Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has joined the chorus of Republicans calling for President Barack Obama’s impeachment.
“Enough is enough of the years of abuse from this president,” the failed vice-presidential candidate writes in an “exclusive” at the right-wing Breitbart news site. “His unsecured border crisis is the last straw that makes the battered wife say, ‘no mas.'”
Palin goes on explain that President Obama is deliberately “opening our borders to a flood of illegal immigrants,” as part of his “fundamental transformation of America.”
“Because of Obama’s purposeful dereliction of duty an untold number of illegal immigrants will kick off their shoes and come on in, competing against Americans for our jobs and limited public services,” she adds.
“It’s time to impeach,” Palin insists, “and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment.”
Xenophobia and cringeworthy metaphors aside, there are some logical flaws in Palin’s argument. For starters, President Obama just requested $3.7 billion from Congress to confront the border crisis that Palin accuses him of causing, and — far from opening the borders — his administration is on pace to shatter its predecessor’s records for deportations.
More important, the fact that Sarah Palin disagrees with President Obama’s immigration policies falls somewhat short of the legal threshold for removing him from office.
Still, Palin’s call for vehemently opposing politicians who refuse to vote for articles of impeachment could create a political dilemma for Republicans. GOP candidates across the country will now have to go on record on the topic, something that those in competitive races would certainly rather avoid.
This is not the first time that Palin has suggested that President Obama should be impeached; she also threatened it over his “scaremongering” about the debt ceiling.
Several Republican politicians who are more relevant than Palin have also suggested impeachment, including Senators James Inhofe (R-OK) and Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Reps. Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI), Michael Burgess (R-TX), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), and Blake Farenthold (R-TX).
Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr
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