Yeah, this is going to be a down and dirty wrestling match for prez this time around. This appeared last week and is getting a moderate amount of play. Kucinich has a slim to none chance of winning, but he’s setting a tone… No, it’s already pretty dirty. Just ask Obama. Or Hillary.
So, any of you think we should impeach Bush? Of course, we’d then get Cheney who I think it’s fair to say would not provide the kind of change impeachment seeks to implement.
UPDATE: Salt Lake City mayor, Rocky Anderson, called for Bush to be impeached on CNN with detailed reasons for doing so. He also knocks fellow Democrats for not calling for impeachment. Watch video.
So, any of you think we should impeach Bush?
I don’t. For one, it would take forever and gridlock congress, and two, congress can slap him down if they have the desire. We have a balance of powers in the US, and it’s time for the other two branches to grow spines.
Why bother when his term has less than two years left? Would take longer do the impeachment, and be a big waste of money, a lot like Clinton’s impeachment. Plus his cabinet would still be intact to cause more of the same problems we are having.
Why bother? Because it, as politicos love to say, “will send a message.” For Sonnyboy to go down in flames would teach the arrogant fascist bastards a much-needed lesson in humility. Far better he leave office in disgrace.
The way things are going so far, with all this infighting, if I were the Democrats, I wouldn’t be ordering drapes for the Lincoln Bedroom just yet.
Anyway, it’s a more popular idea than you might think.
Yet another hack thread.
Find the law he broke and you’ll have something. Until then the impeachment crap will continue to cost the left middle-of-the-road voters.
Find the law he broke and you’ll have something.
Suggest you WATCH the video… it’s a violation of Article 6, as mentioned. Ironically, the argument about Treaties is used both ways by Neocons, ignored in an attack on Iraq, and insisting that we ‘can’t’ violate Treaties when it comes to internal politics and law (specifically as noted in an outtake from TRAFFIC) as to why ‘we can’t legalize drugs’ or other activities.
J/P=?
Like almost all of our presidents, since Jefferson, the time to start impeachment was about a week after he took office. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.
But I digress. Even though sending a message is a nice idea, I think Congress has better things to occupy their time for the next two years. And of course it WOULD be a tragic if they initiated impeachment and were not successful.
Better to just let W continue bumbling so that come next November, folks still know what they are voting against.
What about justice? If it serves justice to impeach him, shouldn’t it then be done?
Or don’t we care about justice any more?
If I understand your system correctly, Congress brings the impeachment which is then followed by the Senate doing the trial.
Clinton was impeached in 1998, and that process took the better part of a year. The trial, on the other hand, was 21 days.
So, impeach away. It won’t matter unless the Senate convicts.
Having said that, what specific charges would you bring?
Yeah, lets have some justice — Texas Style!
Impeach him and hang him.
Just before the war I was convinced Iraq would be our second Vietnam.
Johnson wasn’t impeached for Vietnam.
Go ahead and impeach Bush, the Dems don’t have the votes in the Seante to remove him and it will pretty much guarantee the GOP winning both Houses of Congress and the White House in 2008. The American public will see it for what it is, and it will fail. So go ahead, make the GOP’s day.
I think he’s one of the worst presidents… ever.
But he should not be impeached.
Personally I find the constant sniping between democrats and republicans, – no matter who is office, to be a bigger long term problem for our country than George W. is. He’ll be gone in two years.
The acrimony and bad blood resulting from an impeachment trial will hang on a lot longer.
A lot of republicans have already left the George W. bandwagon and would happily side with the Democrats if he wanted to do anything really stupid. A barely justifiable impeachment process would anger a lot of those same republicans and send them back to the fold.
After the last election, it seems a lot of republicans now talk about “conservatism” in a more economic sense. This is a good thing. They appear to want to be less beholden to Neocons and the religious right.
“Johnson wasn’t impeached for Vietnam.”
Of course he wasn’t , he didn’t get us into the mess in the first place.
GW OTOH . . .
I think we should let him finish his term then prosecute him after he leaves office.
Don’t underestimate idiots: two years is a lot of time for a lot more damage. Hard to imagine? Well, just have a look at what he has already managed to accomplish. Not many people thought this country would be what it is now. And yet, here we are: rampant law violations by admin cronies, civil right abuses, economy running on borrowed funds, etc.
Wow, between Kucinich, Hillary and Obama you Democrats can really pick ’em. Not a one of those 3 are electable.
Well, if Clinton can get impeached for lying about having sex outside of marriage, then Bush should have been impeached long ago for the numerous illegal activities in which he has been engaged. Did any Republicans not want to bother with Clinton because he would be gone in a short period of time? They opened the door for this and Bush stepped through long ago.
Anyone thinking impeachment needs to go count the Rs and Ds in the Legislative Branch. Still, Bush insiders probably see the handwriting on the wall and are dusting off their CYA folders… well, then again maybe not, those may have stayed too active to ever collect much dust. Anyway, as those folks back away from the idea that Duhbya is the smartest man in the world and his base starts to realize that he may be rapidly becoming indefensible, he may in turn suddenly become more reasonable and miraculously acquire better listening skills. In which case impeachment might be an option, but probably the most likely course would be a political deal being cut that heads that off, in exchange for some set of conditions being met that only the insiders doing the work will know. The more serious problem if you don’t see Neoconville as Nirvana is coming up with a democratic candidate for 2008 with some cross-faction appeal, that isn’t a bumbling twit-ninny that can stay on a message as effectively as the Bushies did in the last two elections. Jim Webb’s campaign in Virginia followed that model in a state which somewhat mirrors America and succeeded. Webb may not be the guy, but it’s hard to argue with the results of his approach.
