In Muskogee, Oklahoma, the question was posed to Senator Tom Coburn, who said that while he called Obama a “personal friend,” he considered the administration to be lawless and incompetent, and “getting perilously close” to impeachability. In Conroe, Texas, Senator Ted Cruz said a query about impeachment was “a good question,” but just not realistic; he later told National Review, “That’s not a fight we have a prospect of winning.”

The impeachment activists are undeterred by the lawmakers’ reluctance, however. The website overpasses.org records impeachment “rallies” -- often a few people with posters waving at highway traffic from above -- in 17 states.

This week, the movement stands to get a shot in the arm with the release of a new book, Impeachable Offenses: The Case for Removing Barack Obama From Office. Co-author Aaron Klein, a reporter for the website WorldNetDaily, says preorders of the book by retailers and book clubs were “approaching six figures” prior to its release Tuesday, and the publisher plans to deliver copies to the offices of members of Congress shortly after they return to Washington on September 9.

WND is known for its pursuit of the birth-certificate non-issue, but Klein, a radio host whose other books include The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists, said no space is devoted to birtherism in his book. Its aim, despite the title, is not to advocate impeachment, he claims, but to dispassionately lay out the potential grounds. “I’m trying to present the case journalistically and allow the public to decide,” he said in an interview. “I personally think, yes, there is a strong case for impeachment proceedings on multiple fronts.”

Klein insists this is not a partisan endeavor -- he calls himself an independent and quotes the ACLU and the lefty antiwar group Code Pink in his book, which focuses on alleged overreaches of executive authority. “This is about individual liberty. It’s about the rule of law,” he said. “It’s about whether the separation of powers means anything or not.” While Klein wasn’t on the case when George W. Bush was in office, he says many of the Obama Administration’s alleged national-security offenses might have applied then, too.

For now, the impeachment movement is too fringe even for the likes of Cruz, the capitol's chief boat-rocker. But I was curious: What does Klein’s case for impeachment consist of? There’s a lot in the book, he told me, but he gave a few examples. The constitutional standard for impeachment is "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Klein's claims fall under the second two categories.

* Obamacare: Klein describes a number of arguments involving the health-care legislation, with the crux being that Obama committed a crime against his office by bypassing Congress in some way. "An obvious response is that the healthcare legislation was upheld by the Supreme Court," he noted. "But the book reports the White House has been hard at work changing the implementation of key sections of Obamacare without Congressional oversight."