In the history of the United States, only two presidents have ever been impeached, Andrew Johnson in 1868, and Bill Clinton, 130 years later in 1998. Both were acquitted by the Senate, though the votes were very close.

Nixon very likely would have been impeached after the Watergate scandal had he not resigned the presidency before the hearings.

Impeaching a governmental official is analogous to indicting regular folks. It means that the House of Representatives is bringing charges against them.

If an official is impeached by the House, then the Senate and the Supreme Court conduct the trial to determine guilt or innocence.

Since America was founded, the threat of impeachment has not been used often. However, in recent decades this threat has been a reality for many presidents.

Since the 1980s, six out of eight presidents have come under threat of impeachment.

The last five presidents, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and current president, Barack Obama, have all been accused of impeachable offenses.

There were also calls for the impeachment of George H. W. Bush when he served as Reagan’s vice president and for the impeachment of Dick Cheney, Bush junior’s vice president.

Many have called for President Obama’s impeachment since the Affordable Care Act passed in 2011. A year later, some wanted to impeach him over the way he handled the Benghazi situation and the possibly implementation of a gun control law.

So far, none of these attempts have panned out, mostly because they would have been a waste of Congressional time and effort.

There are more important matters at hand like the debt ceiling, immigration and preparing for the launch of Obamacare.

Most recently, Republican members of Congress have restarted impeachment talks. Several of these congressmen are from Texas.

While these men have been making headlines, they failed to have capture the support of their party leaders and the public. Speaker of the House John Boehner has expressed no interest in impeaching the President, citing more pressing matters at hand.

Gallup poles show that Obama is perceived favorably by the American public. Most people think he’s a likable president and a good guy.

At the same time the Republican Party is at its lowest public approval rating in a good long while. People like Obama and they are notably displeased with the Republican party.

Texas Congressman Bill Flores recently stated he believes the House of Representatives would vote and pass a resolution to impeach the president if it was ever brought to the floor. However he also admitted that it would likely get shot down by the Senate.

This would be terrible for the party, especially since midterm elections are coming up in 2014. If they go forward with impeachment, the House could easily go back to Democratic control which will give the party a unified government.

If the House did go forward with impeachment proceedings, it would just blow up in their faces. It may serve to please some Republican party members and small grassroots movements, but the general public would see it as a huge waste of time and resources, born out of petty bipartisan spite.

There are more pressing matters that Congress needs to fix, like Syria, the national debt and preparing for the launch of Obamacare, just to name a few.

But by all means gentlemen, please waste the nation’s time by trying to impeach Obama, as long as you are comfortable making your party look even worse.