I’ve been rattling this around in my head for a while now, and Bush’s reportedly tepid response to the Iraq Commission’s report–and his recent comparing of himself to Harry Truman–has forced me to the conclusion that, yes, he should be impeached.
Now the response one often hears as to why this is a bad idea is that it automatically means: President Cheney.
I disagree.
History shows that impeachment of a president does not automatically mean power devolves onto the vice-president. Impeachment is merely the first of two stages required to remove someone from office. Two presidents have been impeached in our history; in neither instance did the vice-president wind up as commander-in-chief.
I don’t think he needs to be impeached to be removed from office. I think he needs to be impeached to get his attention. Bush has ceased worrying about how his policies are impacting upon our soldiers and their families and the people of Iraq and–let’s face it–the global community, in terms of their own interests and their relationships with us. His major concern appears to be about his legacy and his place in history. If he thinks his place in history will be as the first president to be impeached and removed, that might be the cold dash of water in the face he needs.
Besides, it’s only just: If a president can be impeached over getting a bløw jøb from one person, certainly a president can be impeached over giving a screw job to 250 million people.
To paraphrase “Heroes”–“Impeach the President; Save the World.”
PAD
• 
When it’s proven that Bush did something as bad as, oh let’s see, lying under oath… then impeachment is a viable concept. Until then, I say let him continue to protect us from terrorism.
DW
Bill, my instict tells me that you are right. But experience tells us that the Republicans tried to impeach Clinton and won the presidency in 2000.
In any case, Bush shouldn’t be immpeached if there is no good legal basis for impeachment. I don’t know the law well enough to decide. But I agree with Bill Myers that misuse of immpeachment as a political tool to punish a president for a policy you dislike will probably have negative long term effects.
In Ancient Athens there was a law against trying to legislate illegal (unconstitutional) laws. It was called Graphe Paranomon.
It would seem that outgoing Georgia Rep. Cynthia McKinney (you know, the one who socked a cop because he actually had the nerve to ask to see her identification) agrees with PAD.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/12/08/D8LT24S80.html
DW
“IIRC, she said it’s off the table “for now”. She may be waiting for enough other representatives to make an issue of it before she supports it.
Or she may just be another politician who doesn’t want to upset the status quo.”
Another option is that, at this point and time, she and the others see impeachment as a threat as a better tool to leverage Bush and work him then actual impeachment itself would be. Look at it like this. Lots of people will work their butts off at their jobs when they’re afraid that they’re going to be fired/downsized/let go. They do it because there is still a chance that they won’t get the boot if they give a good showing. Walk up to a guy and tell him that he’s getting a pink slip in four weeks, no ifs ands or buts about it, and you can end up getting four weeks of half@$$ed work and maybe some form of him getting even with you on his way out the door.
Bush seems to me to be the type who would bull up and try and get even. Plus, the idea of the chance of impeachment in Bush’s brain has less of a chance of badly backfiring on the D’s, in more ways then one, then does a botched impeachment attempt.
Give it some time and see how it plays out and where it goes. Hëll, the election was just a month ago. There’s been little time for anything to really have been done or changed. Maybe by waiting a bit and not jumping the gun we’ll still end up with results we like. But do something foolish just because we want something done right now and we could end up in a worse boat then the one we’re in now.
Ok, you bring the torches and pitchforks, I’ll bring the cabbages, eggs, and tomatoes.
Like he did on 9-11?
Bill, my instict tells me that you are right. But experience tells us that the Republicans tried to impeach Clinton and won the presidency in 2000.
Very good point. I would suggest that in a way–an odd way–Bush benefited from this by being a governor, not a Washington insider. He wasn’t tainted with the impeachment. Al Gore, on the other hand–and unfairly–reminded people of the whole mess.
Now if the Democrats go ahead with impeachment and it turns out to be an unpopular mess this could end up helping a Democrat who is from outside Washington–Richardson, for example.
Another thing one should keep in mind here, in addition to what PAD said about impeached presidencies NOT going to the vice-president is this: Hypothetically, if Bush leaves office and Cheney does not assume the presidency… it will go to Pelosi.
