By Andrew C. McCarthy August 24, 2013
To the legacy media, that shriveling adjunct of the White House press office, the story is not why Americans would think it worth asking whether the president should be impeached. It is, as one would expect, why some prominent Republicans are dignifying the question with serious answers.
To the legacy media, that shriveling adjunct of the White House press office, the story is not why Americans would think it worth asking whether the president should be impeached. It is, as one would expect, why some prominent Republicans are dignifying the question with serious answers.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is in trouble, naturally. Being
an unapologetic conservative, tea-party stalwart, and happy warrior has made him
the preferred punching bag of the media and other Beltway dinosaurs — their
hysteria meter always tells you who worries them most. Asked at a conservative
gathering in the Houston suburbs “why don’t we impeach” the president, Cruz
respectfully replied
that this was a “good question.” He then gave a good answer: “We don’t have the
votes.”……..
A useful article
published by the Constitutional Rights Foundation is more concrete about the
Framers’ understanding [of what high crimes and misdemeanors means]:
Officials accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” were accused of
offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit
subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by
Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates,
threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man
to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor
it, helping “suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,” granting
warrants without cause, and bribery. Some of these charges were crimes. Others
were not. The one common denominator in all these accusations was that the
official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve.
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