Impeachment Made Easy

Currently, we've been lucky enough not to have to deal with another presidential impeachment proceeding, although we all wonder when it is coming with Barack Obama.

Since Thomas Dewey assumed the presidency in 1945 with the death of President Roosevelt, each opposing party has tried to derail the administration in the hopes of getting their own man from the vice presidency in and the current president out. For foreign readers who don't understand this, they call it "The Sword over the President" due to the unique clause in the American constitution that gives the winner in electoral votes the presidency and the second place finisher the vice presidency.

With the Secretary of State succeeding to the vice-presidency under the old rules, Dewey ran through four vice-presidents- all Democrats - during his eight-year term of office. Having a Republican president and a Democratic vice-president - or vice versa - was considered a good system by the Founding Fathers. It assured that if the president died, his successor could at least lay claim to a mandate, a sizable number of Americans having previously voted for him for president.

Even though Democratic opposition to the Dewey presidency provoked a backlash that kept the Democrats out of power for 16 years, both parties have succumbed to the temptation to fuck with whomever is serving as president. We've been through six impeachment proceedings that have gone to the United States Senate since the Kennedy administration.

The first was after the almighty clusterfuck of the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961. Even though the Dems never managed to impeach Dewey - simply stonewalling every bit of legislation Dewey proposed made them happy - the Republicans managed to dust off the charge of "malfeasance of office" in Kennedy's case, a charge which basically means you should be fired for incompetency - a charge which technically doesn't mean anything. However, Vice-President Nixon really took the bully pulpit to new heights in 1961 and 1962, with the Chief Executive and the Vice President essentially continuing their 1960 battles.

When President Kennedy was assassinated, Nixon assumed the presidency. The Democrats were never going to let Nixon have any peace due to the way he went after Kennedy, and impeachment proceedings resumed immediately, with some stuff about Nixon fund raising hitting the floor of the Senate. Nixon knew that his chances of running as president in his own right should be put on hold until the heat died down and he sat out the 1964 election. Sure enough, when Landslide Lyndon Johnson won the presidency, the Republicans attempted proceedings under "malfeasance of office" all over again. (At least Vice-President Goldwater kept his hands off of everything.) Johnson had a lot of enemies in his own party - chief among them Robert F. Kennedy - and even though Johnson easily beat the rap, it was never quite certain if the Senate Dems would impeach Johnson using the Vietnam War as an excuse. Johnson's political career was over.

That put Nixon back in again after the 1968 election, this time under his own power. He won this time, but the Democrats came close to impeaching him in 1974. They found out some really nasty stuff about break-ins and illegal fundraising, this time stuff so solid it would stick. Hell, Nixon was even taping his crimes for posterity. The problem was that the Democrats overplayed their hand, and the article about Vice-President McGovern debating with aides about cabinet officers for his post-impeachment-of-Nixon presidential term stuck in the public's craw. The Republicans made the impeachment proceedings not so much about Nixon as about a Presidential "coup d'etat" by the McGovernites. Nixon escaped by the skin of his teeth and wound up completing two entire presidential terms in addition to the year he served from 1963-64.

Of course, when Jimmy Carter was president "malfeasance of office" came back again as an impeachment charge, this time due to the Iran fiasco and the botched hostage rescue. Carter had enough oomph in the Senate to avoid impeachment, but when the people are turning to your own Vice-President - Ronald Reagan - for hope and assurance, Carter knew that his presidency was crippled.

There wasn't another impeachment for almost two decades. The Republicans were popular enough - Reagan and Bush I - to avoid impeachment, although it was always threatened. Bill Clinton was hauled out for a Senate trial for lying in a civil deposition, but everyone really understood it was because of a blowjob. Vice-President Bob Dole could shake his head in disgust and make quotes that the press ate up, but no one was looking forward to a Bob Dole administration. Clinton had no problems.

When George W. Bush won the presidency, the timid Democrats were afraid to try to light an impeachment fire. Vice-President Gore had won the popular vote and they were afraid of "coup d'etat" charges. 9/11 took impeachment off the table, but it found its way back there again after Hurricane Katrina. It was the Democrats turn to use "malfeasance of office" and Bush II barely escaped with his presidency intact, ending his term as one of the most unpopular of presidents.

So the question remains: what kind of impeachment charges will Obama face? They come in every presidency, and I'm sure Vice-President McCain would love to slide into the big chair. No opposition party has ever pulled off a coup by impeachment, but the weird structure of the American Constitution where the second-place finisher in the Electoral College gets the vice-presidency makes the temptation too great to resist. Get the party nomination, finish second in the presidential race, be awarded the vice presidency, and then hope for an impeachment proceeding to give you what the voters didn't give you. Sooner or later, the Senate will actually impeach a president, and the temptation of presidency by impeachment will become overwhelming.

I hear that the Republicans want to start impeachment proceedings of fraud, trying to turn the claim that Obama wasn't born in this country into a legal case. We'll see what comes of it.