On his Monday radio show, conservative talker Mark Levin said that if President Barack Obama sidesteps Congress on the debt ceiling fight and attacks the Congress’ constitutionally enumerated “core power” — that is control over spending and taxing — through executive action, Congress will have “no choice” but impeachment.
Levin explained that if unilateral action by the White House — which White House spokesman Jay Carney ruled out — were to happen, it would infringe on Congress’ “core power” and should be punished with impeachment.
“Now, if Obama unilaterally acts — and I think there’s a fan-dance going on here where his spokes-idiot [Jay] Carney is out there saying, ‘No, we’ve decided we’re not going to do this’ — if Obama, though, plays the role of Hamlet and in the end says ‘I have no choice: The Republicans are going to destroy our economy, our debt rating, all this that and the other, therefore I must unilaterally act,’ he should be impeached,” Levin declared. “Because that means Congress’ core power — in addition to declaring war — Congress’ core power, that is control over spending and taxing, will have been seized by the president of the United States in one executive order.”
“No Congress would tolerate this from any president,” Levin continued. “I don’t care if the president was Abraham Lincoln. This Congress would not have tolerated it from Richard Nixon. No Congress can tolerate such a complete and brazen frontal assault on its enumerated power. No Congress. No twisting of the language in the 14th Amendment or any way else, because we will cease to be a federal government of three coequal branches. We will cease to be that.”
And that, Levin said, would throw the entire American constitutional system of government out of order.
“And what are we going to do, ladies and gentlemen?” he said. “Throw our entire system away? Our entire Constitution away? Our entire financial system away for Obama? Why?”
“So, if a president commits a high crime and misdemeanor, which in this case is a brazen frontal attack on the Constitution itself in a way that no president has ever attacked the Constitution — seizing power unilaterally from the Congress — then we have no choice, do we?” Levin added. “Do we, than to remove him from office? What do you think about that one, Colin Powell?”
Earlier in the day, Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman made headlines for threatening that he would file articles of impeachment against Obama if the president institutes gun control measures with an executive order.
(h/t The Right Scoop)
