Obama as Nixon?

This morning, I saw the new poll that reveals most Republicans—68 percent—now think it's a swell time to impeach the president. Mind you, they don't have a reason to impeach Mr. Obama. No, they can't be bothered with trifles like that. They just think it would be positively swell to impeach him. Just because, well, you know, because they just really don't like the guy. Impeach him? Sounds like a party, dude! Hell, yes, sign me up. I'm in!

So let me be one of the many to fling a bucket of extremely obvious ice water into the laps of all you hateful Hannity-heads out there in the Neon Babylon and remind you that before you can impeach a president, you have to have an actual reason. OK? You have to be able to show that the president is guilty of unlawful activity in order to bring impeachment proceedings.

At times like this I reflect on the Big Picture. There are achievements from the last five years that are worth recalling. Remember the condition of America back in March '09? Things weren't real good. In fact, they were pretty damned bad. Unemployment was in the 9s, headed to 10 percent. The Dow had been gutted, falling to below 7,000, and thereby chopping many middle-class 401k and retirement accounts in half. The real estate market was hemorrhaging. We were still fighting a crummy war in Iraq, and things weren't getting any better in Afghanistan. It was time to suck it up and get back on track.

Cut to now, July '14. Latest unemployment number is 6.1 percent, and this has been achieved despite constant efforts by the Obstructionist Party (previously called Republicans), to hinder, sandbag, even monkey-wrench all efforts to put people back to work. The performance of the Obstructionists in this area borders on nothing less than treason. The Dow has rebounded heroically, now at about 17,000, due in no small part to Obama's ass-kissing treatment of Wall Street greedheads, but goddammit, millions of middle class Americans have had their precious retirement accounts bailed out and saved, had they been courageous enough to stay in the market at a time when it was very easy to bail out altogether. This is a major positive, the hugeness of which simply can't be overestimated or overvalued or overappreciated. One crummy crapfest of a war is over, and by the end of this year, the other will be finished, too. Interest rates remain microscopic. Amazingly enough, so is inflation.

And yet, the Obstructionists continue to have this ridiculous, brainless hard-on for Mr. Obama. Now, this train is steaming straight into Crazytown, which is directly connected to this impeachment nonsense. And Democrats—would you please take the previous two paragraphs and begin pounding that stuff into the ever-thickening skulls of Americans for the next four months? Just pound it, mercilessly, with quick, easy sound bytes galore, exactly the same way the Obstructionists would. That's the one thing the Raving Minions of Sarah have done well in the last decade.