The New Republic

Maybe Reynolds meant "the subscriber base". Who knows -- if you get all of us fired up, it could be enough to affect the outcome of the municipal dogcatcher election in Pequaming, MI.

- Fishpeddler

October 13, 2010 at 10:30am

Welcome back Jonathan. I didn't recognize the reasonable pundit occupying this space the last few months. Now this is the unhinged Chait I knew and dislike from his "New Peretz" Hillary Clinton bashing days in the primary I know and dislike. Yes, there are bat-s*** crazies in the GOP caucus. No, there will not be several hundred Issas in 2010, and I wager even he knows the difference between raw meat for the base and offending the independents who will probably sweep the GOP into control of the House. Voters don't like impeachments over trivialities.

- Lymon1

October 13, 2010 at 10:39am

I'm willing to bet that Rep. Issa will make Watermelon Dan Burton look like a paragon of reason and sanity if the Republicans gain control of the House. The voters may not like "impeachments over trivialities" but that will mean nothing to these true believers. You know, the folks, Issa at the head of the pack, who become afraid, very afraid of the coming socialist doom every time there is a Democrat in the White House.

- VBKim

October 13, 2010 at 11:12am

Voters don't like impeachment but the Republicans impeached Bill Clinton anyway. And it is all too likely that Jonathan Chait is correct that the Republicans would try this again. Anyone who does not understand this possibility is not even paying attention. Republicans won't be consulting polls, they will just act out their inner natures.

- liberal reformer

October 13, 2010 at 11:49am

The impeachment question is really something that plays out for the 2016 elections, isn't it? As the Old Frothing Chait wrote in his TRB, there will not likely be any impeachment moves in the next two years -- Republicans will have just won the House (and maybe the Senate) and will want to support their Presidential nominee's campaign for 2012. Initiating impeachment proceedings right after election (as opposed to a bunch of silly investigations) just isn't the way to do it, especially if the economy still stinks. I don't even base Republicans are that dumb. Now, if Obama gets re-elected in 2012 but Republicans keep the House and/or Senate, then the impeachment fun can begin. But the real effect of this won't be until 2014 or more likely 2016, and who knows what effect impeachment could have that far out? I can spin all sorts of fun scenarios about who or what will be running for President in 2016 (when my youngest son will be doing his Bar Mitzvah) and what Congress would look like that year, but I wouldn't put much stock in it. However, I would put some stock into the proposition that at least one-fourth of the voters who put Republicans back into the House majority in 2010 will be dead or suffering from dementia in 2016.

- wildboy

October 13, 2010 at 12:17pm

"Voters don't like impeachments over trivialities." Bull shit. To the GOP base, nothing is too trivial to impeach the Kenyan-Anti-Colonialist in Chief Hussein Obama. They could start and end it by investigating this fake Hawaiian Certificate of Live Birth he has been using to masquerade as a US citizen; and they know the accusations are true because they heard it on the news.

- GSpinks

October 13, 2010 at 3:02pm