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The comment was revealed by a columnist for the New York Observer Wednesday.
Twitter is buzzing over a shocking claim made by a senior EU
diplomat concerning the mental health of President Obama. The comment
was revealed by a columnist for the New York Observer Wednesday.John Schindler, the Observer’s national security columnist, tweeted a harsh assessment of the president.
The tweet notes that one of our allies thinks that Obama is “quite mentally unwell,” and asked whether or not he could be impeached.
This is a stunning comment because it wasn’t a personal opinion. It notes that a government thinks that Obama is mentally ill.
It isn’t surprising that a foreigner might be confused over our impeachment process, though. Many Americans are also confused over the scheme. But impeachment isn’t really a strictly legal process.
The fact is, impeachment is far more a political action than it is a legal one, and there has to be a political will on the part of Congress to go into the process of impeachment to start with.
There are two parts to impeachment. The House of Representatives is responsible for impeaching a president and declaring him unfit for office. But the House ruling of impeachment does not remove a president from office, for it is the duty of the Senate to convict and remove a president from the White House.
Only two presidents have ever been impeached. Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868, a few years after the civil war and the assassination of Abe Lincoln, and Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 after he lied to Congress about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Consequently, despite those two impeachments, no president has ever been removed from office by a final ruling in the Senate.
One president, Richard Nixon, resigned from office before he could be impeached.