DW
Jerry C stated: “Give it some time and see how it plays out and where it goes. Hëll, the election was just a month ago. There’s been little time for anything to really have been done or changed. Maybe by waiting a bit and not jumping the gun we’ll still end up with results we like. But do something foolish just because we want something done right now and we could end up in a worse boat then the one we’re in now.”
Now this is about the best way to explain the Democrats motivation for their “wait and see” strategy that I’ve heard on this thread.
I envision Congress trying to engage the world diplomaticly or repealing the wire tap thing. Then if Bush refuses or it was proven that The Ðìçk Cheney Energy meetings in 2001 were to supply the Zorgon Space fleet with US tax dollars for fuel for their starships…well then you’ve gotcher self your basic impeachment proceeding.
Bill Mulligan stated: “Folks, DO THE MATH! If you’ve ever had a pecan tree you know that the amount of nuts produced is measured by the hefty bag full. These furry bášŧárdš have each been storing a decades worth of nuts every year for the 5 years I’ve lived here. They have enough food to survive the nuclear winter of an asteroid strike by now. WHAT DO THEY KNOW?”
True Story: My wife and I had squirrels in the storage area an old apartment of ours. We got a humane trap from our land lord and baited it with peanut butter. The first time we tried it, it worked great. Instant squirrel.
The second time, however, I was awoken at 2:30am to a commotion in the storage area. I took a light with me and sure enough there were THREE squirrels in the storage area. One squirrel was just emerging from the trap because his other two squirrel buddies were overturning the dámņ trap and SUCCESSFULLY freeing their friend. WTF??
Do NOT turn your backs on the forces of the Squirrelly Empire! They are organized and THEY SKITTLE AMONG US!
–Captain Naraht
Oh great, they’ve figured out our technology!
Around here there are a variety of “squirrel proof” bird feeders. Wotta joke. I’ve never seen one that actually works and some of the more elaborate ones probably end up killing birds, which sort of defeats the purpose.
The only defense we have are our only true animal friends; dogs and cats. Dogs because they are so loveably dopey that they think that we are also dogs, dogs that have mastered the art of walking on two legs and using can openers, and cats because they want to finish us off themselves and see the squirrels as interlopers. Luckily they have very short attention spans (cats that is) and can never get a decent plan together before being distracted by shiny objects. I could walk through a whole army of cats with a laser pointer and never get a scratch.
Chris: um…I thought Clinton was impeached for lying under oath?…not for having a bløw jøb.
Luigi Novi: That was the ostensible reason given. The real reason is that the Republicans had been going after him ever since he decided to enter national politics.
Chris: What is sad is that most of the time whatever democrats accuse of Bush of doing, they have already done or are still doing.
Luigi Novi: Such as?
(While there was a passage after this quote about the different viewpoints on abortion, I’m not sure if that was intended as a fulfillment of this first sentence, since it doesn’t illustrate the things that “democrats accuse Bush of doing but are doing themselves.”)
Chris: One man’s barbarian is the other man’s scholar. They call it “A woman’s right to choose”, I call it “killing a baby behind closed doors with no one to stand and fight for the unseen and unheard child.”
Luigi Novi: And I, for one, do not consider a clump of cells to be a “baby” or a “child”. And unlike pro-lifers, this goes for both embryos that have attached themselves to the uterine wall as well as those embryos that disintegrate, fail to attach or are flushed out of the woman on their own without any human intervention.
May the gods of consistency help us.
Bill Myers: Goddammit, Luigi, your first remark about impeachment was the very point I was going to make! And you said it better than I would have! I take back everything nice I’ve ever said about you.
Luigi Novi: Sorry. It’s been so long since I made a post of any length or substance here that I snuck into your house last night and attached my Insight-o-syphoner to your forehead as you slept and stole that point. 🙂
Bill Myers: The problem? Well, for one thing, the suit was of dubious legal merits. It was funded by ultra-conservative hatchet-people like Ann Coulter…
Luigi Novi: While Coulter did work on the case (she was the one responsible for the contribution of the supposed bend in Clinton’s pëņìš to the public discourse, according to Susan Estrich in her book, Soulless), I don’t think she “funded” it, since I believe that was her first high-profile foray into national politics. While she comes from a well-to-do family, I don’t think she was very independently wealthy at that point.
