Walter Rhett: Presidential Petitions

[DemocratsForProgress]

Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) wants to impeach the president for unhappiness. “A question I get a lot, ‘If everybody is so unhappy with the president, why don’t you impeach him?’” Farenthold said at a town hall meeting Saturday, as seen in a YouTube video. He went on: “I’ll give you a real frank answer about that. If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, we would probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it.”

According to Politico, Farenthold’s odds-making on a hypothetical impeachment of a President whose high crime seems to be the misery of his opponents came after a woman presented Farenthaold with a folder that she says contains proof that Obama’s birth certificate was faked.

Farenthold does not stand alone on impeachment. A White House petition calling for impeachment gathered 49,890 signatures (from all 50 states!), enough for an official response; it demands the President submit himself to impeachment and lists a bill of particulars!

I’m not sure a constitutional mechanism exists for Presidents to submit themselves to impeachment. That indeed would break a longstanding precedent and take the nation into uncharted waters, maybe even precipitate a constitutional crisis—actually demonstrating the indifference and ineptness that the President’s foes are fond of citing. They listed several examples in the petition...

More at: http://www.democratsforprogress.com/2013/08/14/presidential-petitions/