If tea leaves are to be believed, former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) will announce his bid for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination very soon.  In the meantime, the GOP’s premier idea man is floating an updated version of his nuclear option for misbehaving presidents: impeachment. 

As Speaker, Gingrich waged an ultimately failed attempt to impeach former President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about an extra-marital affair with Monica Lewinsky.  For a variety of reasons, a supermajority of U.S. Senators was not willing to remove Clinton from office for what amounted to perjury.  (Clinton was later sanctioned and voluntarily gave up his Arkansas law license as punishment.) 

This time may be different.  Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder – with President Barack Obama’s blessing – announced that the Justice Department would no longer defend in court the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a 1996 law supported by Gingrich and signed into law by Clinton.  The law restricts certain federal benefits to married couples of the opposite sex.  Citing a change in interpretation, Holder said he no longer considered the law constitutional. 

After a few days of muted protest from other potential GOP presidential contenders, Gingrich unloaded in an interview to Newsmax.TV.  Gingrich charged the Obama Administration’s unilateral decision to abandon DOMA amounts to a dereliction of duty.  “He is not a one-person Supreme Court,” said Gingrich.  “The idea that we now have the rule of Obama instead of the rule of law should frighten everybody.” 

For Gingrich, impeachment would be the last step in a long process.  Initially, Gingrich wants an immediate House resolution instructing the president to comply with his duty to faithfully execute the law, or risk defunding of the Attorney General’s office.  Since Congress has the power of the purse, it can always signal its displeasure with executive action by cutting off funds.  House Republicans are already contemplating such a response in their efforts to slow down implementation of ObamaCare. 

Gingrich’s criticism is carefully framed around an issue likely to appeal to a majority of voters.  Simply put, liberals are destroying the integrity of governing.  Whatever one may think of DOMA’s merits, nearly everyone would agree that President Obama is setting a dangerous precedent by unilaterally refusing to defend a law he doesn’t like.  To make his point, Gingrich noted the outrage that would accompany a President Sarah Palin’s hypothetical decision not to defend abortion-friendly legislation. 

The theme of Gingrich’s Newsmax.TV interview is that agreeing to govern is a promise to serve.  More than any other public official, the President of the United States promises to serve all Americans in the most direct way he can – by faithfully executing the laws passed by the people’s representatives. 

Throughout his tenure in office, President Obama has thumbed his nose at the processes that make governing possible.  He approved the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law because he prefers open borders.  He looked the other way as then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) broke numerous parliamentary rules to ram through a nationalization of health care.  And he continues to empower the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate a climate change law into existence that cannot be passed in Congress. 

Now, the president is abandoning protection of a valid law. 

Dissent is acceptable, but within the proper process.  It is not the job of the government to wage war against itself.  If federal officials like President Obama and Attorney General Holder truly believe the time has come to overturn DOMA, they should present a bill to Congress and work it through the legislative process.  Repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy shows they know how to create bipartisan consensus.  By contrast, the business of ad hoc legislation from the executive branch is as indefensible as it is unconstitutional. 

Across America, political liberals are bringing government to a standstill to serve special interests.  Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin and Indiana have left their states rather than face their voters.  At the federal level, Congressional Democrats are openly daring Republicans to shutdown the government instead of negotiating toward a balanced budget.  If President Obama’s refusal to defend DOMA is allowed to stand, it will set a precedent that the force of any law is subject to the whim of every president. 

For a nation founded on the rule of law and best served by same, that outcome is unacceptable.