“Liberal Impeachment talk? It’s a Trap!,” warns blogger/radio host Peter Ingemi, aka, “DaTechGuy:”
The congress HAS to be perceived as investigating facts. If the facts continue to go where the evidence seems to be pointing the public will demand action.
A great example of the danger of moving early was Fr. Robert Drinan (D-Mass) who introduced a resolution of impeachment on the last day of July in 1973 over the Bombing of Cambodia. As [Tip O’Neill wrote in his autobiography] it almost blew the game:
politically , he damn near blew it, for if Drinan’s resolution had come up for a vote it would have been overwhelming defeated by something like 400-30. With so many members already on record as having voted once against impeachment it would have been extremely difficult to get the to change their minds later one.
meanwhile if a vote came up and failed, Republicans, who at the time were not convinced that there was any “there there” would have said when a later resolution came up:
“Why bother? We’ve already been through this.”
As Drinan refused to withdraw his resolution and all resolutions on impeachment are privileged the leadership O’Neill took extraordinary measures to make sure the resolution was not called up keeping one of the leadership ready on the floor 24/7 ready to table such a resolution. Because he didn’t want to give them the idea to move Drinan’s resolution forward. After a long time of this he finally approached Jerry Ford who told them bluntly the White House had rejected the idea. As O’Neill wrote:
By not forcing an early vote on impeachment, Nixon’s allies made a tremendous mistake. In addition to winning the vote, the Republicans could have turned impeachment into a party issue which might have allowed Nixon to remain in office and blame the Democrats for harassing him, But in the summer of 1973 the White House couldn’t imagine that Watergate would end in the downfall of the president.
And that is the trap.
“The White House and their allies will do their best to wave the red flag in the hope we charge, instead we should sit back and let this scandal and the investigation cook,” Ingemi adds. Or as a commenter at the Hot Air link to Ingemi’s post writes in response:
Better yet, develop a narrative in which conservatives/Republicans are, en masse, saying things like: “We know that many, many, many people in the president’s own party are calling for his impeachment, and we certainly understand their concern. This kind of unprecedented corruption is doing real damage to the democrat party. No one trusts them anymore. So of course the president’s own party wants him impeached and tossed out of office as quickly as possible. But we are going to wait and see where these various investigations go. Like these many, many members of the president’s own party, we expect the investigations will lead us straight up to the Obama White House, straight to the Holder Justice Department, and that we’ll learn the scope of this administration’s corruption is truly staggering. But these democrats wanting to shove Obama out of there as fast as they can need to slow down so we can truly know how deep the corruption was. That’s the best way to make sure we never get another administration like this.”
Eric Holder fumbled very badly today when he lost his cool, dropped the mask, and revealed his inner liberal fascist in response to Rep. Darrell Issa, calling him “shameful” and his conduct “unacceptable” — gee Mr. Holder, are you threatening* a Congressman? That’s rather cowardly, isn’t it? And while the inner child of most leftists isn’t far under the surface, fellow Democrat Mel Watt flipped that notion on its head, bringing his tiny grandson to the hearings. The pressure is also getting to lead Obama flack Jay Carney, who brought a goofy photo montage of himself to today’s briefing, that was almost as weirdly narcissistic as his boss’s self-absorbed antics:
JAY CARNEY FOUND! BOLO canceled. Oh, crikey. He’s standing in front of a graphic of all his faces. No laughter. twitter.com/michellemalkin…
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) May 15, 2013
As even left-wing house organ Politico noted yesterday (link safe; goes to Newsbusters), “The most charitable defense offered up on background is that Obama staffers are scandal virgins, unaccustomed to dealing with a rabid press.” See also, the Washington Post-approved JournoList, of which the Politico itself has long been tainted by. Still though, that’s an odd excuse for a group led by a hardened Chicago machine hack.
But the nation should be allowed to see more of this. (Not to mention allowing the GOP to build a “highlight” reel of leftists gone wild in 2014, similar to the Democrat video trainwrecks of 2010.) One of the leitmotifs of a Bill Whittle video last year on how the left wrecked the country was “slowly…slowly…” Despite the urge to pounce as quickly and has hard as the anti-Nixon far left did in the early 1970s, that seems like a good way for House Republicans to ratchet up the pressure on the corrupt left in response:
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* “Would You Believe The Administration Got Phone Records of The House Of Representatives?” Why, yes. Yes I would.
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