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Krauthammer takes the bait

Published by digby on November 14, 2014

Krauthammer takes the bait

by digby

Noted constitutional law professor Charles Krauthammer:

Here’s Krauthammer last August:

Obama had control of both houses of Congress during his first two years in office — and did nothing about immigration. So why now?

Because he’s facing a disastrous midterm election. An executive order so sweeping and egregiously lawless would be impeachment bait. It would undoubtedly provoke a constitutional crisis and stir impeachment talk — and perhaps even the beginning of proceedings — thus scrambling the electoral deck. As in 1998, it would likely backfire against the GOP and save Democrats from an otherwise certain sixth-year midterm shellacking.

Such a calculation — amnesty-by-fiat to deliberately court impeachment — is breathtakingly cynical. But clever. After all, there is no danger of impeachment succeeding. There will never be 67 votes in the Senate to convict. But talking it up is a political bonanza for Democrats, stirring up an otherwise listless and dispirited base. Last Monday alone the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised more than $1 million from anti-impeachment direct mail.

Apart from the money, impeachment talk energizes Democrats and deflects attention from the real-life issues that are dragging them down — the economy, Obamacare, the failures of Obama’s foreign policy. Everything, in other words, that has sunk Obama to 40 percent approval, the lowest ebb of his presidency.

Those clever, clever Democrats — even when the Republicans have them all figured out, they still get them to play right into their hands. Silly Republicans.

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Published inUncategorized