Censure of a Renegade President* Is Next to Worthless

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

01 June 19

Start the inquiry.

ep. Ro Khanna disappointed me the other night. He floated the idea of censuring the president* as opposed to opening an impeachment inquiry. This, of course, was the notion that the Republicans laughed at in 1998—MoveOn.org began in those days as "Censure and Move On"—because their goal was to overturn the 1992 and 1996 elections by any means necessary. This alternative is even more lame in our current circumstances.

This is a president* and an administration* that does not take congressional subpoenas seriously, and that respects the constitutional order even less than it understands it. A censure would do absolutely less than nothing. One of the ways you can tell it's a terrible idea is that Peggy Noonan has raised her glass to it. She believes that impeaching El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago would be too "divisive." And this from someone who once pondered in print whether Fidel Castro had blackmailed Bill Clinton into sending Elian Gonzales back to live with his father in Cuba, memorably wandering off the trolley with the immortal phrase, "Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to."

Even in the best of circumstances, which this assuredly is not, congressional censure of a renegade president is next to worthless. The only president ever censured was Andrew Jackson and he ignored it and, later, had it expunged from the congressional record, and largely from history. You could get pretty good odds that this president* wouldn't even know it happened. If you believe, as I do, that this is the most perilous presidency* in American history, there is only one way to end it. Start the inquiry. Get the wheels in motion.