Should the Republicans retake Congress, not only will they derail any chance at even incremental policy improvements, they will try to destroy the Obama presidency. All the president's efforts at making nice and crossing the aisle to form bipartisan consensus always were but the pursuit of a myth. Unilateral kneecapping. Unipartisanship. Call it what you will.
Steve Benen points to this Michele Bachmann quote, as caught by Salon:
[T]he thing is, here we are, people can't wait until November. They're practically lining up for polls now, they can't wait to go out and vote. The only thing is people wish Barack Obama was up for re-election right now, because they'd honestly love to have a chance to throw him out of office. Everywhere I go, people ask me, 'Michele, can we impeach the president?'
Benen makes clear that Bachmann doesn't say she herself favors impeachment, but just claims that she hears others favoring it. Everywhere she goes. Which could actually be true, given the types of people who would waste precious moments of their lives in the company of the likes of Michele Bachmann. But Benen makes an even more important point: Bachmann doesn't even bother trying to elucidate the supposed grounds for impeachment.
Republicans proved during the Clinton presidency that they don't need actual grounds for impeachment. They don't take the Constitution seriously. With apologies to Pirandello, during the Clinton presidency the Republicans were sick characters in search of offal. And they forced an impeachment trial in the Senate that a wide and ideologically diverse group of historians and Constitutional scholars deplored as inappropriate and dangerous.
Benen also reminds that in 2006, the Republicans were so loud in their claims that a Democratic takeover of Congress would result in attempts to impeach Bush that Democratic leaders publicly took impeachment off the table. If you recall, Democrats did so despite there actually having been valid grounds for at least launching impartial and transparent investigations, and I would argue that avoiding such investigations laid the groundwork for the Democrats' continued lack of investigations, and in some cases--such as warrantless wiretapping and war crimes--Democratic validation of the behavior that constituted such grounds.
But Benen points to the future:
So, are Republicans prepared to also take impeachment off the table in advance of these midterm elections? Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) has raised the specter of impeachment. So has Michele Bachmman. Fox News has, too. In February, a national poll found that a plurality of rank-and-file Republicans wants to see Obama impeached.
Is it on the table for 2011 or not? Voters should know what to expect from the next Congress. At this point, there's no reason for the GOP to avoid the question -- they're the ones who brought it up. So, what's it going to be?
Democrats took impeachment off the table despite Bush having lied us into war, authorized torture and imposed police state surveillance. Some Republicans keep talking impeachment of President Obama, despite there being absolutely no grounds whatsoever. Let there be no doubt that should the Republicans retake either House of Congress, they will spend the rest of Obama's first term investigating absolutely any delusion they can hallucinate. The TV talk shows should be asking about it. Voters should be aware of it.