Bill Myers: Not really. Bush wouldn’t be the first President to assert that certain constitutional protections can be suspended during wartime.
Luigi Novi: True. But after Abraham Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the Civil War, the Supreme Court later ruled it unconstitutional. I’d like to see the Supreme Court rule like that on some of the things Bush has done. Instead, Bush largely has the Court to thank for his Presidency.
Bill Mulligan: Hey, good to see you again, Luigi!
Luigi Novi: Bill, I never left. 🙂
Bill Mulligan: You’d think but I just took one of those dopey internet “tests” that’s supposed to show what your political party is.
Luigi Novi: This is what I got:
Anarchism 50%
Fascism 33%
Socialist 25%
Communism 25%
Democrat 25%
Green 17%
Nazi 0%
Republican 0%
I’m not sure how in the world that test decided that my tendency towards communism and socialism somehow equaled my tendency toward democracy, but what’s interesting is that out of the 24 questions, I put “No” down the line to two thirds of them. The eight to which I did not were the one about the people controlling the government, about violence being a way to gain power, the Big Brother one, voluntary cooperation of free individuals, the Karl Marx quote, the classless society, the environmentalist one, and the gun control one.
Bill Mulligan stated: “You’d think but I just took one of those dopey internet “tests” that’s supposed to show what your political party is.
http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=6916
Distressingly, here’s how I did:
Anarchism-100%
Democrat- 50%
Republican- 42%
Socialist- 42%
Communist, Green, fascism- 25%
nazi- 0%
Wtf? I mean, WTF??? Bill, do me a favor and take that test and tell me how you did. I smell bûllšhìŧ here.”
Captain Naraht’s results:
Anarchism 83%
Democrat 75%
Communism 50%
Socialist 50%
Green 42%
Republican 17%
Fascism 17%
Nazi 0%
Just so you know: Captain Naraht is Ray from NH. I have NEVER voted Republican. I favor expanding Medicaid or Medicare to anyone willing to voluntarily pay the user fee premiums. I am against further gun control, favor gay marriage, and thought we SHOULD have dropped the bomb on Japan because it saved JAPANESE lives let alone the lives of US troops. I vote left of center liberal. Supported Dean in the 2004 primaries, Gore over Bradley in 2000, and Clinton in the 1992 primaries.
Here’s a wild friggin thought to my conservative friend Bill Mulligan: Anarchists wrote the test. Sensors on board the USS Martin Luther King indicate that the Anarchist Bûllšhìŧ Meter is off the scale.
–Captain Naraht
To those who think that:
Impeachment Proceedings started by the Democrats = Big Democratic Loss in 2008, I’d remind you of not just the Clinton Impeachment (and how it didn’t cost bush the election) but more relevently, the proceedings begun against Nixon. He wasn’t impeached as in tried, but the proceedings to were under way.
Bush has a popularity rating about as low as Nixon did, and his own party was deserting him on the war, just like now. How did the election Turn out? Carter won; I think it’s likely that Nixon’s actions (and, true, Ford’s seeming bumbling all of the time) were what led to his election. Believe what you want about Carter’s presidency, but going after Nixon didn’t hurt the democrats.
I’d also like to second the suuggestion to read the talking points listed above at : http://www.impeachbush.tv/args/points_general.html
I’d forgotten how right they were. There is flat out evidence that Bush lied (Downing street memo, etc. listed on the site) approved illegal torture, and Deliberately deceived Congress and the nation about National Defense. I don’t see how this man isn’t impeachable.
I hate to make this personal but I have to ask the people who voted for bush and visit PAD’s blog hit this site and try to explain how they can live with the results of their actions. Bill Mulligan, I’m sorry, but I’m specifically looking at you. I’d like to see you visit a site such as the one I listed above and others such as: http://www.projectcensored.org/censored_2007/index.htm#7
and explain how you can justify voting this administration into power. (And yes, I know that it refers to 2006 actions/memos at first, but then goes on to explain how bush, gonzales, and the rest set this whole thing up much earlier. This is flat out murder, and I don’t see how a Kerry Presidency can be considered equivalent.
