{"id":21162,"date":"2014-07-28T20:11:55","date_gmt":"2014-07-29T00:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=21162"},"modified":"2014-07-28T20:11:55","modified_gmt":"2014-07-29T00:11:55","slug":"a-more-%e2%80%98proportional%e2%80%99-response-than-impeachment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/21162\/a-more-%e2%80%98proportional%e2%80%99-response-than-impeachment\/","title":{"rendered":"A More \u2018Proportional\u2019 Response than Impeachment?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Add First Lady Michelle Obama and various members of the Democratic Party to the chorus of politicos discussing the possibility of impeaching<\/a> President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

The First Lady warned a group of donors<\/a> that, \u201cIf we lose these midterm elections, it\u2019s going to be a whole lot harder to finish what we started because we\u2019ll just see more of the same out in Washington \u2013 more obstructions, more lawsuits, and talk about impeachment.\u201d<\/p>\n

A series of fundraising email blasts was then sent on behalf of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee begging immediate donations to thwart a Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate. \u201cALL GIFTS TODAY ARE TRIPLE-MATCHED!\u201d blared the emails.<\/p>\n

Despite all this, impeachment is still seen in most quarters as far-fetched. Simple math says the GOP needs at least 67 senators to ensure conviction (since the Constitution requires a 2\/3 vote). For context, the GOP needs to pick up six seats just to get 51 members and control of the chamber.<\/p>\n

Beyond counting noses, there\u2019s a concern that impeaching the president at this stage would be disproportionate. Better, say thoughtful critics like Byron York<\/a>, for Republicans to pass legislation that overturns the executive orders and policy directives they loathe \u2013 such as deferred action \u2013 and dare Democrats in Congress to vote to defend Obama.<\/p>\n

Though York doesn\u2019t think impeachment should be an option at all, his \u2018proportionate\u2019 thesis dovetails nicely with what Andrew McCarthy has written about in his book, Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama\u2019s Impeachment<\/a><\/em>. McCarthy says that although pursuing impeachment is justified, it won\u2019t work unless the groundwork has been laid with the public to show conclusively that Obama can\u2019t be trusted to follow the law. It\u2019s hard to imagine a better way to make that case than with a string of presidential vetoes usurping Congress\u2019 constitutional power to legislate.<\/p>\n

Should that come to pass, perhaps the only proportionate action left to take would be impeachment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Add First Lady Michelle Obama and various members of the Democratic Party to the chorus of politicos discussing the possibility of impeaching President Barack Obama. The First Lady warned a group of donors that, \u201cIf we lose these midterm elections, it\u2019s going to be a whole lot harder to finish what we started because we\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4073,143,144,3778,4167,835],"class_list":["post-21162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-4073","tag-barack-obama","tag-constitution","tag-deferred-action","tag-impeach","tag-michelle-obama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21162"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21169,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21162\/revisions\/21169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}