The Right-Wing Media Machine Behind Boehner’s Obama Lawsuit
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on June 25th, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
The Right-Wing Media Machine Behind Boehner’s Obama Lawsuit
After years of conservative media figures agitating for congressional Republicans to impeach President Obama, today House Speaker John Boehner announced plans to sue the president for not “faithfully executing the laws of this country.”
Discussing the suit — which would be filed on behalf of the House of Representatives — Boehner claimed that it was “not about impeachment.” But in a piece for The New Republic, Brian Beutler argues that conservatives’ push to stir up outrage over Obama has led Republicans to seek a “relief valve for the building pressure to draw up articles of impeachment”:
Having created a clamor within the GOP conference, and the conservative base, over Obama’s use of executive power, Republicans now must satisfy the consequent appetite to do something about it. Suing Obama is meant to do that. The goal is to be head-turning enough to simultaneously address coalition management obligations–calm restive conservatives, keep the base energized–and serve as a relief valve for the building pressure to draw up articles of impeachment.
The risk is that it’ll whet rather than diminish the right’s appetite for impeachment. But Boehner doesn’t have much choice. You can’t gin up this much outrage over Obama’s actions, and then do nothing to stop him, when the Constitution provides you so many tools to do just that.
Much of the building pressure for impeachment has come not only from congressional Republicans, but from conservative media figures, whose calls for impeachment have been a steady drumbeat since Obama took office.