Well, one of the big Republican virtues is supposedly small government, right? You don’t get much smaller than non-existent, do you? 😉
Can’t take the “test” yet. It doesn’t seem to make it bast the filters at work. Can’t wait to see what it makes of me…
-Rex Hondo-
“What exactly could Bush be impeached FOR?”
Violation of his oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution. In particular, the Fourth Amendment.
I withold judgement on Iraq. To be honest, at the time many people believed Saddam had WMD, and Saddam was doing his best to convince the world he had them. A dumb bluff, but still…
However, the Constitutional violations inherent in the NSA wiretaps are an impeachable offense.
Impeach Bush? Is that the Democratic answer to voters’ call for change? More of the same? More gridlock? More years passing with nothing significant accomplished?
All an impeachment process would do is totally tie up and distract Congress for who knows how long, while both sides circled the wagons. The result? Not one frickin’ useful thing would be accomplished. It was a circus when Clinton was under the gun, and it will probably be even worse with Bush.
I can’t help feeling that such a vindictive, spiteful move would strip away all the gains the Democrats made this election because the independent voters, who are the swing voters who really decide which party is in power these days, are fed up with such time-wasting, partisan crap by both parties.
Geez, if we impeached everyone in Congress for saying, voting for, or doing stupid stuff, there’s be only a handful of people left on either side of the aisle.
Where’s a viable third party when you need one?
That man has been a nightmare not only to this country, but to the entire world.
He needs to go.
Luigi Novi: LIAR! If you had attached an Insight-o-syphoner to my head and posted the results as your own, this is what you would have written: “Bleh blah dah dahr nahnahnah globba glogga doo.”
Jokes aside, better you got here first with your point about impeachment. You said it better than I could’ve. 🙂
Thank you for the correction about Coulter’s role in the Paula Jones case. IIRC, though, it was bankrolled at least in part by some ultra-conservative group, was it not?
And while the Supreme Court did put Bush in office, the courts have also ruled against Bush on matters such as denying Geneva Convention protections to prisoners at Guantanamo. That’s why I continue to believe challenging Bush’s excesses in court is still the most appropriate path.
That test was obviously created by anarchists. I’m not surprised by the results people are getting, considering nearly every question is about broad political ideologies (freedom versus totalitarianism and so forth) rather than specific issues that, you know, would actually tell us something about ourselves. That’s the worst “political test” I’ve ever seen.
[b]Posted by R. Maheras at December 11, 2006 02:26 AM
Geez, if we impeached everyone in Congress for saying, voting for, or doing stupid stuff, there’s be only a handful of people left on either side of the aisle. [/b]
The smart and honest ones? Sorry, not actually seeing a downside here folks!
The theory surely says that the system has checks and balances whereby those who lead us are accountable to us? Whereby actions have consequences for those who perform them?
If that’s the case, then if there is evidence that a leader has misbehaved that leader must be impeached – whether it is expedient or not for any and all parties involved – and the system should then either exhonerate or convict them.
Reality, one might suggest, falls short of theory at this point.
Politicians lie to us, they follow hidden and/or personal agendas, they wheel and deal and shaft us time and time again, and we are no longer even mildly surprised, let alone outraged to the point of getting off our rumps and doing something about it!
Feh! No wonder voter turn out figures are dropping…
Cheers.
Bill Mulligan, I took the test and here’s what I got:
You scored as Democrat.
Democrat
83%
Socialist
50%
Anarchism
50%
Green
42%
Fascism
17%
Republican
8%
Nazi
0%
Communism
0%
What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In?
created with QuizFarm.com
Well, I’m a Democrat, so they got that part right. But I am neither a socialist nor an anarchist, so I would have to agree that this dopey test is rigged.
Here’s a wild friggin thought to my conservative friend Bill Mulligan: Anarchists wrote the test.
Sneaky little bášŧárdš. Just trying to get a bunch of us to go to their meetings which always quickly break down to a bunch a drunks watching two monkeys having a knife fight. So we’d never even get the chance to compare notes and figure out we all had nothing in common. Sneaky little bášŧárdš.
