October 15, 2010

Quote of the Day: Impeachment!

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From Thoreau:

What are your predictions? I’m tempted to say “Serious predictions only”, but it’s not clear what the actual line between fantasy and reality is here…

The topic here is, “What excuse will some insane tea party faction in the House use to bring impeachment charges against Barack Obama?”

Since we’re going for style points here, I’m putting my money on a scenario in which South Carolina decides to nullify the healthcare reform law and prohibit its enforcement. Obama nevertheless directs the IRS office in Charleston to dispatch tax delinquency notices to uninsured residents. Governor Nikki Haley instructs the state police to barricade the IRS in order to prevent it from delivering outgoing mail, at which point Obama sends in Army troops to reopen the office. This is taken as a tyrannical abuse of federal power, and Rep. Joe Wilson files immediate impeachment charges. The impeachment bill passes with 220 votes — 201 from the Tea Party, 18 from the rump Republican Party, plus Bobby Bright — and is sent to the Senate. Chief Justice John Roberts presides, wearing robes decorated with the scales of justice stitched in gold lame, but Tea Partiers and Republicans eventually rally only eight Democratic supporters and the charges fail by a single vote. Mary Landrieu, who spends the entire trial vacillating loudly and publicly about the weight of history, eventually provides the one-vote margin of victory and immediately commissions a book about her experience, Keeping Faith: How One Woman Made a Difference in Trying Times.

Or something like that.

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