Sarah Palin should be impeached
Let’s Impeach Sarah Palin!
I never thought I’d ever say this, but maybe it’s time for Sarah Palin to use all of the powers of her political office to singlehandedly impeach President Obama.
What’s that?
She doesn’t have a political office?
Then, perhaps, she should SHUT UP!
All she has to offer the American public, then, is noise.
That’s not even my opinion.
I have proof.
A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Annenberg Public Policy Center survey indicates that Americans, by an overwhelming majority, would like the failed vice presidential candidate to fade into the woodwork.
Among a number of high-profile ex-politicians, 52 percent of Americans would like to hear less from Sarah Palin.
What’s interesting is the fact that, despite her strong ties to the Tea Party, nearly 2 out of 5 conservatives and Republicans think Palin should avoid cameras and microphones.
Ironically, that poll was released before Palin’s latest stab at trying to appear relevant – her call for the impeachment of the president.
“The many impeachable offenses of Barack Obama can no longer be ignored. If after all this he’s not impeachable, then no one is,” Palin concluded in an op-ed piece she wrote for the ever-irrelevant breitbart.com.
The response to Palin’s call for Obama’s impeachment has been immediate; nearly universally negative among anybody with a working brain – and especially among Republicans.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who chairs the House Judiciary Committee claims, “The Constitution is very clear as to what constitutes grounds for impeachment of the President of the United States. He has not committed the kind of criminal acts that call for that.”
In other words, Palin doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
Even her 2008 presidential running-mate, John McCain, has cast a dim view of Palin’s shrill call to replace the man who made electoral mince-meat of them in 2008.
“I saw the impeachment scenario with former President Clinton and it was not a good thing to do. The American people didn’t like it,” McCain says.
He’s right.
Back in 1998, when the U.S. House of Representatives conjured-up two articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton’s, his job approval leaped 10 points, to 73 percent. That was his highest job approval number while he was in office to that point.
All of this stems from Palin’s constant carping about Obama supposedly being an “imperial” president.
First, if he’s got so much political heft that he’s able to make sweeping, unilateral changes with a single swipe of his pen, then why have Republicans been so successful at blocking his political agenda?
Second, there’s all of this business about Obama’s flagrant use of executive orders.
But the facts don’t lie.
(Facts, by the way, are defined as things that rarely pass thought Sarah Palin’s lips)
According to the latest information collected by the American Presidency Project, Barack Obama has issued 182 executive orders in the 5.42 years he’s been in office.
That averages 33.58 executive orders per year.
That’s less than every president since Theodore Roosevelt except George H.W. Bush (166), and Gerald Ford (169) – neither of whom served as long as Obama has.
In fact, the supposed gold-standard for Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan, signed 381 executive orders while he was in office.
For the record, Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power to impeach, and Article 3 gives the U.S. Senate the sole power to try impeachments.
Article 4, then reads, “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
None of this seems to matter to Palin.
She wants somebody, anybody to interpret the U.S. Constitution the same way she does.
I say we should all try to impeach Sarah Palin. I know she’s not a president, vice president, or a civil officer (thank goodness), but let’s impeach her anyway.
Maybe, just maybe upon conviction she’ll be sentenced to a month in a library, where she’ll have ample time to read, and try to understand the U.S. Constitution – for once!
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net