Is there anywhere an actual decent test of political persuasion?
back to something PAD said at the beginning of this thread–is Bush’s reportedly “tepid” response to the Iraq Commission’s report really grounds for even contemplating impeachment? I haven’t read the entire report myself but I’ve already heard elements that I have issues with. The Washigton Post–not exactly Fox News–is less than thrilled with it as well: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/09/AR2006120900581.html
I’m not saying that the report is not worth supporting but it seems to me that one can have issues with large parts of it without being necessarily out of touch.
“So, when Congress moves to impeach, bush declares Congress (most, if not all) to be enemy combatants & orders them arrested. When large demonstrations are held against this, bush declares a national crisis & mobilizes the troops.
Naturally, there would be a split in the country that could very well become a civil war.”
That’s not a bad idea for a book, actually.
PAD
That’s not a bad idea for a book, actually.
Pretty much anything this administration has said about anything approaching religious matters has been a teensy bit too Handmaid’s Tale for comfort already…
-Rex Hondo-
My feelings on impeachment now are the same as they were after the Downing Street memo was revealed: A call for impeachment, directly, is unfair and premature, but a call for investigation is absolutely necessary and should go where the facts lead it, with the knowledge that impeachment might be one of those courses of action.
What little evidence we do have seems to suggest a possibility that instead of being misled, Bush and his government deliberately shaped the evidence of WMD in order to provoke a war with Iraq for their own purposes and not the legitimate furtherance of the United States’ security and safety. That would be, if true, a clear and direct abuse of power, which has been cited on numerous occasions as an impeachable offense.
Note that I don’t suggest it is true–merely that it may be. In fact, I feel that the President should be demanding an investigation; if the charges are untrue and remain uninvestigated, his presidency and legacy will be tainted with scandal. If they are true, then regardless of his party affiliation, he should be impeached and removed from office; I have little truck with a President who lies to the American people to embroil them in a war.
Was scrolling up and saw this:
“For another take on this subject, has anybody seen today’s (December 10th) installment of Doonesbury? 😉
Yes. It was brutal. ;)”
So I looked and….BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
See it for yourselves:
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20061210
Bush taking action against Iraq…not what I’d term impeachable. After 9/11, Congress handed him the reigns and authority to do whatever he felt needed doing to protect the country. Congress just totally abdicatd it’s authority in one of the biggest matters…declaring war, and allowing full use of military power…to the Executive. According to the Constitution, Congress tells the President who we’re to engage, and then lets the President go about the business of engaging. With the post 9/11 grant of power, Congress placed the decision as to where to apply that power with the Executive. For that, it’s not the President that should be removed, it’s Congress.
Which the American people effectively did about a month ago. 3 years too late, really, but I guess better late than never.
Why is impeachment off the table for now? Because I think Congress has a duty to fully and impartially investigate this Executive before taking action. Being rash and moving on bad information gets you “stuck in Iraq.” There’s no need for this new Congress…which hasn’t even officially taken office yet…to commit to an action that the facts might not bear out. Mind, personally I think Bush’s actions regarding the unauthorized spying on American citizens is enough reason to impeach him. Then again, he’s been operating with nearly carte blanche powers his whole administration. If Congress were to pass laws making it crystal clear to Bush that he’s to engage the procedures of the FISA court in his work to protect us, and he fails to abide, by all means impeach him. But make the effort to reign him in, first. Because like it or not, he won those elections. When he talks about acting with the mandate of the People, you can’t really argue against him. But now that the People have expressed their displeasure, it’s only if he fails to respond to this new mandate that I think he should be removed.
Bill Mulligan wrote: “Sneaky little bášŧárdš. Just trying to get a bunch of us to go to their meetings which always quickly break down to a bunch a drunks watching two monkeys having a knife fight. So we’d never even get the chance to compare notes and figure out we all had nothing in common. Sneaky little bášŧárdš.”
Sneaky hmn…a bunch a drunks watching two monkeys having a knife fight….hmn? The evidence is clear. This test was written by Anarchist SQUIRRELLS!! Only they could have come up with so diobolical and confusing a test!
