Opinion:However much guilt is on Obama’s hands, impeachment would be bad for America and bad for the GOP

This isn’t going to go down well for Eric Holder and the administration. NBC News reported that Attorney General Eric Holder personally approved the decision to go after Fox News’ James Rosen; then on Friday, the Department of Justice told Reuters that the NBC report is correct, possibly setting up the Attorney General to be indicted for perjury.

The department said the search warrant for the reporter’s email account — Rosen’s reporting on North Korea prompted a leak investigation — followed all laws and policies and won the independent approval of a federal magistrate judge.

However, just the week before, the House Judiciary Committee called in Attorney General Eric Holder to testify in the Associated Press reporters’ scandal. During his testimony under oath, Holder told Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) that targeting journalists was bad policy and something he’d never been involved in:

“First of all you’ve got a long way to go to try to prosecute the press for publication of material. This has not fared well in American history. … In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material, this is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy.“

If you compare the Department of Justice statement with what Holder told Rep. Johnson, it looks like the Attorney General perjured himself to Congress.

Polls show that America is getting frustrated with the administration’s fight to keep the truth behind the three scandals under wraps. But as frustrated as the public may get, Congress — which is in charge of finding out the truth — is even more frustrated.

Also last week came the revelation that the White House knew about the IRS scandal months before the public was told. Although there is still no proof that the President was told, we do know White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler knew about the scandal, and we know she told White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough about the impending IRS inspector general report. The only reason for the chief counsel to tell the chief of staff is for the information to get to the President. However, the contention today is that the president did not know.

As Congress and (in some cases) the mainstream media do their jobs and investigate these scandals, there are soft rumblings of the “I” word — impeachment — coming from a few conservative pundits and from Republicans in Congress.

Allow me to suggest that what we know so far does not even approach “I” word levels, and even if they reach that level, impeachment would be a horrible option for the country and for the party.

The last two Presidents who approached impeachment level were Nixon and Clinton, both of whom went way over the line to break the law. Clinton committed perjury, something to which he eventually admitted after DNA testing. Nixon may have survived Watergate if there wasn’t an audio record of his crimes that proved he obstructed justice.

The Obama administration has been careful to protect its senior leaders by putting very little in writing. Heck, the Attorney General didn’t even put in writing that he recused himself from the AP case, even though law requires him to.

But let us say that eventually it is proven that each scandal was directly ordered by the President (a long shot but just suppose):

•On Benghazi it can be proven the president lied for political purposes (he would not be the first) — but the only one really culpable would be Hillary Clinton who lied to Congress, something that would be a crime (whether or not she was under oath).

•The AP scandal may prove to be immoral, but doesn’t seem like a crime because the DOJ got a court order.

•While the IRS scandal probably has the biggest chance of toppling an administration, even if this abuse of power is proven to have been directly ordered by Obama, is impeachment the best option?

Not necessarily, for a host of reasons. The first would be these three horrible words, “President Joe Biden.” Imagine this gaffe-meister making foreign policy decisions/ statements — there would have been no surge in Afghanistan, we would be living with a nuclear Iran, and Bin Laden would still be alive (yes, he advised against the Afghan surge and the Bin Laden mission). It would be a bigger disaster for America’s standing in the world than Obama (although it might be funny if Biden had a summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Il and said, “Come on Kim, stand up and take a bow — What am I saying, you are standing!”)

A Joe Biden-led domestic policy would be just as bad. Perhaps the government would distribute pamphlets teaching women to protect themselves by emptying their shotguns through closed doors, Joe’s gun control advice.

Let’s say Obama is implicated directly in the IRS scandal and there is a smoking gun. He is impeached by the House and there is a trial in the Senate, at which point there is no way a Senate — which when you include the one socialist/independent has 56 votes on the President’s side — is going to come up with the 67 votes required to toss him out of office and give the reins to Biden.

However, if the House moves in that direction, Barack Obama ceases to be a scandal-ridden President and becomes a martyr to Republican obstructionism. The GOP will become the racist party that threw out the first African-American president. Any voters on the fence would go Democrat — just based on that meme.

On the other side, if Obama is proven to be behind the IRS and other scandals, a weakened Obama is still much better than a Biden. It is also better than the charges of obstructionism and racism that would be sure to come with any House action.

Thinking longer term, if Obama is implicated in these scandals and stays in office he would be too weakened to push through his radical freedom-stealing agenda during the remaining 921 days of his administration. Additionally, it will make ripe campaign fodder for the Senate and House campaigns in 2014 and the Presidential campaign of 2016.

Any talk of Obama impeachment is way premature, but even if Obama were directly tied to these scandals, impeachment would be bad for the United States and bad for the GOP.

Jeff Dunetz is the Editor/Publisher of the political blog “The Lid” (www.jeffdunetz.com). Jeff contributes to some of the largest political sites on the internet including American Thinker, Big Government, Big Journalism, NewsReal and Pajama’s Media, and has been a guest on national radio shows including G. Gordon Liddy, Tammy Bruce and Glenn Beck. Jeff lives in Long Island.