OBAMA AND THE LYNCH MOB

Rush Limbaugh, the unelected megalomaniacal spiritual leader of the Republican Party, has been the  ring leader of continuing personal attacks on a President, the intensity of which are unprecedented in living memory. Limbaugh recently griped that, (he supposed), you could not impeach a black President. His venting came amidst a crescendo of a vitriolic barrage on Obama. The rhetoric is reaching such a fever pitch that a Republican candidate for the House of Representatives in Florida stated that Obama should be hanged as execution was the appropriate punishment  for traitors. While the latter did not achieve as much coverage as Ted Nugent a rock star icon, who often appears at Republican rallies, when he called Obama a “subhuman mongrel”. This comes in the wake of ongoing offensive abuse from Nugent, who inter alia has tabbed the President, “.. as a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun”.

Even Nugent’s bile was superseded in coverage by Fox’s Bill O’ Reilly’s offensive and disrespectful interview with the Commander in Chief before the Super Bowl which attracts a near 100,000,000 audience. In your face from the word go O’ Reilly spewed the Republican Party talking points at the President, often interrupting him and talking over his answers. O’Reilly all but told Obama that he wouldn’t have attained his status without affirmative action. Apparently anything goes except respect for the Office and common decency.

ATTACKING OBAMA PERSONALLY - THE CENTRAL  REPUBLICAN POLICY

Ranting against the persona of Obama has been a feature of the Republican arsenal even before he was the Democratic nominee. It was thus not surprising that, in this milieu, he became the first Presidential Primary candidate to have serious threats of assassination against him and thus need security detail that early in the electoral process.

One issue after another was and still is used to query his validity as an American. A centerpiece of the earlier attacks was the denial that he was an American - literally and figuratively. Large groups, including the Tea Party, authoritatively claimed that Obama had not been born in America. This fanciful smear continued for several years and the leader in this endeavor was  Donald Trump, the most narcissistic of the Republican megalomaniacal, unelected leaders. He claimed to have investigators that had uncovered the truth. All of this proved to be a lie and Trump did not even have the insight to be embarrassed after being publicly exposed as a liar. Rather when he revealed that he had no evidence he stated he had done the country a service by focussing on this issue.

This drama was accompanied by a cacophony of smears as to his heritage which was variously attributed to Muslim, Kenyan, East Asian - all with socialist, and or terrorist connections. The birther issue has been dropped as a major Republican plank although, when questioned on the matter certain standard bearers of the right will say that the doubt still exists and mumble about forgeries and the like.

The Republicans since 2010 when the Democrats lost the House of Representatives have again, unashamedly proved to be the most uncooperative political party ever and stated unequivocally that their major policy objective was to see that Obama had one term.  This failed so full steam the attack has been on Obamacare in a manner that can only be described as obsessional. Obamacare became the political agenda of the Republicans, only being punctuated by ersatz issues such as Benghazi, the IRS, the Obamacare website and the NSA but otherwise it was Obamacare, Obamacare and Obamacare.

So the Republicans in part to cover their own irreconcilable internal differences, in part as a smoke screen to hide their failure to produce any coherent political agenda but mainly out of their hatred for Obama, continue to keep Obama in their gun sights.

BACK TO THE PRESENT. 

Obamacare, which has been the point of convergence of all Republican invective for the past three years, is slowly but surely fading into the background. The reason for this is that, notwithstanding the initial glitch of the Website there are 5,000,000 new enrollees for Medicaid and between 5 to 6 million are forecast to have enrolled in the Affordable Health Care program by the end of March. So in spite of all the scare tactics at worst there will be at least 13,000,000 of the 40,000,000 uninsured receiving health care instead of the hoped for 15,000,000. This with 25 of the 50 States boycotting the initiative and leaving their citizens  eligible for Obamacare to muddle through and those that would now qualify for Medicaid to remain without it.

So Obamacare should no longer be the center of the Republican thrust and as they have no policy initiatives - it is carry on - defile Obama. This of course is coupled with no cooperation or compromise ever with any of his legislative agenda.

IMPEACHMENT

Now the discussion of impeachment of Obama has moved to center stage.  Everything and anything is used as a rationalization for this action. Congressman Bob Barr who was the first to file impeachment charges against Bill Clinton is once again standing for Congress. Apparently he has forgotten how this all came back to bite him. Not only is Clinton the most popular political figure at present Barr was one of the many that was exposed for hypocrisy for the Clinton episode.  The editor of The Hustler magazine offered money for all those who could expose the accusers of the then President. Barr was one many of the hypocrites bared naked. Barr’s second wife maintained that he had refused to answer whether he had committed adultery with a women who became his third wife and some of his other embarrassing behaviors came to the fore.

Barr is one of many accusing the President of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors" . Several sitting Congressmen including Randy Weber, Tray Redel, Bill Flores, and Blake Farenthold of Texas, Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, Duncan Hunter of California, Steve King of Iowa, Trent Franks of Arizona, Doug Collins of Georgia, Kerry Bentovolio of Michigan, Michelle Bachmann and Paul Labrador of Utah are but a few of the hounds baying. Additional Republican Congressmen of the Judiciary House Committee that would cheerfully impeach Obama include Chaffetz, Gomez and Issa. Congressman Steve Stockton who walked out of the State of the Union address has already distributed articles of impeachment amongst his colleagues.

On December 13, 2013, according to a report by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, the Republicans in the House of Judiciary Committee met to consider the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama. They concluded that the President had failed his Constitutional Duty to faithfully execute the laws. 

The Senate Republicans are not much better with Mike Lee, Tom Cruz, Tom Coburn, Tim Scott, and Mark Rubrio adding to the mix. Rand Paul is ambivalent as he is making a play to become the “middle of the road” candidate now that Christie is stuck on the bridge. 

The Tea Party, who are the tail that is wagging the Republican dog, are circulating petitions for Obama’s impeachment. 

So while all these might be considered to be the lunatic fringe, including Presidential candidates, the elected Republican leadership have done little to reassure the electorate that that is who they are. On the contrary, Boehner and Cantor of the House have said that the President is untrustworthy and one cannot interact with him. Mitch McConnell of the Senate believes that the President is beyond dealing with. Reince Priebus, the Chairman of the Republican Party is the only voice that is cautioning premature calling for impeachment. However, Priebus has to begin to realize that the lunatic fringe is the Republican Party.

REPUBLICAN DESPERATION THUS INCLUDES IMPEACHMENT

The above commentary is reflective of the mess the Republicans are in. No serious constitutional scholar believes that they are truly grounds to impeach Obama. In all the phony issues suggested he has had no direct control and they just occurred while he was President. However, impeachment is not necessarily a judicial process it is a political one.  When Tom Cruz was asked what was needed to impeach Obama he shot back, “218 votes”.  The Republicans are desperate and are involved in a last ditch struggle against history. At present they are using as yet untold sums of money, constituency gerrymandering and voter suppression to save their bacon. Now they are adding one more string to their bow - impeachment of America’s first pigmented President. It would backfire even more so than Bill Clinton’s. 

Don’t the GOP get it? What the electorate wants is attention to their problems not endless stonewalling and grotesque sideshows.

By the way, what Rush Limbaugh really meant when he said that one couldn’t impeach a black President is that the only possible reason one is contemplating impeaching Obama is because he is black. One gets the feeling that Limbaugh is yearning for the good old days, really not so long ago, where there would have been other solutions for uppity people like Obama.