–Captain Naraht
Umm, off track, but I’m looking at the cover of Wonderman #1 coming out this week, written by PAD, and I’m very very scared. Now I’ve always liked Wonderman a whole bunch, I find him to be a proto-McDreamy. But the art on the cover has me second guessing. I think it’s a total mismatch for the established fandom of Simon Williams. The dude on this cover looks like a knock-off (a bad one) of Namor. Fraking Namor? Really? Yup.
I’ll get it, however if the rest of the art in the book is like the cover and detracts from the story, I’m out of there.
R. Maheras –
Impeach Bush? Is that the Democratic answer to voters’ call for change?
Let’s take a look at the most recent impeachments on the national level:
Clinton, President, Democrat
Davis, Governor of California, Democrat
Quite a track record for the supposed “Democratic answer”.
More years passing with nothing significant accomplished?
Which is why Bush is already rejecting the latest report on Iraq…
Bill Mulligan
The Washigton Post–not exactly Fox News–
You mean, the Washington Post didn’t call it Operation Surrender too? I’m disappointed. 😉
If the Democrats would do what they should be doing, then it’s likely very little would get accomplished in the next two years, because it would take that two years to get to the bottom of all the šhìŧ Bush has done since he got into office.
Rendition, wire tapping, Iraq, signing statements. Any one of these are worthy of impeachment, but all of them need to be investigated in full. When you get down to it, we’ve called others war criminals for less, yet Bush just keeps on doing what he’s doing.
Opus was pretty funny, too.
http://www.uclick.com/client/wpc/wpopu/
Posted by: Craig J. Ries at December 11, 2006 10:47 AM
Let’s take a look at the most recent impeachments on the national level:
Clinton, President, Democrat
Davis, Governor of California, Democrat
It may seem like a fine distinction to you, but Davis wasn’t impeached. He lost the governorship in a recall election.
It’s funny, but if the whole Clinton bj horror hadn’t happened then, well, Bush probably wouldn’t be President, but that’s another matter entirely.
The whole fiasco surrounding the Clinton impeachment caused so much frustration in the public, let alone the power brokers on the Hill, that it’s highly unlikely that we’ll see anything else like it for another generation, or so. Even though most sane people agree that one person’s moral indiscretions are miniscule when compared to the malfeasance of the present administration, the public isn’t going to tolerate the kind of politial infighting that would be the result of any impeachment hearings. It’s a little known fact (at least, I didn’t know it till my Constitutional Law professor pointed it out this term) that the law allowing the appointment of independent counsel was allowed to lapse and Congress doesn’t seem terribly concerned with making a new one which is a direct effect of the whole Lewinski rigamarole of the late ’90s.
That combined with the growing aggravation with Congress’s inability to accomplish anything productive for the nation in the past 2 years and it would be political suicide for any Democrat to breathe a word of impeachment. Pelosi’s already said that she’s not going to bring the action but instead is going to focus on other priorities. It seems that the greatest thing that the last Congress did for Bush was to provide him a type of political carte blanche over the impeachement issue.
There are so many reasons why I am fed up with politics in America, and this is certainly one of them. My only hope is that Congress will finally begin acting as the check on the power of the Executive that it was meant to be. If they do then even if Bush isn’t impeached we may see him stripped of nearly all effective power to decide the course of national policy. Hey, a girl can dream.
It may seem like a fine distinction to you, but Davis wasn’t impeached. He lost the governorship in a recall election.
Hmm, yeah, I typed that out without really thinking it through. Still, recall runs along the same lines as an impeachment: he was forceably removed from office before the end of his term.
You know, I take a lot of things off the table…books, groceries..my dog…becasuse I don’t need them there at the time…funny thing, though…when the time is right, I can always put them back on the table.
I know this is picking nits since the meaning of Craig’s words are clear but for the record (just because I’m so tired of even the professionals getting it wrong)but impeachement is not the same as removal. Neither is recall, actually.
“Geez, if we impeached everyone in Congress for saying, voting for, or doing stupid stuff, there’s be only a handful of people left on either side of the aisle.”
Do you have a problem with quality over quantity?
Furthermore, I think Bush’s actions–from illegal wiretaps to repeated and willful violations of the bill of rights and the Geneva convention–is a bit more serious than “stupid stuff.”
