going to impeach a president, you need to do it right.
Keep in mind, that quote was supposed to illustrate how Republicans are walking away from impeachment. What it really illustrates, however, is that Republicans think impeachment is something that they have to do right. And doing it right apparently means waiting until after November to do it.