Why are top Republicans so determined
to cut themselves off at the knees?
The GOP believes it has a problem:
President Obama calculates that it helps him and hurts Republicans to claim,
falsely, that Republicans are about to impeach him, so that is what Democrats
are doing. As I argued before — and it sounds as if Bill Kristol
agrees — this is a foolish calculation on
their part. To be clear, neither Bill, I, nor most Obama critics, nor any
elected Republicans that I know of, are calling for the president’s impeachment
at this point: The public case has not been made for it, and defeat would be
certain in the Senate.......On impeachment, Ryan reportedly said: “The Republicans’ differences with the White House do not rise to the
high crime and misdemeanor level.”
Wrong. To repeat, “high crimes and misdemeanors,” a British term of art borrowed by the Framers, does not refer to penal offenses. It refers to what Hamilton called “the misconduct of public men, or in other words . . . the abuse or violation of some public trust.” Such misconduct need not be an indictable wrong. It could involve dereliction of duty, lies to Congress or the public about serious matters, the failure to honor an oath (such as the oath to execute the laws faithfully), and any conduct that intentionally undermines the governing framework that safeguards our liberties and security (the president, of course, takes an oath to preserve the Constitution).
My Take - For a more indepth look at the term "high crimes", please view my article, The Post Constitutional Era! Part XV.
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