It’s a fool who burns his house down to get rid of a rat. How much bigger a fool is it who will burn his country down to get rid of a presidential cabinet member? Yesterday, a dumb and disgruntled congressman, Thomas Massie, brought articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, for such things as carrying out Operation Epic Fury against the nuclear-weapon-seeking mad mullahs of Iran, capturing and bringing to justice Venezuelan President and narco-terrorist Nicolás Maduro, blowing up drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Oceans, and bombing the Iran-backed Houthi terrorist group. Of course, Massie’s alleged justification for his unjustifiable impeachment of Hegseth is that Hegseth didn’t get congressional approval for these military actions. Never mind that President Harry Truman didn’t get congressional approval when he sent American troops into Korea in 1950, President John F. Kennedy didn’t get congressional approval when he sent American troops into Vietnam in 1961, President Bill Clinton didn’t get congressional approval when he bombed Kosovo/Yugoslavia in 1999, or that President Barack Obama didn’t get congressional approval when he bombed Libya in 2011, Hegseth, according to Massie, needs to be impeached for his failure to get congressional approval, despite the fact that Hegseth is neither our president nor Commander-in-Chief, but someone carrying out the orders of our president and Commander-in-Chief.

Needless to say, Thomas Massie’s pugnacious and preposterous articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth fall far short of the constitutional requirement for impeachment; namely, the perpetration of high crimes and misdemeanors. Still, Massie, who himself is headed out the door, because of primary voters’ ouster of him, was joined yesterday in his last-ditch-effort to oust Hegseth by every attending Democrat, which should come as no surprise to any of us, since Democrats now see impeachment as a weapon to fight political battles and a way to remove political rivals from elected office. While yesterday’s attempt to impale Hegseth on the pike of impeachment failed, Democrats, who believe an impeachment offense is whatever they say it is, not what the Constitution says it is, will be back for another attempt at impeaching Hegseth in January, just as soon as their new majority is sworn in. In fact, they are already promising an impeachment-o-rama, in which impeachments will become as common in Washington D. C. as a typo in a text message.

Regardless of what Americans think of Trump or Hegseth, or whether Americans agree or disagree with our war with Iran, all Americans ought to agree that we cannot incinerate our constitutional republic with incendiary impeachments. If impeachment becomes a Sword of Damocles hung over the presidency by Congress, our separation of powers will be shattered, the powers of our executive branch of government will be usurped by our legislative branch, and we will burn our country down to rid ourselves of our political rivals.