Overreach

House Speaker John Boehner - who, thanks to gerrymandering and Eric Cantor's primary defeat, will keep his job longer than his predecessor, Nancy Pelosi (who's pretty much been forgotten already), is planning to sue the White House on the grounds that President Obama's executive orders infringe on the duties of the legislative branch.  This has led many to suspect that the Tea Party is laying the groundwork for impeachment - or, at least, that Boehner is trying to stave off impeachment with this action.  Although previous Presidents have issued more executive orders than Obama, Boehner is making the charge that Obama is abusing his power by advancing policies that the Republican majority in the House can't stomach.  

It's Boehner who's going too far, though, and it might help the Democrats in the November midterm elections.  Not too many people have the desire to see another presidential impeachment after the 1998 indictment of President Bill Clinton over lying about sex, and the mere threat of impeaching Obama has caused Democratic donors to donate money to the party big time.  Boehner and the Tea Party are counting on their position to resonate with their own base and voters beyond that because Obama in 2014 lacks the two things Clinton had in 1998 - popularity and economic prosperity.  But the case against Obama is so flimsy - even flimsier than the case against Clinton, I might suggest - that this lawsuit could easily be thrown out.  And even if it doesn't, pro-Obama voters (especially black voters) will rally in November if they feel the President is being unfairly picked on.

Oh yeah, and unless the Democrats keep the Senate, don't think that a few extra House seats going  Democratic won't stop the Republicans from impeaching Obama.  The 1998 midterm elections did not expand the Republicans' Senate majority of the time and they cost them seats in the House, and the desire to impeach President Clinton waned shortly thereafter at first, but conservatives pushed it through anyway.  Maybe an impeachment of President Obama won't result in a Senate conviction - it takes 67 votes for that - and maybe it could fire up the Democrats again for 2016, but it will remind intelligent foreigners why America is the world's idiot country.  And maybe, just maybe, it will also remind them that a people as stupid and as petty as we are have no goddamned business running the world.