This line from David Axelrod about Tom Coburn's bizarre foray into impeachment talk pretty much sums it up:
Axelrod on Coburn's impeachment talk: "that was his considered legal opinion as an obstetrician"
— @samsteinhp
In case you missed it, earlier this week Coburn spoke at length about the prospects of impeaching the president. While he didn't say that he currently believes impeachment is justified,
he did say that President Obama was "getting perilously close" to the point where impeachment would be necessary.
I don’t have the legal background to know if that rises to high crimes and misdemeanor, but I think they’re getting perilously close.
Coburn didn't actually offer any meaningful evidence for his assertion other than a story about how he meet an agent for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services who told him that his managers had told him to approve applications that did not have have sufficient documentation. Sure, that seems a little thin, but really, who needs
evidence for impeachment? Really, the question is whether or not you have
the votes, right?
Addressing Coburn's comments on MSNBC this morning, Axelrod said the Oklahoma senator had crossed a line:
“I think he was way out of bounds, and he speaks to a kind of virus that’s infected our politics that really has to be curbed,” Axelrod said.
To you and me, that seems like a fairly reasonable, if a bit anodyne, way of putting it. Of course, to Coburn's constituents, I'm sure it sounded like Axelrod had just ordered one of Obama's Chicago thugs to take out Coburn, or at least to throw him in jail for his comments. Sure, that might be a little crazy, but if you believed President Obama was a tyranically dictator, wouldn't you think the same thing?
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