Among Republicans, impeachment seems to be a pretty popular
idea nowadays—supposedly, President Obama has overstepped his authority with
excessive executive orders, for which Speaker of the House John Boehner is
already suing him. This is all pretty predictable, given how the Republicans
have behaved over the past years (or decades, even). Among mainstream liberals,
the response is, equally unsurprisingly, that Obama has done nothing to deserve
impeachment. While I never identify with either group, there are few issues
where they both succeed in being so utterly wrong.
The charge against Obama, in regards to executive orders, is
nonsense. He hasn’t issued an extraordinary number of executive orders by any
stretch of the imagination, and they don’t really extend beyond the reasonable
parameters of executive power. Further, even if Obama had overstepped his
authority, it’s weak grounds for impeachment. The constitution states the
necessary offenses for impeachment are “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes
and Misdemeanors.” It’s hard to argue that Obama’s issuance of executive
orders—at least those the Republicans are complaining about—honestly
constitutes a crime. So even if the Republicans’ charge were true—and it
isn’t—it wouldn’t be grounds for impeachment.
Contrary to what the mainstream liberals believe, however,
there are plenty of entirely legitimate grounds to impeach Obama. There’s the
NSA scandal, for starters, which constitutes numerous violations of the Fourth
Amendment. Or there’s the fact that he’s authorized the extrajudicial killing of at least one
American citizen—an offense probably far more extreme than what the Founders (specifically
Benjamin Franklin, who championed the impeachment provision) had in mind. It’s
hard to think of something that better constitutes a “high Crime” than murder,
which is what Obama was, doubtless, involved in, when authorizing a drone
strike against Anwar al-Awlaki—a man who had not been so much as indicted, let
alone convicted, of any crime. Or, for that matter, there was the killing of
Osama bin Laden in front of his family, violating norms of the law of war going
back to Abraham Lincoln. In violation of US law, the Obama administration has
also given aid to the Egyptian dictatorship, which quickly ended the nascent
democracy there by coming to power through a coup, and has violently suppressed
the population since.
And these are mostly just offenses that violate American
law—if we take “high Crimes” to be applicable to international law, the issue
becomes even easier. Obama’s enormous reliance on drone warfare has been
criticized by foreign policy experts, human rights groups, and even the UN (to
some extent) as being in violation (or at least, possibly in violation, depending on circumstances) of international
law. Likewise in violation of international law was the Obama administration’s
threat of force against Syria. Then, of course, there’s Obama’s
continuation—escalation, even—of the war in Afghanistan, a war whose legality
was always dubious, as it was neither UN-approved nor for self-defense,
strictly speaking (the Taliban never attacked the US, after all). Certainly,
there are grounds at least for impeachment, if not conviction, again assuming
that war crimes count among the “high Crimes” mentioned in the constitution.
In fairness, there are Republicans who have criticized Obama
on these fronts, but the leadership of the party seems rather disinterested.
One can’t help but note the irony that the political party supposedly
championing freedom from government intrusion overlooks these grave breaches of
law to focus on trivial issues like the immigration reforms Obama promulgated,
or his delay of his own healthcare law’s provisions. Unlike the impeachment the
Republicans are calling for—which would be a political stunt and nothing
else—an impeachment for the charges I mentioned would be enormously healthy for
the country as a whole. It would demonstrate that we actually expect the
president to obey the same laws the rest of us have to, and the international
laws that our country has agreed to. Obama is anything but unique in his
lawlessness—Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, and
Truman were all similar, many of them much worse. But perhaps if Obama were
impeached and convicted for his actual crimes, rather than his imaginary ones,
it would send a message to all future presidents. Instead we’re stuck with the
usual political games. Benjamin Franklin would be disappointed.
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