A lawsuit against Barak Obama has "opened the door to Republicans possibly considering impeachment at some in the future," according to Dan Pfeiffer, counselor to the US president. Why would the Congress go after Obama? Or – is it just another soap opera staged for American voters at a time when the US global influence is waning?
Dan Pfeiffer was speaking a day after the House Rules Committee adopted a resolution authorizing John Boehner to move ahead with a lawsuit, based on Republican allegations that Mr. Obama overstepped his constitutional authority.
Dr Scott Firsing, an international relations expert a Research Fellow at Monash University, South Africa:
The Republican Party and Congress in general are getting extremely frustrated with President Obama. Basically, you need to understand that a president’s job by the US Constitution, when he is sworn oath, is to execute laws. He is the executive and he runs the executive branch. It is not to make laws. And the frustration coming up from Congress now is that they are passing legislation, but then Obama via executive orders is changing things that he is not supposed to be changing.
So, the big muses with the Obamacare, the adaptation about the employer mandates. There’s been some big questions about the immigration reform, that the republicans then never got things need to change but Obama’s been sitting on it. There’s been a whole host of accusations regarding impeachment. So, I think it is really about frustration on behalf of the US Congress.
John Boehner is suing Obama personally about these executive orders, which I just mentioned. Now, impeachment is another story. And basically, what the Constitution says is that the president needs to be convicted of treason, bribery or other high crimes in this demeanor, which is a quite strong language for impeachment.
You know, there have been calls for impeachment over the years. You might remember that Bill Clinton was impeached by the House but never passed the Senate over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But actually, it helped his ratings, funny enough.
But to actually get an impeachment through is extremely difficult. The republicans are hoping, but a lot of it is just politicking. We also need to understand that we’ve got midterm elections coming up in the US in November and that the democrats don’t want to lose control of the one part of the House to the republicans. So, if they lose control of that part of the Congress, it could be very detrimental to their party, as well as for the impeachment, because if the republicans control both sides of the House impeachment may go through.
But, like I said earlier, it is difficult for the politicians. There are two years after midterm. They want to get things done. I think the republicans think impeachment is a realistic option, and I think the last time I saw in polls was that a third of Americans would approve of impeachment. But the whole process would take time, given that two years are left. And also, in the long-term, if it actually did go through (which right now seems unlikely), there’d be President Joe Biden. I think a lot of people don’t see eye to eye with Biden and don’t see him as a candidate for president.
Could there be other reasons for the exasperation besides the executive orders?
Yes. I mean in the past days it is also the frustration of Obama’s job. In the day to day conversations I’ve had with people, they are frustrated with politicians. They are frustrated that Obama is out gallivanting and trying to raise money for the Democratic Party. He is seen travelling around the country trying to raise funds for the Democratic Party for this mid-year election, while some people think that the world is falling apart - and he is going trying to raise money for the Democratic Party, which he shouldn’t be doing, he is the Commander-in-Chief and he is the President.
I mean, even now, when there was a word about the Malaysian Airlines flight being shot down over Ukraine, he was busy giving a fundraiser. He’s been cracking a lot of jokes lately about the republicans and so on, and he’s spent about three or four minutes talking about the tragedy, and then he went on trying to raise more money for the Democratic Party. So, there is a lot of frustration from that point of view as well. They think he should be doing a lot more in terms of foreign affairs, about passing legislation and not out gallivanting and trying to raise money for his political party.
So, do I get it right that this time foreign policy agenda is also on the table?
Yes, I mean, all the issues going on with Ukraine and Russia, and various incidents that are happening around the world, just in general there is this sentiment and this feeling that Obama is spending too much time on the politics’ angle of his job and on the Democratic Party, whereas he is not running for president and he shouldn’t be spending pretty much any of his time on his political party or the people who are running in these midterm elections coming up in November.
Obviously, they are important for controlling the House and the republican side, but he is the President and he’s got other issues to deal with. So, there is that one sentiment put forth by people, and even not just by the republicans. Some of the people from the members of Congress from the Democratic side are also a little but concerned about what he’s been doing, and mostly on the executive orders’ side, but also on some of his politicking.
Do I get it right that people in the Congress would like to see someone more decisive as the President of the US?
I don’t think I sort of disagree with his policy, because I understand that there are certain issues that he needs to handle with kid gloves. The same issue with Russia and Ukraine is a very difficult issue. I think every country understands the complexities of the situation. But I think it is more that all the publicity and that a lot of his time is being focused on these things like impeachment, on Obamacare and things aren’t getting done, especially on the illegal immigration part.
