Impeachment and Envy

Two Presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson and Clinton. Neither was convicted by the Senate, although Johnson won by only one vote.

It would be a waste of time to try to impeach Obama. The main case for this would be that Congress would waste a lot of time. There is a good case for that.

There would have to be a legal reason that the voters would accept. Every President violates the Constitution sufficiently often, so that a plausible legal case might be made for Obama’s impeachment. But it would have to be plausible politically. Otherwise, it would backfire: underdog politics. That was what happened to Clinton. He is supposedly worth something like $80 million, due to speaking fees. That’s getting even? Hardly. Meanwhile, Bush [amazon asin=1595553517&template=*lrc ad (left)]II rarely appears in public. He did not get impeached.

The Senate would not vote to convict Obama. The Democrats would see the horrifying threat: President Biden.

If Joe Biden were to become President of the United States, Hillary Clinton would not get the nomination. Pres. Biden would guarantee that there would never be another President Clinton. Mrs. Clinton would fade into a well-[amazon asin=B007KTEBO0&template=*lrc ad (right)]deserved obscurity. She would get to spend the rest of her life changing her hairstyles.

I think a Republican could defeat Biden fairly easily. Even if Biden won, he would be less of a threat to our liberties than Hillary Clinton. He has a marvelous ability to put his foot in his mouth. He would become, not so much a bone of contention as a source of amusement. I don’t think he has the stomach for becoming a dictator. There is something flaky about him. Flaky people make rotten dictators. It is why I would have voted for John Kerry in 2004, had I not written in Ron Paul’s name.

[amazon asin=162914603X&template=*lrc ad (left)]I did not want to see Clinton impeached and convicted. This was not because of any sympathy for Clinton. But, in 1998, I did not want to see Al Gore become President. As it turned out, I was wrong. Instead, we got Bush. Bush was worse than Gore ever could have been, because Gore ultimately is wishy-washy. He is a one-trick pony: global warming. He didn’t have the votes to get his agenda through Congress. On the other hand, Bush briefly had something that only Eisenhower had enjoyed ever since Hoover’s administration: a Republican majority in both houses of Congress. Cheney have the deciding vote in the Senate. Bush didn’t have this majority long, but he had it too long. After 2001, the federal deficit and federal political power both expanded dramatically. I could not have known this in 1998. What I did know was that Clinton[amazon asin=0990463109&template=*lrc ad (right)] was a lame-duck President. He had not achieved anything of significance in his first term, and he was unlikely to achieve anything in his second term. He didn’t. What he achieved was notoriety for the Lewinsky affair. That is his only memorable legacy. That is the only thing he will be remembered for. This is all to the good. So, I was glad to see him impeached by the House, and I was glad to see that he was not convicted by the Senate.

I wanted to see Clinton torn down, but I did not want to see him impeached and convicted. So, I was not envious against him; it was simply a matter of political strategy. I am always happy to see some President whacked on the knuckles by political reality, so that he cannot exercise as much power. National politics is usually a zero-sum arrangement. The President wins; I lose. When he loses power, I gain a little bit of freedom.

Biden for President! Now, but not in 2017.

It’s a fantasy, of course. But I can always hope.

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