They say that reading DailyKos is like getting your newspaper a year ahead of time. So here is a bit of news from April of 2011: The impeachment hearings of Barack Obama, led by the newly-elected Republican majority in the House.
You may have some questions: what did he do? It doesn't matter. It might be some fallout from the Blagojevich mess. Or Geithner fallout. Or because he closed Guantanamo. Or because he didn't close Guantanamo. Or because the NSA is still spying on citizens. Or because the NSA is not spying on citizens. Or because of a forged birth certificate or an unpaid parking ticket from 1979. The reason is not important.
What is important is this: if the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, Barack Obama will be impeached in 2011. Bet the house on it. How do I know? Because that is what Republicans do. To demonstrate that, I will now digress a little.
I often find that simplifying things down to simple one-word explanations, as unreasonable as that sounds, can be highly accurate. Following up on that, I find that the basic, core difference between Republicans and Democrats can be boiled down to two letters: ME vs. US.
The Republicans are the party of ME. Think of the gulls in "Finding Nemo" who knew just one word -- MINE MINE MINE. That is a Republican. Every position -- on the economy, on health care, on taxes, on immigration, can be boiled down to a simple "Mine." You can't take this away from me and give it to someone else. Personal responsibility. Me me me me mine. I earned this. I own this. Mine mine mine.
Democrats are the party of US. The party of sacrifice of the individual for the betterment of the whole (when is the last time you heard a Republican mention the word "sacrifice" without meaning something that someone ELSE does? but that is another digression). Democrats are the party that thinks that taking care of your neighbor makes a better neighborhood (while Republicans think building a bigger fence makes them safer).
So how does this lead to Barack's impeachment? Look to recent history.
When the Republicans took over congress in 1994, the first thing they did was start serious and official investigations into the shadowy conspiracy theories of the loony right. They appointed a Javert-like investigator to turn over every rock, look at every paper, search in every crevice, to find SOMETHING, ANYTHING to use to destroy Bill Clinton. And eventually, they found it in early 1998.
Their actions were considered cruel and cynical and it indeed cost them in the elections that year -- but they still maintained their control of the House, so impeachment moved forward. Even though it was clear that the Senate and the American people wanted nothing to do with it, they forged ahead. Why? Their real goal was the White House in 2000.
And their plan worked. The impeachment of Clinton took enough shine off that apple to hinder Al Gore just enough to allow a certifiable sociopath to get close enough to winning the election that they could then use their legal spin and rigged Supreme Court majority to put him the rest of the way into the White House. The party of ME ABOVE ALL ELSE. ME ABOVE COUNTRY. ME ABOVE CONSTITUTION. ME ME ME MINE.
I don't think anyone would disagree that, if the Democrats controlled the House in 1998, (1) there would never have been any call or even talk of impeachment; and (2) Al Gore would have won the White House by a landslide in 2000.
Next step: the Republican President trashes the Constitution, makes boldface lies to the American people, runs a criminal operation from the White House and appoints far right thugs to the Supreme Court. What do the Democrats do about it? Impeach? No, that would be seen as partisan and hurt the country. Filibuster? No, that would be scorching the earth. We want peace, stability doing what is best for the country. The Party of US -- we are all in this together, so let's work with each other instead of against each other.
And the plan eventually worked. The liar was exposed, the crimes exposed, and eventually his time ran out. He slithered out of office, never to be heard of again. It was costly -- it ruined the economy, thousands dead in terrible wars, the Constitution in shreds, but at least we can now put it back together -- US -- and rebuild our country. We elected Barack Obama.
Which leads us to now. The Republicans had only one strategy left to them -- to say NO to everything, which they have done. The Democrats -- wanting to be an US and not a ME -- tried to work with them in a bipartisan effort, since that is the kind of folk they are. And the selfish "ME before country" Republicans used it to their evil advantage to weaken the "country first" Democrats.
So now we are a few months from the mid-term elections. If the Democrats maintain their control of the House, they will be able to make further progress on our agenda -- doing what is best for US as a country. However, if the Republicans win, they only have one option -- Impeach the President. They can't govern wisely, even if they wanted to, and they know that. They can't undo health care or financial reforms. The only thing left for them, in order to win the White House in 2012 (their one and only goal) would be to hamper Obama, wound him in any way possible. Impeachment will be their only weapon.
And they know how to use it.