Not Waiting Until January

As I've mentioned before, GOP punching bag Mark "First Class" Sanford may be facing impeachment by his ow party in January, and the threat of that made zero difference in his tone or rhetoric.

Ergo, South Carolina Republican lawmakers are apparently turning up the heat.

South Carolina Republican lawmakers are laying plans for a special session legislative session on whether to impeach and remove embattled Gov. Mark Sanford by the end of the year, several senior state lawmakers have told The Washington Times.

Republican lawmakers in the state House will use a regularly scheduled annual retreat in Myrtle Beach this weekend to discuss the governor's fate and the details on whether to call a special impeachment session of the legislature before its scheduled reconvening in January, Rep. Gary Simrill, a Republican, told The Times on Thursday.

Two bills of impeachment already are being prepared - one by a Republican lawmaker and the other by a Democrat, Mr. Simrill said.

Mr. Simrill, who said he has voted about 80 percent of the time with the Republican governor, met privately with Mr. Sanford on Tuesday and urged him to resign but to no avail.

Mr. Sanford, whose extramarital affair with an Argentine woman sparked an international scandal earlier this summer, has rejected calls to step down voluntarily, including one issued Wednesday by the state's Republican lieutenant governor.

The movement toward impeachment is bipartisan and goes beyond talks at the Republicans' House retreat this weekend.

"A group of Republicans and Democrats are discussing how to take up impeachment before we reconvene in January," Rep. James Smith, a Democrat, told The Times. "The only question is: Are we better off waiting or taking up impeachment before the legislature reconvenes?"

At this point South Carolina is so eager to get rid of Sanford's ass that they are willing to actually call a special legislative session to do it as soon as possible.

That cannot bode well for Sanford's chances against impeachment proceedings. He's going to get Blagofied. I've said all along that Sanford was going to lose this battle, it was just a question of when.

And that when just got a hell of a lot closer.