Un-American, Unqualified… Unimpeachable? Published Wed, Aug 14th, 2013 Floyd Brown, Chief Political Analyst Print This Post Email This Post Before the August Congressional recess, the mainstream media predicted a series of angry town hall confrontations between Latinos and Congressmen opposed to immigration reform. Those protests haven’t panned out. Instead, the angriest of confrontations have been between Congressmen and constituents upset that Barack Obama hasn’t been impeached, or about Obama’s questionable citizenship. Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas answered some Obama questions candidly and his answers were captured on video. Here is what he said: “I think, unfortunately, the horse is already out of the barn on this, on the whole birth certificate issue… The original Congress when his eligibility came up should have looked into it and they didn’t. I’m not sure how we fix it.” Farenthold continued: “You tie into a question I get a lot: ‘If everyone’s so unhappy with what the president’s done, why don’t you impeach him?’ I’ll give you a real frank answer about that: If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, you could probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it. But it would go to the Senate and he wouldn’t be convicted.” Farenthold explained the impeachment process. The House of Representatives impeaches, and then a trial is held in the U.S. Senate. The Senate needs to vote 2/3 for impeachment conviction to actually remove a president from office. Half of this process is what happened during the Bill Clinton presidency. The House voted to impeach Clinton, but the Senate failed to remove him from office. Handling a similar question with less tact was Congressman Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. He was confronted by a citizen activist who wanted to give him “a 71-page affidavit” from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse outlining charges concerning Obama’s ID fraud. Mullin refused to receive the documents, stepping back and saying, “Hold on, I don’t even want it.” He called the argument over Obama’s birth certificate “a dead issue” because “we had four years to get that proven, we didn’t… So when I say we lost the argument, we lost that argument. Now let’s move on to some other issues.” Mullin concluded, “I believe it’s still there, but my God, if we didn’t prove it the first four years, what do you think the chances are now? Who would’ve thought we would ever actually be questioning if we had a natural-born president being president? Who would’ve ever thought that we’d actually be there?” These statements are a fair representation of the sentiments of Congressmen I have talked with on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress may agree with their constituents about Obama, but they don’t want to cross the mainstream media on Obama issues. The mainstream media, as is evidenced by the Huffington Post coverage of the Mullin town hall exchange, is prepared to strap a tin foil hat on anyone who breathes a word on the topic. HuffPo didn’t miss the chance to use the word “Birther.” “Birther” in the sophisticated minds at HuffPo is similar to calling someone a believer in a flat Earth. The common argument was expanded upon by Congressman Farenthold. “What message do we send to America if we impeach Obama and he gets away with what he’s impeached for and he is found innocent? What then do we say is OK?” he asked. “Aside from the fact that it wouldn’t be effective, I think there’s some potential damage to society that would be done with a failed attempt at impeachment.” Don’t hold your breath waiting for this Congress to impeach or even ask tough questions of anyone, especially Barack Obama. Your eyes on the Hill, Floyd Brown
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 15:16:50 +0000