The GOP has no one to blame for itself but this: They lowered the bar for the standard of impeachment. To claim that the Democrats are now somehow lessened or off-base if they choose to pursue the same course for actions of far greater scope is hypocrisy of the highest order.
PAD
Opus was pretty funny, too.
http://www.uclick.com/client/wpc/wpopu/
Nice to see that Steve Dallas won a major award.
That’s not a bad idea for a book, actually.
Cut me in for a small but reasonable share of the royalties and it’s yours. E-mail me.
🙂
——-
To claim that the Democrats are now somehow lessened or off-base if they choose to pursue the same course for actions of far greater scope is hypocrisy of the highest order.
So what else is new?
Posted by: Bill Mulligan
I know this is picking nits since the meaning of Craig’s words are clear but for the record (just because I’m so tired of even the professionals getting it wrong)but impeachement is not the same as removal. Neither is recall, actually.
That’s one they keep getting wrong; another that twinged a particular twitch of mine every itime i heard it – and Brit media people were as bad as USAian ones about this – was “Princess Diana”.
NO.
“Diana, Princess of Wales”.
The only way that marrying a prince allows you to put the “Princess” before your given name is if he’s a regnant prince – hence, “Princess Grace of Monaco” is perfectly correct.
Charles got to be “Prince Charles” because his mommy was Queen. However, in his own right, he was also “Charles [and the rest of his names], Prince of Wales”.
And that was the prince that Diana married…
{pant pant, gasp…}
{wipe froth from beard…}
Bobb Alfred said:
“Bush taking action against Iraq…not what I’d term impeachable. After 9/11, Congress handed him the reigns and authority to do whatever he felt needed doing to protect the country. Congress just totally abdicatd it’s authority in one of the biggest matters…declaring war, and allowing full use of military power…to the Executive. According to the Constitution, Congress tells the President who we’re to engage, and then lets the President go about the business of engaging. With the post 9/11 grant of power, Congress placed the decision as to where to apply that power with the Executive. For that, it’s not the President that should be removed, it’s Congress.”
This is factually incorrect; Bush did, in fact, have to seek authority from Congress to use military force against Iraq, separate from any authorization he gained post-9/11. Yes, Congress did pretty much function as a rubber stamp, but at that point, Bush was insisting that the United States was in imminent danger from a madman who was near to possessing nuclear weapons, and Congress simply didn’t have the information to counter his assertions.
This would be why I think impeachment would be a reasonable step _if_ his concealment of that information was, in fact, deliberate–he would have deliberately denied Congress the information they needed to make their decision and created an atmosphere of panic, simply because he personally wanted to prosecute war against Iraq.
My opinion?
Investigate the administration, have reports released around this time in 2008 and, if the evidence warrants, begin criminal proceedings on January 21, 2009.
“Posted by Sasha at December 11, 2006 09:57 PM
Investigate the administration, have reports released around this time in 2008 and, if the evidence warrants, begin criminal proceedings on January 21, 2009.”
Do you have an estimate of fatalities and further foul-ups to take place over that period?
It can’t be about when it’s convenient/expedient to impeach the guy. If there’s evidence of crime you press charges.
Quite apart from “a cold dash of water” for Bush, it would send a clear message to the rest of the world that if things do get screwed up at home you are willing to fix them. (We in the UK should follow suit on this one too… I love the idea of Tony Bliar sharing a cell with Saddam. Sigh.. wishful thinking!)
BTW, Megan said “miniscule”. (This is actually a corruption of the original Nordic for ‘many squirrels’)
Cheers.
Mike Weber
On the Princess Diana, thing, can I say you are half right. When she and Charles where married she was indeed Princess Diana, because she was married to the heir to the throne and could be expected to become Queen consort one day. When Andrew and Edward married as the “lesser” princes their wives weren’t made princesses because they wouldn’t become a royal consort one day. After Charles and Diana divorced, she lost the right to call herself Princess Diana but was allowed to call herself Princess of Wales, as she was mother to the heir to the title Princes of Wales.
Bill Mulligan asked:
Is there anywhere an actual decent test of political persuasion?
Have you tried http://www.politicalcompass.org?
On behalf of Britain, thanks for introducing the grey squirrel to our shores, by the way. 🙂
A clarification: I meant whoever brought the greys over from North America, not Bill personally.
