No, the Democrats won't impeach Biden over Afghanistan debacle

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

While this will likely be portrayed as partisan posturing by most of the media, a group of congressional representatives wrote a letter to Speaker Pelosi last night asking that she immediately begin impeachment proceedings against President Joseph R. Biden. They were expressing their lack of confidence in his ability to lead the military as the Commander in Chief after the disastrous evacuation of Kabul and the loss of multiple members of our armed forces to terrorists. The specifics of their complaints are tough to argue with, but the partisan antipathy in Congress hasn’t cooled anywhere near enough for the Democrats to fall on their own swords. (Or at least not yet.) There are, however, some other, smaller steps that might be taken. (Daily Wire)

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A group of lawmakers wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday evening calling on her to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against Democrat President Joe Biden after hundreds of American citizens were abandoned in Afghanistan following Biden’s disastrous pullout from the country.

“The American people must have full confidence in their Commander in Chief’s judgement and ability to protect our country and respond decisively to national security threats,” Reps. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Ronny Jackson (R-TX), Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), Pete Sessions (R-TX), and Yvette Herrell (R-NM) wrote to Pelosi.

“We have no confidence in President Joseph R. Biden’s ability to carry out his duties as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces,” they wrote.

Of the several problems with this effort, one of the biggest is that they only attracted five members to sign the letter. And all five of them are Republicans. That’s probably not going to do much to shake Pelosi’s default partisan footing.

The letter speaks of Biden’s “unilateral, reckless decisions,” that were made “against the advice of military and national security experts.” Again, that’s pretty hard to argue with. And the President has yet to show any indication of regret or remorse over those choices. But is that going to be enough to sway the Speaker?

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You’d probably have better luck trying to tow a semi-trailer with a tricycle. There have been several Democrats who were (to their credit) willing to publicly criticize Biden’s decisions and the way the operation was handled from the beginning. But there is a considerable gap between criticism of an obvious failure and moving to impeach. Sure, the Democrats were willing to impeach Donald Trump for giving a speech, but he was a Republican. Impeaching Joe Biden would amount to an admission that they had erred in endorsing his presidential bid and supporting his agenda. And that’s definitely a bridge too far.

What we might be able to look forward to, however, are congressional hearings exploring how the end of the war turned into such a disaster. Plenty of people had to have been giving Joe Biden advice, and they need to be heard from. We know that some of those advisers had cautioned him against the path he chose and seemed to realize that the Taliban would immediately overrun the country. If there were others telling him the opposite, we should learn who they were and how they also misread the situation so completely.

At this point there are probably more than a few Democrats who are watching Biden’s cratering approval numbers and quietly thinking that perhaps things might work out better if they could be rid of him before he becomes a complete albatross around their necks next year. But don’t expect them to support impeachment. I wouldn’t even expect to see them supporting some sort of 25th Amendment removal process. But there might be a few voices whispering in Uncle Joe’s ear this week that perhaps a resignation to go “spend more time with his family” might not be amiss.

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 22, 2024
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