Iowa's Republican Senate nominee Joni Ernst
tries to walk back comments she made earlier this year in a video that surfaced yesterday about impeaching President Obama:
To be clear, I have not seen any evidence that the president should be impeached.
But in her January
comments, Ernst was asked what she felt should happen if the Supreme Court ruled that President Obama's recess appoints were unconstitutional and she said:
I do think that yes, he should face those repercussions, and whether that's removal from office, whether that's impeachment.
Ooops.
And it's not just that Ernst supported impeaching Obama, it's her rationale for why she believed he should be impeached. In her words:
He has become a dictator. He is running amok. He is not following our Constitution.
That's some serious crazy talk. Perfect for a GOP primary ... but not so much for a general election. So now she says:
I obviously do not believe the president is a dictator, but his repeated use of unilateral action sure makes him look like one.
Actually, what's obvious is that just six months ago, Joni Ernst said President Obama was a dictator who should be impeached and removed from office if the Supreme Court ruled against him on the question of recess appointments. Either she was lying then or she's lying now. And her argument for why she should be able to have it both ways doesn't add up:
I was asked a question involving a hypothetical about what I thought should happen if the Supreme Court ruled that the president had committed an 'abuse of power.'
But the question was specifically about what should happen if the Supreme Court ruled that President Obama had overstepped his authority in making recess appointments. That's what the court did—and Joni Ernst clearly and unambiguously said the president should be impeached for it. There's nothing hypothetical about that.