I don’t know how they ask these impeachment questions. If you go up to some random dude on the street ask him if he thinks the president should be impeached, that’s a lot different from asking whether he thinks it would be a good idea for the House Republicans to impeach him considering that the Senate would just acquit him. In other words, you aren’t asking a political question. You aren’t asking a strategic question. You aren’t asking what the random man thinks the House Republicans ought to do. You’re basically just asking some random man whether he’d personally like to see the president removed from office. So, it’s not surprising that 60% of Republicans answer in the affirmative. I’m surprised it isn’t higher.
Now, if you ask these people why they think the president should be impeached, you will probably hear them repeat some hash of Benghazi and Fast & Furious and Solyndra and ObamaCare and IRS and tyranny. Maybe you’ll hear something about the NSA, but that’s more likely from independents and Democrats. Overall, most of these folks will mention something that is either entirely made up or is completely overblown. It will be something they heard on hate radio or watched on hate television. This is what makes them think the president deserves to be impeached, but they’d want pretty much any Democrat removed from office because they don’t like Democrats.
Then there’s the rare honest voter who will say they think he should be impeached because he’s black.
When the real reason is the same as it was for the impeachment of Bill Clinton–he’s not going to restore bigotry and prayer in public schools :). Remember that conservative impeachment fever started with the Impeach Earl Warren movement.
I remember seeing the impeach Earl Warren billboards along the highways down south and thinking WTF?
If Republicans answered honestly, it would be “because I believe what Uncle Rupert tells me to believe.”
Don’t care what the goobers on the street say.
I want every GOP elected official in Washington to be asked for what reason is the President to be impeached.
This might be instructive, in a “when did you stop beating your wife?” kind of a way. Even if not it would sure be entertaining.
Would a GOP senate acquit him?
Yes, because they’d need 2/3 to convict. And they”ll never get that, not least because no Democrat would vote to convict.
Remember: Chief Justice John “lawless” Roberts would be running the Senate impeachment trial.
He could very well decide that, for Obama, the threshold for conviction is 3/5 of the one used for Clinton.
Ford’s pardon of Nixon allowed these numbskulls to believe that impeachment is about removing a POTUS because they don’t like him.
The single most straight-forward and brief account is presented by Robert Parry in The Heinous Crime Behind Watergate.
21 years ago I moved into the house I’m still in. Down the block was a pickup truck with an “Impeach Clinton” bumper sticker. This was in September ’93; Clinton had been in office less than a year.
I never considered asking that neighbor what they were thinking of; I didn’t think the answer would make sense to me and anyway he might have been dangerous.
The GOP: If you can’t beat ’em, then cheat ’em.