In terms of America’s sovereignty and people coming over the border, it essentially is a foreign relations issue combined with the domestic issue, and nothing has happened. There’s been too much emphasis on Obamacare, whereas he could be doing things focusing more time on foreign policy or, perhaps, supporting the American businesses overseas and other things, rather than getting involved in all these debates about impeachment and cracking jokes about Congress and politics in general.
How independent do you think Obama is in his moves?
Well, I know he does ask for people’s opinion. This is his personal style – to ask to get different sides of the story – which we’ve seen in the past with his decisions on whatever it may be, form the Bin Laden raid or something. He tries to get a lot of input, but exactly the final call is definitely always Obama. And that’s what you need in a leader. But usually, when he is set on his way, he is set on doing something, he puts his mind he wants to achieve it. So, I think he is also feeling frustrated.
And also, with this whole incident, it is really about politicking – this lawsuit filed against him. I'm sure he’d probably rather not be dealing with these issues, he’d rather be passing legislation that people enacts and doing things that everyone would agree on, and now he is spending a lot of time on. So, I think there is frustration on both parts, from the congressmen and from the President.
Dr. Uma Purushothaman, Associate Fellow at the US Studies Program, Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, India:
This is something which is completely unprecedented, for the Congress to bring a lawsuit against the president. But let’s be very clear that there is no attempt at impeaching the president for now, because even John Boehner, who’s brought out the lawsuit against the president, has repeatedly said that he is not talking about impeachment at all, and neither are any of the senior republican figures, except for Sarah Palin. But Sarah Palin’s credentials are of suspect.
What John Boehner has actually done is that he’s filed a conditional lawsuit against Obama for overuse of executive authority. Basically, he said that Obama has not been faithfully implementing the provisions of the healthcare act which was passed by Congress. So, this is not an attempt at impeaching him, this is merely a lawsuit at the moment. Basically, I think this is a political tactic to galvanize the days before the midterm conditional elections in November.
The chaos which we are witnessing in the ME now, which we are witnessing in Ukraine, do you think that this is an unintended outcome of the US’s involvement there or is it rather the policy of the neo-cons?
Well, the way I see it – what is happening in the ME in many senses is a result of what the US has been doing all along. It’s been interfering in places which had secular regimes in place. For instance, whether it was Iraq, whether it was Libya, whether it was Syria – all these places had secular regimes.
The US wanted to promote democracy, intervened directly or indirectly and this is the result that you have, because you did not think of the consequences of what is going to happen once the regime that you despised is going to go down.
So, you have a whole range of mercenaries now and it is a fight between extremist groups of every kind.
The whole countries are disintegrating. The recent news coming from Libya shows that Libya is no longer. You could like Gaddafi or dislike Gaddafi, but under his rule it was a unified country and by local standards – quite well-off.
Absolutely! It was a country where minorities were protected and it was a relatively stable country. Now you have brought instability to the whole region. In Syria also, you had Alawites ruling the country but there was no grave discrimination against other minorities or other sects. But now you’ve brought things to such a chaos and instability and it is spreading all over the region.
Does this situation make the US stronger?
Clearly, people are seeing that there is a waning of American power and also that the US doesn’t want to be as involved as before. Obama has been a President who always wanted to not project the US power unduly. So, people do realize that the American power is waning and that the US is growing weak, because it also needs to focus domestically at what Obama calls “nation building”.
So, he focuses on domestic politics and on nation building and maybe this is the consequence of the US actually withdrawing from the world as it were and shifting focus to the Asia Pacific.
But then, strangely enough, the sentiment in the US is that Obama is a weak president, that he is a coward and the decision makers are pressing for more decisive action in the world affairs - an approach which has already made the US more vulnerable. If we look at the standoff between the US and Russia, that actually could bring the world to a catastrophe. Are there any decision makers in the US who could make a difference and who could alter this kind of thinking?
It is difficult to say at this point, because even the republican frontrunners for the presidential elections, for instance, Ron Paul is talking about a completely isolationist policy. So, it is one thing to say something when you are in the opposition, and it is quite other thing when you are actually ruling, when you are a president to actually go around intervening and projecting military force all over the world.
I think the idea of intervening is going to seem less attractive to any future president, whether he is a republican or a democrat, unless you have American interests which are directly threatened. That’s the trend that I'm seeing.
