Littwin: Once again, Lauren Boebert turns up the heat. This time, she could get burned.

In normal times — if such times ever actually existed — the recent confrontation on the House floor between Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene would hardly qualify as news.

We’ve seen it all before. Playing to the crowd, especially when a TV camera — even if it’s only a C-SPAN camera — is nearby, is what they do. It’s who they are. And, according to Boebert, it’s basically the job, at least when it includes impeaching Joe Biden, for which God has chosen her. (God, as Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank noted, was not immediately available for comment.)

The reason it matters is not because Greene called Boebert “a little bitch,” although she did. Come on, it’s not as if swearing, or ugly confrontation for that matter, is unheard of in the House chamber.

And not because there are still people — misogyny alert here — who enjoy watching two women engage in what would inevitably be called, at least on my Twitter feed, a cat fight.

It matters only once you understand why Boebert and Greene — once allies in the cause of creating right-wing spectacle — were at each other’s throats as their House colleagues looked on in either horror or, just guessing here, barely stifled amusement.

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Here goes: It turns out, as Greene would later confirm, they were fighting over which one should get credit for forcing an impeachment vote against Biden, this time for the chaos on the Southern Border. Greene was angry that Boebert, using a legislative parlor trick, had jumped in front of her in line.

Yes. Of course. What else? 

The fight was not over whether one had the better case to make against Biden — it would be difficult, given that there is no such case — but who would get the headline, and the coveted Fox News/Breitbart/Newsmax interviews and the resulting fundraising bonus.

“I’ve donated to you, I’ve defended you. But you’ve been nothing but a little bitch to me,” Greene apparently told Boebert on the House floor. “And you copied my articles of impeachment after I asked you to cosponsor them.”

Instead of joining with Greene, Boebert did introduce her own articles of impeachment. Not only did she introduce her own articles, she used what is called a “privileged resolution,” a parliamentary tactic that forces the House to vote on a resolution within two days.

Greene — who split with Boebert by siding with Kevin McCarthy when Boebert was trying to derail his bid to become speaker — called her a “copycat” as well as the B-word. When asked about it, Boebert replied that she was no longer in middle school. (And, yes, she did go all the way through middle school.)

Boebert’s stunt was absurd, of course. It would mean an impeachment vote without any committee hearings. Without any testimony. Without any evidence. Without any smoking gun, although Boebert does have a wide range of weaponry in her personal armory to choose from.

It would basically be an admission that Republicans didn’t believe they had to have an actual case against Biden, much less one involving high crimes and misdemeanors, in order to  impeach him.

Mostly, it would be an admission that these are not, as Logan Roy would say, serious people.

We all knew that once Republicans took control of the House, they would attempt to exact revenge for Donald Trump’s two impeachments by impeaching anyone in sight — especially, but not exclusively, Biden. Greene, who first introduced articles of impeachment against Biden on the day after he was inaugurated, actually has put forth five impeachment resolutions during this session of Congress alone.

But Boebert’s move was an impeachment step too far. Speaker McCarthy persuaded Boebert to back down on the vote by promising her that he would send her resolution to the Homeland Security and Judiciary committees. Which the House did the next day with a straight party-line vote.  

Meanwhile, McCarthy stood by as Greene, along with Rep. Elise Stefanik, introduced bills Thursday that would expunge Trump’s impeachments. In other words, the bills would unimpeach Trump. I’m surprised that neither used House privilege. Maybe they’re saving that for future bills trying to expunge Trump’s indictments.

If you think impeachments are a contagion, just wait. It won’t be long before the House’s right-wing Freedom Caucus begins a run of privileged resolutions, grabbing control from McCarthy as to what legislation makes it to the floor. It was already used to censure Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff — just before Boebert offered her resolution — for his part in investigating Russia’s role in Trump’s 2016 election. 

Boebert called backing down a win, and McCarthy, who is hanging on to his speakership by a handful of votes, was in no position to say otherwise.

The truth is a vote on Boebert’s resolution would have amounted to little more than embarrassment. Not for Biden necessarily, but mostly for those House Republicans from swing districts where full-on lunacy isn’t necessarily appreciated and for whom a blind impeachment vote, whichever way they decided to go, would be a lose-lose proposition.

And while Boebert is beyond embarrassment, could this latest grab for attention, just possibly, just maybe, put her seat in jeopardy, too?

Am I being overly optimistic here? I don’t mean that this particular stunt, or the confrontation, would bring matters to a head. I mean that Boebert, as you’ll recall, won reelection last November by just over 500 votes against Adam Frisch, who ran with almost no help from national Democrats. 

If you don’t remember, after the vote was counted and then recounted, Boebert, looking at her close call, said she hoped to turn down the temperature this term. And yet, in the summer swelter, she’s still all about turning up the heat, even as Democrats are now targeting her seat in the 2024 election in their attempt to regain control of the House.

What can voters in Boebert’s Republican-leaning 3rd Congressional District be thinking? How much is too much? Are there any limits?

Let’s just say that Boebert is apparently willing to see. She has said that if the committees slow-walk her resolution, she will be back on the floor with another privileged impeachment resolution. 

In fact, as she left the House floor Wednesday, she said she would bring back her resolution every day until the House agrees to act. Day after day after legislative day. 

Of course, there could come a time — not that you should bet your house on it — when, for Boebert, those days may have come and gone. 

Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.