A senior policy analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies, which bills itself as the think tank of the anti-immigrant Right, told a Florida-based Tea Party group last week that President Obama not only deserves impeachment, but that “being hung, drawn and quartered is probably too good for him.”
The Center for New Community’s Imagine 2050 blog first reported on Stephen Steinlight’s remarks.
Steinlight also said that John Boehner’s lawsuit against the president is a “political loser” and claimed that while Obama deserves to be impeached, such an effort would backfire on Republicans.
CIS describes Steinlight as “one of the nation’s most insightful voices on immigration” who provides “expert testimony” for government panels.
A rash of opinion polls which have come out, not push polls, real polls, including one by Gallup that showed that 65 percent of the American people don’t want any part of an Obama-style immigration reform. But the idea of this [lawsuit] is vintage Boehner, it’s a political loser. There is no court that is going to stop Obama from doing anything. We all know, if there ever was a president that deserved to be impeached, it’s this guy. Alright? I mean, I wouldn’t stop. I would think being hung, drawn, and quartered is probably too good for him.
UPDATE (7/24): CIS now says that Steinlight has been “reprimanded” for his remarks:
When reached for comment, Steven Camarota, director of research at CIS, distanced the organization from Steinlight’s remarks.
“Steve was speaking figuratively and hyperbolically, obviously, for effect. In that respect his intemperate comments were similar to those who are often critics of President Bush, and I would say like those comments, they are ill-advised,” Camarota told The Huffington Post. “I would also say that the Center for Immigration Studies does not in fact support drawing and quartering the president.”
CIS officials also said Steinlight had been disciplined and instructed to avoid similar rhetoric in the future.
“I reprimanded him and put a reprimand in his personnel file,” said CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian.
CIS is an organization that advocates reducing immigration into the United States. Steinlight has said that Hispanic immigration would lead to the “unmaking of America,” and that Muslims should be banned from immigrating to the United States because they “believe in things that are subversive to the Constitution.”
“Steve sometimes has used impolitic language and I admonished him to choose his words more carefully in the future,” Krikorian said.
