By Nicholas Stix
My admiration for Pat Buchanan is no secret, but I think he’s wrong here; not, however, in the sense that many of my esteemed colleagues think he’s wrong. Pat thinks impeachment is a bridge too far; I think, rather, that it is a bridge too near.
What? Why? For the House to pass articles of impeachment would imply that the John Doe calling himself “Barack Obama” was the legally elected president of the United States of America; a failure of the State to convict in his trial would underscore that acknowledgement. Conversely, I have long maintained that said John Doe was ineligible to run for, let alone serve as president. And no, I’m not a “birther,” though the so-called birthers have raised legitimate questions about the John Doe’s various, alleged “official” birth certificates.
I have never challenged the assertion that the John Doe in question was born in Honolulu. However, it is a fact reported by, of all people, the AP in 2008, that JD’s legal name was legally changed in 1968 to Barry Soetoro, and was to my knowledge never legally changed back to “Barack Hussein Obama II.” Actually, unless JD legally changed his name to “Barack Hussein Obama II,” that has never been his legal name. His parents’ marriage was illegal, due to his father’s bigamy, thus making his legal surname at birth his mother’s, “Dunham.” Maybe, due to the intervening destruction of American social morality and law, people can get away with writing a biological father’s surname on his bastard son’s birth certificate today, but that was most certainly not the case on August 4, 1961. You cannot run for office in America under a name that is not your legal name.
And it is a fact that JD is a legal citizen of at least three countries—Indonesia, Kenya, and America—and there is no record of his ever having repudiated his Indonesian and Kenyan citizenship. Finally, I maintain that JD, due to having had a non-citizen father at the time of his birth, is not a natural-born American citizen, and thus ineligible to run for President under any name.
The proper course of action to deal with someone illegally occupying the White House is not the Constitutional remedy of impeachment, but an extra-Constitutional one. I shall not name it, because though I would not be guilty of any crime, it would nevertheless put me in danger of being arrested, nor shall I undertake that remedy, because I am not competent to do so.
Impeachment, a Bridge Too Far?
By Patrick J. Buchanan
July 7, 2014
VDARE
Increasingly, across this city, the “I” word is being heard.
Impeachment is being brought up by Republicans outraged over Barack Obama’s usurpations of power and unilateral rewriting of laws. And Obama is taunting John Boehner and the GOP: “So sue me.”…
[Read the whole thing here.]
Peter Brimelow, in his piece on this subject, wrote that impeachment was not like a criminal trial, but a political act, similar to a vote of no confidence in a parliamentary system.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell you how many times I read liberal columnists during 1973-74 harping on this very theme. Again and again I read columns saying "in Britain, Nixon would long ago have fallen from power."
This criteria was used to justify Nixon's impeachment.
I don't think an effort to impeach Obama would work. The GOP "leadership" wouldn't go for it in any case. It won't happen anyway.
David In TN
A different way of looking at this just occurred to me, David.
ReplyDelete"Obama" is a dictator. How could there possibly be a Constitutional method for removing a dictator?
Dictators often have a constitution in the country they rule, but pay no attention to it. The Weimar constitution and (on paper) legal system was still in place during the Third Reich to little effect one way or another.
ReplyDeleteHitler could issue any order he liked, and early on used an Enabling Act which was a holdover from Weimar. He could order the execution of any German citizen with no appeal, and this was before the war.
Stalin introduced his own constitution called The Stalin Constitution. This document promised freedom of speech, etc., and had no more to do with how the Soviet Union was run than names in a telephone book.
David In TN
I am with Buchanan on this one. I think the Right will lose the impeachment fight and Obama will come out stronger. It will rally the worse elements of society to his side (including a lot of urban leftist whites.. especially single women). Even though what is going on now is treasonous.
ReplyDeleteI don't know exactly how this will end. But my head is telling me violence is more and more likely. I just don't see the forces backing Obama giving up power in 2016.
I recall around 1970, Arkansas Senator Fulbright saying the president was "an elected dictator." Fulbright was speaking of LBJ and Nixon and Vietnam policy, but that's pretty much what the presidency has become.
ReplyDeleteThe president (for the moment) is limited to two four year terms and can be voted out of office after four years.
Aside from that, he can if so inclined rule like a dictator. This is especially the case when he has the uncritical support of the MSM and cultural opinion makers.
As for the forces backing Obama not giving up power, they will just back someone else in 2016, likely not Hillary if she looks like a loser.
David In TN