Are House Republicans really thinking about impeaching President Obama, or is that just spin from congressional Democrats and the White House to fire up Democratic voters ahead of the November elections? Personally, I think the answer is obvious—they'd love to impeach Obama—but let's see what incoming House Majority Whip Steve Scalise had to say about it when Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace
popped the question over the weekend. He began:
You know, this might be the first White House in history that's trying to start the narrative of impeaching their own president.
Okay, for the sake of argument let's say that the White House is trying to start the narrative. (I mean, except for all those GOPers calling for him to be impeached. Like Palin, for example.) But the question isn't who is trying to start the narrative, it's whether or not the narrative has a basis in reality. And if it's not true, then Scalise should just say so, right? Instead:
Ultimately, what we want to do is see the president follow his own laws. But the president took an oath to faithfully execute the laws of this land and he's not. In fact, the Supreme Court unanimously more than 12 times, unanimously said the president overreached and actually did things he doesn't have the legal authority to do.
Not only did Scalise refuse to say the narrative is false, he went on to repeat the bizarre and false claim that the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled unanimously against President Obama's executive actions. That's
simply not true—the real story is that the Obama administration's position in 13 court cases has failed unanimously, but only one of those concerned executive actions.
But let's call Scalise's first answer strike one, because Wallace gave him another shot at dismissing the impeachment talk:
We've made it clear. We're going to put options on the table to allow -- to allow the House to take legal action against the president when he overreaches his authority. Others have already done that. Cases are going to the Supreme Court. Like I said, more than a dozen times the Supreme Court unanimously -- I'm not talking about a 5-4 decision -- 9-0, unanimously said the president overreached.
So, we're going to continue to be a check and a balance against this administration.
If the first answer was strike one, that's gotta be strike two, because on a substantive level, it was the exact same thing. But Scalise was still at the plate, and Wallace gave him yet another shot:
WALLACE: But impeachment is off the table?
SCALISE: Well, the White House wants to talk about impeachment, and, ironically, they're going out and trying to fundraise off that, too.
WALLACE: I'm asking you, sir.
SCALISE: Look, the White House will do anything they can to change the topic away from the president's failed agenda -- people paying higher costs for food, for health care, for gas at the pump. The president isn't solving those problems. So, he wants to try to change the subject.
We're going to continue to focus on getting the economy moving again, solve problems for everyday people. I would like to see the president engaged in that, too. That's his job.
But for whatever, he wants to change the topic, talk about things like this.
Technically, I think those were actually the third and fourth strikes, because that was actually two more chanties for Scalise to say that Republicans aren't thinking about impeaching Obama—though to be fair and balanced, you could say he fouled the first one off.
All kidding aside, how hard is it for a House Republican to say: "No, President Obama shouldn't be impeached." Scalise obviously wasn't eager to associate Republicans with impeachment—that's why he tried to blame the White House—but he had at his disposal a definitive way of dismissing the talk: He could have said it wasn't true. He could have even added an asterisk—"based on what we know today." Instead, he just tried to blame the White House while simultaneously accusing the president of being a lawless renegade. And if that's the kind of rhetoric we're getting from the GOP now, just wait until you hear what they'll have to say after the election—and after the courts toss out their lawsuit.