Reaction to Palin's impeachment call pretty much as expected

Sarah Palin can still get MSM coverage, but in order to do it, she has to say something they can a) portray as insane; and b) imply is standard boilerplate insanity as practiced by Republicans in general.

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So when Palin declared via Brietbart on Tuesday that it's time to impeach President Obama, the coverage was pretty much what you would expect. The news angle was not the substantive case Palin made (which was based mainly on his refusal to enforce existing immigration laws, although she got into other issues as well), but rather on the likely political headache an impeachment effort would present for Republicans, especially when Palin is the main spokeswoman for the idea. Note how Huffington Post uses scare quotes and a misleading characterization of Obama's stance on the issue to portray Palin's suggestion as irrational:

In a column published on Breitbart.com Tuesday, Palin accused the president of "purposeful dereliction of duty," likening Obama's treatment of the United States to that of an abusive spouse. "Enough is enough of the years of abuse from this president," Palin, the former governor of Alaska and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate, wrote. "His unsecured border crisis is the last straw that makes the battered wife say, 'no mas.'" Palin suggested that the president has deliberately left the U.S.-Mexico border unsecured, echoing a similar theory floated by Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) earlier this week. "Without borders, there is no nation," Palin wrote. "Obama knows this. Opening our borders to a flood of illegal immigrants is deliberate. This is his fundamental transformation of America. It’s the only promise he has kept." On Tuesday, Obama requested $3.7 billion from Congress to address the situation at the border. The funds would help improve security at the border in addition to providing care for the children who have come into the Department of Health and Human Services' custody.

What the story doesn't tell you, of course, is that the funds Obama requested are not for enforcement of the law, which is Palin's whole point. Obama refuses to enforce the law even though it is his sworn duty to do so. The story then goes on to highlight the predictable stance of Palin's former running mate John McCain, because the inevitable disagreement between the two is far more interesting to them than the fact that Obama won't enforce the law. The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart is just flat-out insulting:

Taking anything seriously that comes from the fevered mind of Sarah Palin is never a good idea. Whatever the best-selling author and reality television star who was a half-term governor of Alaska and the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee has to say is usually a melange of malevolent musings masquerading as principle. Today, Palin jumped on the impeachment bandwagon. And as much as I would like to ignore her, I can’t this time. The Post’s Aaron Blake points out exactly why I can’t let Palin just vent and move on. “She’s the first Republican of any significant national stature to make this call,” he writes. “And she’s the kind of figure who could potentially recruit others to the cause — people who will want to be heard. Palin surely doesn’t carry the kind of weight she once did in the GOP, but she still has a significant tea party following and is highly popular among the conservative base.” And it adds more credence to my contention that House Speaker John Boehner’s impending lawsuit against Obama is really a dress rehearsal for what Palin wants.

I actually think that if you wanted to make the case for impeachment, the IRS scandal presents a stronger case. But the defense du jour that lefties are offering of Obama here - that he has to put these kids through a slower process because of a law Bush signed - is nonsense. No one says the process has to take as long as it is taking, and even that doesn't explain why they're permitted to so easily come across the border in the first place. It's not like they're sneaking across. They're coming in buses, for crying out loud, and everyone knows who's on them and why. In Murietta, California, crowds are trying to stop the buses and the federal government is intervening against the crowds. But the really sad part here is that we've become so politics-obsessed and substance-starved that the media will never focus on the case for impeachment itself (except to construct false defenses of Obama). Instead, it will only focus on the politics, on how it will affect the "GOP brand" or whatever. My own view is that you could make a substantive case for impeachment, although you would have to seriously consider whether it's worth the effort to try when you're guaranteed to get nowhere near the two-thirds majority needed to convict in the Senate. The argument for it would be that you would make the case before the American people that Obama indeed has refused to enforce the law, and not only that, but that Senate Democrats are actively abetting him. The argument against it would be that the substance would be lost in the obsession over the politics, and even though you made the case in the impeachment hearings, few would be aware of it because all they would hear about in the coverage would be polls, sound bites, gaffes and shameless media cheerleading on Obama's behalf. But you have to start with the substance. We true do have a president who disdains not only the constitutional limits on his power, but also the duty he does have under the Constitution to enforce the laws in place, whether he likes them or not. That should matter, regardless of how it polls, and regardless of the reputation of the person who points it out. But it doesn't, because we're not longer the type of country that takes such matters seriously, which is one reason Obama got elected in the first place.