What If Obama Said or Did It?

This idea has come up in a few places. That is, what if Barack Obama said or did even SOME of the things this orange Republican Party Trump has said or done. Bill Maher brougt it up first.


Can you imagine?

Republicans and Right Wingers would be FLIPPING OUT.

And then now? With this impeachment? Are you kidding?

If then President Barack Obama asked the head of another foreign nation---say, oh, the head of the Ukraine---for a "favor", to investigate the son or daughter of his foremost political rival in a current campaign for an election for his very job?

Can you even imagine the uproar from the Republicans?

FUGGEDABOUDIT.

They'd freaking explode.

They'd have him in impeachment status 20 minutes after the phone call ended. They'd flip.

Nicholas Kristof very fairly and appropriately proposes this very same question today, again, in Sunday's New York Times.

What if It Were Obama on Trial?

Consider Trump’s impeachment from some other angles.

Just a bit of the article:

What if it were Obama who had been caught in this Ukraine scandal?

My guess is that if it were Obama, Republicans would be demanding witnesses (as they did in the 1999 trial of Bill Clinton). Given how aggressively Republican members of Congress pursued the Benghazi events — multiple investigations, eventually finding no evidence of wrongdoing by either Obama or then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — I’m confident that the G.O.P. would be insisting that Obama be removed, with frequent chants of “lock him up.”

...“Imagine if our president had leveraged his role as commander in chief to convince a foreign power to open an investigation into his political opponent. Imagine if the president’s rival lost the primary because news broke that he was under investigation. Imagine if that meant the president faced a weaker candidate in November 2020 — and won re-election as a result.”

The foreign country could then blackmail our president by threatening to expose the corruption, gaining leverage over our foreign policy. Meanwhile, the president might abuse presidential power in other ways in the belief that impunity was complete. If all this eventually became public, and truth does have a way of trickling out, this would have devastating consequences for the legitimacy of American elections.

This thought experiment perhaps isn’t so far-fetched. We know now that Trump’s pressure on Ukraine caused alarm in the White House and the intelligence community, with National Security Adviser John Bolton likening it to a “drug deal.” Yet for all that uproar, it almost didn’t become public. It was only because of a whistle-blower that the information began to emerge, and the military aid to Ukraine was released only after the White House became aware of the whistle-blower and was being pressured by Congress.

In short, Trump’s plan almost succeeded — and in any case, he will get away with it in the sense that he is sure to be acquitted by the Senate. When Republicans suggest that Trump did nothing wrong, what message does that impunity send to Trump and to future presidents?

The third thought experiment is simple: What if Trump weren’t president, but was like almost any other person in America?

What if he were a high school vice principal who ensured that a police detective’s son would be accepted in advanced placement classes — and then added, “I’d like you to do us a favor, though.” The favor would be an investigation of the vice principal’s ex-wife before their upcoming child custody hearing, in hopes of tilting the outcome in his favor.

In that situation, the vice principal would be fired. We all recognize that no school official or other person in a government bureaucracy should use public power for private benefit.

So a last query: Shouldn’t we have as high a standard for the president of the United States as for a school vice principal?

How any President could ask the head of another, foreign nation to investigate the son of his foremost political rival during a current, ongoing campaign for election to his very office and that somehow be okay is beyond, way beyond me. That alone is enough. But then to withhold nearly 400 million dollars in aid Congress had approved and appropriated to help that nation against our own very public, national enemy in their time of need until he got such investigation?

Again, fuggedaboudit.

How anyone could say or think that what this Orange One has done is not impeachable is just incomprehensible.

But then, so is defending him.