Obama Is Not a Crook. Is He?

Official photographic portrait of US President Barack Obama (born 4 August 1961; assumed office 20 January 2009) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It's been 40 years since Richard Nixon became the first President of the United States to resign from office.  He had been many things:  a crusading anti-Communist congressman, Dwight Eisenhower's vice president, loser to JFK by a 5 o'clock shadow, opportunist in the tumultuous year of 1968 to win his own term in the White House.  And he was brought down by a two-bit burglary inside the Watergate complex, leaving his handpicked VP Gerald Ford to pick up the pieces.

Barack Obama, the current President, is no Nixon.  But try telling that to House Republicans.  Originally, they were going to impeach him for being asleep at the wheel when crises in Europe and the Middle East flared up, while swarms of undocumented children made their way past the United States' southern borders.

Instead, the House GOP leaders are suing Obama for what they believe is exceeding his constitutional authority when it comes to the Affordable Care Act.  They claim the President's been going over Congress' heads to get some of those proposals into law, because it's been his pet project since his first term.

Obama has signed many executive orders during his administration, mainly because partisan politics have prevented Congress from doing its job.  That might sound positively Nixonian, but the President is within his rights to do so as long as he doesn't overdo it.

Obama has been laughing off the threats of impeachments and lawsuits, dismissing them as just another desperation move by the GOP.  Maybe he shouldn't be.  Before Nixon resigned, the House was ready to impeach him and the Senate was going to put him on trial.  President Bill Clinton was the last to be impeached, but not removed from office, for having lied under oath in testimony regarding the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Any legal action against the President, unless it was fast-tracked into the Supreme Court docket, would have a harder time getting through the judicial system than the GOP would like.  It is also possible that Obama's term would be over by the time there's a decision.  It would, however, affect his successor.

Now that the Republicans have further poisoned the well against President Obama and the Democrats in this campaign year--not that they needed any help, with various polls showing both the President and Congress at their lowest ebbs--isn't it just possible that they'll just continue to paint themselves into a corner until they don't have Obama to kick around any more?