Fortunately we have the European Squirrel initiative to save us from the grey tide – see http://www.europeansquirrelinitiative.org/introduction.html
Squirrels to be given contraceptives
The squirrels themselves have been cooperative with contraception efforts, as condoms give them a new way to hide their nuts.
Bill Myers: Thank you for the correction about Coulter’s role in the Paula Jones case. IIRC, though, it was bankrolled at least in part by some ultra-conservative group, was it not?
Luigi Novi: I’m currently reading The Hunting of the President, but I haven’t yet gotten to the part about the Paula Jones matters, as I’m still at the part about Troopergate. Though yeah, there was a cabal of different people and organizations bankrolling the entire decade-long witchhunt against him, including Peter Smith, Richard Melon Scaife, etc.
Megan: It’s funny, but if the whole Clinton bj horror hadn’t happened then, well, Bush probably wouldn’t be President, but that’s another matter entirely.
Luigi Novi: I think Bush’s win was more a matter of Gore not putting on a strong enough campaign, not being charismatic enough, and possibly distancing himself too much from Clinton.
Craig J. Ries: Still, recall runs along the same lines as an impeachment: he was forceably removed from office before the end of his term.
Luigi Novi: Impeachment is not the removal from office. Impeachment is only the legal statement of charges, parallelling an indictment in criminal law. It tends to serve as the first of two stages in removal of office, but Davis was never accused of a crime.
Bobb Alfred: Bush taking action against Iraq…not what I’d term impeachable. After 9/11, Congress handed him the reigns and authority to do whatever he felt needed doing to protect the country.
Luigi Novi: Based on poor information, possibly knowingly so on the administration’s part.
Okay, before I get blamed for sending another thread off the rails:
Posted by: Peter David at December 11, 2006 03:13 PM
The GOP has no one to blame for itself but this: They lowered the bar for the standard of impeachment. To claim that the Democrats are now somehow lessened or off-base if they choose to pursue the same course for actions of far greater scope is hypocrisy of the highest order.
I’m a registered Democrat. I vote mostly for Democratic candidates. I believe the impeachment of Clinton was wrong. I believe impeaching Bush would be wrong as well. It shouldn’t be a partisan issue. What we’re talking about here is an issue of principle.
Impeachment is the first step toward removing a president from office. The very idea of undoing an election should not be taken lightly. Ours is not a parliamentary system, where the executive faces the ever-present possibility of a vote of no confidence. As Micha pointed out, that gives our government a level of much-needed stability.
Richard M. Nixon was nearly impeached because he attempted to cover up an attempt by his political operatives to subvert the democratic process on his behalf. It was a crime that struck at the very heart of our republic. Impeachment proceedings were justified. Had Nixon not resigned, he most certainly would have been impeached, and quite possibly removed from office.
Clinton’s crime was minor: lying under oath in response to a question that shouldn’t have been asked during depositions for a lawsuit that was of dubious legal merit. He should never have been impeached.
Peter, you are correct that George W. Bush’s actions are of far greater scope. Many of those actions were sanctioned by the Patriot Act, however, which was passed by Congress. The invasion of Iraq was authorized by Congress as well. I find it hard to come up with a justification for impeaching a president under those circumstances.
If certain portions of the Patriot Act were struck down by the Supreme Court, and Bush were to ignore that ruling, then I think we’d have grounds for impeachment. If we learned that Bush had not merely been myopic in the way that he weighed evidence of Iraq’s potential threat, but had outright falsified evidence supporting his thesis or suppressed or destroyed evidence contradicting it, that too would be impeachable.
As it stands, however, I don’t think we have grounds to impeach Bush. Would it be more justifiable than the impeachment of Clinton? Perhaps. But I think we’d be well served not to use that farce as a yardstick for anything. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Posted by: UKMikey at December 12, 2006 01:15 PM
A clarification: I meant whoever brought the greys over from North America, not Bill personally.
How do you know it wasn’t Bill Mulligan? He is the Squirrel Commander, you know.
Well, Bill, where were you when the grey squirrel was introduced to the shores of Britain, hmmm?
Don’t leave town, Bill.