MAXINE WATERS: IGNORAMUS

Am I unfair to call Maxine Waters an ignoramus?

Well, here’s the latest evidence, via Ian Hanchett’s article (too short to excerpt) at breitbart.com:

On Friday’s broadcast of ABC’s “The View,” Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) stated that after President Donald Trump is impeached, Vice President Mike Pence won’t be a better president than Trump and should be impeached as well.

One of the show’s hosts, Joy Behar asked, “Do you think Pence will be better than Trump if he were impeached? ”

Waters answered, “No. And when we finish with Trump, we have to go and get Putin. He’s next.”

Behar then asked Waters if she meant Putin or Pence, and Waters clarified that she meant Pence.

It’s hard to decide where to begin.

Let’s get past Waters’ mistakenly saying Putin instead of Trump.  I’ll accept that as a slip of the tongue.

We’ll move on to the ignoramus, Joy Behar, asking her whether Pence would be any better than Trump after he is impeached.

Wow.

Obviously Behar is has no idea of the fact that, if Donald Trump were impeached, he wouldn’t be going anywhere.  To remove someone from office requires a conviction on what he/she is impeached for – and it wouldn’t be by the House, it would be by the Senate.

I’d love someone to ask Behar how, if impeachment removed a President from office, Bill Clinton managed to serve out his second term of office.  Or did she know he was impeached?

Moving past Behar’s ignorance, we now go to Maxine Waters – who has been in congress since 1991, and participated in the Clinton impeachment proceedings.  You would sort of hope she would know this.  Heck, it was in all the papers.

But look at her answer.  It assumes Behar is correct.  And, building on her ignorance, she then goes on to talk about impeaching Vice President Pence.

Impeach him for what, Maxine?

You don’t get to impeach people because you don’t like them.  They actually have to do something impeachable.  And, even if impeached – reminding you again – the Senate has to convict on one or more articles of impeachment.

Then there is the matter of how either of these two results could take place.

The current house of representatives consists of 241 Republicans and 194 Democrats.  To impeach requires a majority of at least 218 votes.   This means that, even if every Democrat voted to impeach President Trump, they would need at least 24 Republicans to do so .  That’s not happening.

But let’s be ridiculous, and assume it did happen.  What then?

To convict would require not a majority, but two-thirds of the United States Senate – 67 or more votes.  Currently there are 52 Republican Senators and 48 Democrats.  This means, assuming Democrats voted unanimously to convict, 19 of the 52 Republicans would have to join them.  That isn’t even a wistful fantasy.

OK, there is the evidence.  So?  Do I have a reason to accuse Maxine Waters of ignorance?

Personally, I think I’m being too kind.