Censure Obama and Move On: Impeachment Would Only Damage Republicans
Gary Locke img via Jay Cost article in The Weekly Standard How to Rebuke a President |
The president’s dereliction of duty, although infuriating, does not rise to the level of high crimes or even misdemeanors, the Constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office. Moreover removal would conjure from the realm of Nightmare into reality the three scariest words in the English language: “President. Joe. Biden.”
Thankfully there is zero chance of gaining enough votes in the Senate to effect the president’s removal and no real risk of the House pursuing such a reckless course. An attempt at impeachment and removal would subject the GOP to being painted as a persecuting force. Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell fully grasp this and will not permit it.
Impeachment would be very much against the GOP’s, and America’s, political interests. Moreover, weaponizing the Constitution — by lowering the standards for the removal of a duly elected president — would set a dreadful precedent, pushing the United States another step closer to the political status of a banana republic.
So, what, then, is to be done? John Fund, at The National Review astutely suggests censure, for failure faithfully to execute the laws, by the Congress of the president. Censure was a recipe, Fund shrewdly notes, advocated for President Clinton by no less than Nancy Pelosi. She, Fund reports, backed a resolution stating that President Clinton “fully deserves the censure and condemnation of the American people and the Congress.”
Let us not forget that the magnificent MoveOn.org drew its very name from its original petition stating that “Congress must Immediately Censure President Clinton and Move On to pressing issues facing the country.” Censure of Mr. Obama seems perfectly apt.
Censure President Obama and Move On.
Should censure prove insufficient to restrain this autocratically disposed president other steps are available. The White House and its Progressive echo chamber keep raising the bogeyman of a government shutdown. This is risible. Speaker Boehner and Leader McConnell definitively have ruled this out.
Firebrands such as Sen. Ted Cruz have called for a “scorched earth” policy of refusing to ratify any presidential appointments other than those required for national security reasons. That is a tactic that would give the mainstream media, which leans left, a predicate to paint the GOP as vindictive and obstructionist. It would hand the Democrats a propaganda victory.
No. Finesse is to be desired.
One can imagine, for example, the Congress protesting the president’s shunning of the law by … shunning this president. This could begin by boycotting the State of the Union address — or, even more dramatically, quietly rising to exit after his introduction.
This president has shown himself possessed of an odd form of passive aggression. He repeatedly calls (and may even believe) the Republicans’ refusal to move left a perverse unwillingness to “get stuff (his stuff) done.” Obama holds his own recalcitrance, even in the face of electoral humiliation by his party, as nobly standing on principle. The president presents as mildly fanatical. (He gets a bye for this from an only slightly less fanatical mainstream media.)
Censuring and shunning would be an excellent starting point. That said, fanatics by definition are unreasonable. These consequences might prove insufficient. There is more that can be done by the Congress instead of a counterproductive Cruzian scorched earth tactic or getting tied up into Gordian knots attempting to defund portions of the Department of Homeland Security.
The iconic consequence imposed by parents on an unruly teenager … one who, like this president, stubbornly refuses to honor the House Rules … is grounding. Grounding has much to recommend it.
The imperial trappings of the presidency are simply preposterous. These trappings are well-calculated to reinforce any president’s narcissism (apparently verging, with this president, on solipsism).
I previously called into question the absurd perquisite of Air Force One (technically a code name assigned to whatever aircraft on which the president may be flying; in practice, a fleet of private jets):
And what of the president’s fleet of helicopters, those Chariots of the Gods, on which I wrote:
“The last time the Pentagon tried to upgrade the president’s coolest ride — the fleet of helicopters that drop him at his doorstep on the South Lawn of the White House — it didn’t go well. Costs doubled. Delays sparked ridicule, then outrage. And President Obama, then just a few weeks in office, said it was “an example of the procurement process gone amok” before defense officials killed the program outright.
“It was an embarrassing debacle that cost $3.2 billion and produced no usable helicopter, turning an iconic symbol of presidential power into an illustration of government waste and incompetence.”
I recall, from my time at Boston University Law School, encountering then Massachusetts governor (later presidential nominee) Michael Dukakis riding, along with me, on the MTA. Then-governor of Alaska Sarah Palin sold Alaska’s equivalent of Air Force One, a Westwind II, 10-seater jet, as a gesture of frugality. Reportedly, the president of Switzerland typically takes public transportation to work.
We need not go quite so far. I have no objection to picking up the president’s Uber tab.
Grounding the president might, in addition to bringing him down to Earth with us mere taxpayers, chasten some of his grandiose autocratic instincts. Whether or not it achieved that purpose it would serve the wonderful objective — a “teachable moment” as the president might say — as a marvelous example of government frugality.
(And as a gesture of decent republican generosity toward President Obama, I now say… let him fly Business Class … and let him bring along a companion to carry the nuclear launch code football for him. A few further aides, if really needed, could fly … coach.)
If mere grounding proves insufficient to bring this president’s ego back to Earth let’s cut the White House staff. Currently, the Executive Office of the President employs around 500, many of whom get up to mischief. Another 1500 to 2000 people are paid by cabinet agencies and detailed to work on White House staff (as I was, briefly, under President Reagan). Surely a message can be sent, through the “power of the purse,” by cutting the White House staff in, say, half.
Reduce the number of aides, thereby reducing this (and, one submits, future) president’s leverage for concocting extralegal schemes. Will this disable the government? Not at all!
Consider, as nicely summarized by Wikipedia:
Pomp, under the circumstances, really has gotten out control. Such pomposity feeds any president’s very worst instincts. By deeply cutting the “Pomp Budget” just perhaps President Obama will decide that it behooves him to show due respect to the Congress. If not, however, a strong statement will have been made and a good precedent set by Congress.
Ignoring the laws one constitutionally is charged, and sworn, to uphold really is reprehensible. The Congress may not have the means to prevent his dereliction of duty. It does have means to speak truth to power and hold the president accountable.
Censure President Obama and Move On.
(And cut the Pomp budget.)
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Ralph Benko is senior advisor, economics, to American Principles in Action’s Gold Standard 2012 Initiative, and a contributor to the ARRA News Service. His article first appeared in Forbes
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