@ Tom: “I think he’s one of the worst presidents… ever. But he should not be impeached. Personally I find the constant sniping between democrats and republicans, – no matter who is office, to be a bigger long term problem for our country than George W. is. He’ll be gone in two years.”
I think both problems (or more accurately their consequences) will be with us for many years. Long enough so that I have a hard time anymore determining which is worse. Partisan divisions vs Bush – either one tends to lead to the other.
Another poster mentioned the real problem with impeachment though – there aren’t currently enough votes in the Senate to make a conviction, and you can thank Clinton for taking the stigma off of even going through a trial (yeah – I think he should have resigned, ala Nixon).
One other bit of paranoia that struck me as I read your post though was, what if he ISN’T gone in 2 years? What if something happens that allows Bush – or Cheney – to declare the dreaded “M” word? In that admittedly far-fetched circumstance, we would probably be kicking ourselves for at least not trying to get rid of him when we had the chance.
Back from a Vegas vacation and nothing makes me feel more at home than a good ole ‘impeach President Bush’ story. Thank you Uncle Dave. The problem with this enterprise is that the Bush Administration has enough plausible deniability to last them the rest of their term. And I hope that Karl and Dick have done enough contingency planning to thwart any kind of political attack.
What will impeachment do besides give the USA the precedent that the last 2 presidents will have been impeached in their 2nd term. Clinton was impeached but he didn’t leave office. The same would happen with Bush.
And short of the majority of the country being nuked, I don’t see ANY way that Bush will be here past the 2008 election.
If you don’t like what’s going on in Congress, remember to complain to all of your representatives, not just GW.
Try it. you will feel better and your rep will know what you want.
Participate! don’t just complain!
We (the US) want to push Democracy on others and YOU arn’t willing to participate yourself.
All of these blog entries don’t do nuthing or change anyones mind.
But, a flood of e-mails from you will geet your representatives attention!
This blog is great for fostering ideas. but like ‘speakers corner’ in te UK if you are more than 50′ away you can’t hear.
Get off your dead ass and do something constuctive.
Oh, by the way I think they are all guilty in DC not just the pres.
my 4c.
Anyone who thinks Bush should be impeached, but does not think Gore should be executed for crimes against humanity for the crap he’s trying to pull is being biased and not even worth listening to.
Bush should be impeached for lying America into a false war.
Bush should be impeached for repressing the truth about global warming.
Bush should be impeached for being stupid.
Bush should be impeached for being lazy.
Bush should be impeached for being mean and heartless.
Bush should be impeached for wanting to start World War III and nuking Iran.
But first impeach Cheney.
“Bush should be impeached for being stupid.
Bush should be impeached for being lazy.
Bush should be impeached for being mean and heartless.”
If that were criteria for impeachment, we would have impeached about 90% of our past presidents by now.
Funny. I expected Kucinich to sound all shrill and extreme, from what I’ve read about him in the media. Yet there he is, all temperate and thoughtful and saying stuff that’s utterly reasonable to consider. He’s not even recommending impeachment – just the discussion.
I’m not convinced he’s right, though. The neo-cons have already deserted Bush. (For the “show me a citation or you’re fulla crap” crowd: http://tinyurl.com/yn2g24 )
As someone pointed out in reply to a rather intemperate display of distrust I made regarding the biggest thief in the White House (Cheney), even Poppa Bush seems to be crying about his son’s performance. A far cry from Poppa’s “leave my brilliant son alone” remark of, I dunno, a year or two ago.
Bush will be hard-pressed to get cooperation from military officers if he asks them to extend their forces even further past the point than they are now of seeing reasonable hope of carrying out their mission as defined by the regime’s True Believer In Chief.
The time to impeach this offense against the office of the presidency was in 2003, but that was long before the supposed “opposition” party started to find a spine. There is risk in letting this incompetent, God-consulting fool continue in office, yes. But serious impeachment proceedings would bring a greater risk – that the right-wing corruptos posing as “conservatives” might regain control of the legislative branch.
Continue the public investigations into misconduct. Throw more light on the past few years of government by cockroach. Don’t divert the cleansing spotlight over to an impeachment proceeding, in the badly gerrymandered House, that has no hope of conviction in the Senate.
Look at the smug attitudes of the Bush apologists. They seem to hope it will happen. Bush is deadlocked anyway, so there’s no downside for the corruptos. Impeachment is tempting only in a temper-tantrum sort of way. Cheap revenge. Not worth it.
Speaking of smug, anyone who disagrees with radicals like Kucinich are “Bush Apologists” now?
Funny.
I say try it. In fact I hope the Democrats start impeachment proceedings as soon as possible. G’head. See how it affects the 2008 elections.
Instead of impeaching, why not transfer Bush to president of Iraq? He could serve a life time term over there and accomplish His dream of bringing Democracy to the Middle East.
Does impeachment effectively nullify the damage he has done to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution? Couldnt some of this be reversed?
Doesnt matter. Impeach. Convict. Punish the criminal, in tandem with Dead Eye Dickless Cheney.
Even though impeachment is a non-starter, raising the topic can still serve a purpose. Before we choose our next president, we need to be reminded that religion doesn’t necessarily imply honesty and respect for our man-made laws here on earth. I’m sure whatever infractions Bush committed while in office were fully approved by God himself.
On a side note, I’d love to see how Cheney dresses when he’s impersonating God 😉
the only solid grounds (AFAIK) for impeaching Bush would be for wholesale violation of FISA.
But, given that the GOP members of congress would never go for it, and the Democrats don’t have the numbers, I say don’t impeach him, but rather criminally prosecute him once he has left office. There is nothing in the Constitution that provides a president with immunity from prosecution for misdeeds he committed in office.