Why Democrats Are the Ones Talking About Impeachment

The word "impeachment" is getting tossed around a lot on Capitol Hill and on political talk shows these days, but Politico takes note of a "very strange" twist: It's Democrats who keep bringing it up, while Republicans keep insisting they have no intention of going there. The thing is, Democrats aren't just whispering about it—they're sending out red-alert emails with "transparent glee," writes Jonah Goldberg at the Los Angeles Times. The reason is simple: fundraising. "We now have a shot at hitting our $2,000,000 goal to defend the President—and defeat Boehner's Republican House," reads one recent missive from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The strategy plays off Republicans' decision to try to sue the White House over perceived abuses of executive privilege, but stretching that into an impeachment threat strikes Goldberg as cynical politics from a president who constantly rails against, yes, cynicism in politics. The Obama White House is again borrowing from the playbook of Bill Clinton, who actually benefited from an impeachment threat, he writes. "The difference is that while Clinton was hardly immune to the charge of cynicism, he wasn't trying to shut down the government or get impeached for narrow political advantage." Click for Goldberg's full column. (More impeachment stories.)