Impeachment debacle underscores debasement of the Constitution

By Chris Adamo

In the past several weeks, the pervasive buzz around Washington has been about supposed Republican plans to impeach Barack Obama. Oddly, such talk comes almost entirely from the Democrats. Once again, Beltway Republicans are reverting to their standard role of playing exclusively on defense, in hopes that this attack will somehow blow over with minimal damage to them.

Clearly, the Republican Party has no stomach for the rigors of a presidential impeachment, nor for the universal media condemnation that would most certainly accompany it. As a result, Barack Obama has been openly taunting House Speaker John Boehner (R.-OH), literally daring the Republican-dominated Congress to pursue impeachment. In every possible manner, Boehner "assures" America that he has no intentions whatsoever to consider an impeachment proceeding.

From a pragmatic standpoint (which is the "principle" that ultimately guides Boehner), impeachment may not be good politics. Any case brought by the House of Representatives, no matter how airtight, would most certainly be ignored or even mocked by Harry Reid and his mindlessly liberal minions in the Senate. Meanwhile, Democrats could significantly expand their fundraising efforts based on all of the fear mongering they have perpetrated in regards to the issue. Such ploys have already proven highly lucrative ever since rumors of impeachment began in recent months.

With public approval of Obama's leftist policies severely declining, and Democrat prospects looking particularly grim for the mid-term elections, they clearly need to refocus voters' attention onto something other than the sorry condition of the country and their complicity in its decline. So their hysterical assertions of harm to national esteem resulting from a presidential impeachment, while abhorrently hypocritical, may be the ticket to improved political fortunes. Hoping to deny them that advantage, Republicans have responded by assuring the public that no such plan is in the works.

Absent from this entire discussion is any consideration of the actual necessity to invoke a constitutional restraint on Barack Obama's lawless regime. Prior to the modern day degeneration of the political process into a catfight among self-serving office holders, the notion of ignoring governing excesses would itself have been recognized as an abdication of an inherent responsibility to preserve and maintain government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

Indeed, Barack Obama has on numerous occasions flagrantly violated his oath of office, and openly scorned any tenet of the Constitution that threatens to hamper his detestable vision of "fundamentally transforming America." From his unauthorized dispersal and squandering of billions of taxpayer dollars to his collaborative suppression of evidence and stonewalling of investigations of the IRS and Justice Department to his refusal to enforce laws with which he disagrees, Obama exceeds any reasonable standard by which abuses of power can be adjudged.

On several fronts, such usurpations inarguably meet and exceed the criteria of "high crimes and misdemeanors" by which the Constitution determines that he can and should be removed from power. In light of this, congressional refusal to follow up represents its own crime against the people, and an abdication of the responsibilities of office by those Representatives who also swore an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic." Once upon a time, they would have been expected to simply do the right thing. Are they now exempted from such a quaint notion on the basis that it is not "feasible" or (more to the point) politically beneficial?

Far from being a shrewd political maneuver, the willingness of Speaker Boehner and his cohorts to unilaterally wave the white flag on impeachment signals a betrayal of the American people on several fronts. First, it essentially gives Obama the green light to exercise power unchecked, facing no repercussions for doing so. The corruption at the IRS, by which free speech and exercise were trampled in service to the leftist agenda, will continue unchecked. Its scope can be expanded with those targeted having no legal recourse. The politicization of the Justice Department at the hands of hyper-partisan racist and leftist Attorney General Eric Holder can be maintained, thus perverting the law into a weapon to be wielded against the non-compliant masses and bludgeon them into submission. And the orchestrated destruction of the nation as a whole, by the mass importation of illegal aliens who will overwhelmingly support the Democrat agenda, can continue to be carried out with no opposition to effectively contend for the interests of the American people.

Of far more grave consequence is the fact that, having unconditionally surrendered the reins of power to Obama, this refusal by the Congress to fight to uphold the law guarantees that the outrages committed against America by the Obama White House will only increase. If Obama can make law, ignore law, repeal law, and generally wreak havoc on the fabric of the nation by executive order, with no limitations placed upon him, the people are thereafter left defenseless against an out-of-control government that is fully capable of doing irreparable harm to them. From a purely political perspective, while Obama remains the singular focus of those who are incensed at the crimes being perpetrated against their country, such a prospect does not bode any better for the Republicans who, by their cowardice and passivity, are allowing it to ensue.

Those of the governing "inner circles" who would willingly feign ignorance of the criminal overreaches of the Obama White House cannot credibly claim to be neutral bystanders. By placing their political fortunes ahead of the well-being of the nation, they prove themselves every bit as devoid of principle as the leftists they ostensibly oppose. The question of impeachment, if decided for any other reason than its constitutional merits, relegates our national charter, founded on such noble principle and maintained for these two centuries at so enormous a price, to the status of a meaningless historical relic.

This is the ultimate rationale on which Barack Obama wages his onslaught against America and its Constitution. And it reflects the manner by which he will continue to eradicate it, precept by precept, until such time that the political opposition reaches the point that it refuses to allow him to proceed any further.

© Chris Adamo