Okay, *not * everyone knows it. 
Cite?
That is perhaps closer to the truth, although still not supportable. You can’t prove that a trap was set. Certainly some Republicans were looking for an excuse to impeach him, but he gave them that excuse. You can’t blame anyone else besides him. No one forced him to lie under oath.
I don’t see what you want me to prove. If a simple majority of the House of Representatives agrees it was not illegal, goddammit, it’s not illegal, no matter what they base their decision on. If I believe the Republicans are just corrupt enough to support their party’s President without regard to what he did, there is no legal basis necessary for that opinion. Either they are, or they aren’t; you obviously disagree. But demanding we “prove” otherwise does nothing to support your opinion over mine, any more than if I demanded you “prove” that Republican congressman are ethical enough to convict Bush on any charges, no matter how blatant.
No legal arguments are required; only the consensus of a simple majority of the House. If they say the wiretapping without a warrant was illegal, then it is illegal. Congress has the constitutional power to define was is and is not legal, and it may done on without any supporting legal arguments beyond personal opinion. I see no reason why I should be held to a higher standard than the Congress.
I believe the Democrats would impeach him in a heartbeat for political reasons, and I would support them on it. Get that meat puppet out of office by any Constitutional means necessary.
The fact that he hasn’t been impeached already.
There’s a river in Egypt in full flood around here …
It wasn’t a trap? A 7 year, $40,000,000 investigation by Ken Starr into Whitewater (itself a somewhat dubious “scandal”) ends up devolving into, “Did you get a hummer in the Oval Office?”
Maybe trap is the wrong word as that implies some sort of plan…they were just dragging the bottom for any piece of shit to stick to Clinton.
Cite for what? That the “perjury” weasel didn’t work then or that it doesn’t work now?
Kenneth Starr fed the Lewisnky information to Paula Jones’ lawyers. The two cases were completely unrelated. The blow job had no relevance to the Paula Jones harrassment suit (a frivolous and politically motivated lawsuti which itself was ultimately thrown out of court for lack of merit). The information was fed to the PJ lawyers specifically so that Clinton could be asked about it under oath and (hopefully) cause him to lie. The attempt failed (Clinton did not technically lie) but Clinton’s carefully parsimonious answer was enough to make political hay, and force BC to have to testify before the Grand Jury. Ultimately he was impeached not for the blow job question but for allegedly lying to the Grand Jury about whether he had sucked Miss Lewinsky’s nipples as well as an unsubstantiated, bullshit charge of Obstruction of Justice for allegedly helping Lewinsky write the so-called “talking points memo.” A charge that was never remotely substantiated, and which Lewinsky herself denied. Starr’s own investigation determined that the memo was written on Lewisnky’s own computer. The only support ever offered for the accusation against Clinton was the expert opinion of dozens of Republicans and right wing radio talk show hosts that Monica Lewinsky “could not have written it herself.” I guess because she was a woman or something. They never explained.
In any case, the Clinton impeachment shows just how deeply politically the process is and how little actually needs to be substantiated or even alleged.
Are you disagreeing with me? Because I don’t read your post as saying anything substatially different than what I said.
As for the OP…
I can’t see even a Democratically controled Congress impeaching Bush over the Iraq war as long as we still have troops fighting there. Guantanimo? No way. NSA wiretapping issue? Nope. Congress might force him to stop, but they won’t impeach him over it.
The only way I see an impeachment happening is for the Dems to take control of both housed of Congress in November (highly unlikely) and for them to bring all the troops home for Iraq (also highly unlikely) and then for there to be enough time left for an impeachment (also highly unlikely). As you may know, to determine the probability of an event, you mulitply the probability of all the things that have to happen for that event to take place. Even if we assigning a 10% probability to those three events*, that results in a .1% probability of impeachment. How’s that for putting a quantitative measure on imeachment?
*very generous, indeed
A discussion of perjury traps.
Now what more-innocent purpose do you think Starr actually had, John? {:dubious:
It was definitely planned. The Lewinsky info was fed to the PJ team solely as an attempt to sucker BC into lying under oath. It was a complete trap and it was done from desperation after failing to find any wrongdoing in the Whitewater case.
Both. That is what you claimed. And cites for the claim that he was impeached for a blowjob and that everyone knows it. Or, a retraction of either of those claims is also acceptable if you can’t produce a cite.
That is the key flaw in your argument, even if I accept the rest of it. We’ve been over this many times. Clinton lied. No ifs ands or buts about it. I can dredge up that last thread on that subject (I think it was in the Pit) if you insist on perpetuatiing that piece of misinformation.
Sure, because when the matter came up, the decision was made by the Justice Department to refer the matter to Starr rather than appoint a separate independent prosecutor. There were already enough special prosecutors running aroung Washington at the time, I suppose was the thinking. Starr wasn’t the only one at the time.
I could find the letter authorizing him to look into this matter, but I’m sure some folks here still wouldn’t be convinced. At any case, it isn’t like he went off on his own looking into things.
The questions asked about Lewinski were relavent to the Paul Jones lawsuit, which is what Starr was investigating at the time.
Yes, and? Take it one step further, and explain *why * Starr was involved in the Jones matter.
Hint: This is a “bullshit trap”.
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Both. That is what you claimed.[/qupte]
In the case of the former, you actually want a cite that he was acquitted? In the case of the former, ask 100 people what Clinton was impeached for and how many do you think will say “blow job” as opposed to “petrjury and obstruction?”
No retraction forthcoming. Sorry. He was impeached for a blow job and everybody knows it, including you. Impeachment is a political process, not a legalistic one and the political reality is that Congress hoped that a sex scandal would turn political opinion against Clinton. The technical charge were irrelevant, Politically, it was always about Clinton getting a blow job.
If you want to dredge this up, you will lose. The manner in which the question was worded allowed Clinton to say “no” without technically lying. He was only asked about what he had done to her, not what she had done to him, and “oral sex” was specifically crossed off of the definition of “sex” by the judge.
No they weren’t.
No he wasn’t. Starr did not widen his investigation to include Paula Jones until after Clinton had given his deposition. At the time Starr fed the PJ team with the blow job dirt, he was not investigating the PJ case.
That’s the rub isn’t? I think this is what galls more than anything.
We had Clinton under the microscope for 7 years in something that can only be described as a witch hunt. Indeed the original reason for the hunt was a big dead end so it continued till something, anything could be found.
We then get a holier-than-thou republican house bloviating on the horrors of Clinton lying to congress about whether or not he got a blowjob.
Move to today and read the OP again. Check out the links. If Bill Clinton was worthy of starting impeachment proceedings against how in the world can someone suggest Bush is not worthy of the same. The things Bush may be guilty of…any of them…FAR surpass anything Clinton did.
Impeach too much for you just yet because nothing is “proven” then fine. Get Ken Starr back here, hand him $40,000,000 and give him 7 years to climb up the president’s ass with a microscope (and yes I know Bush does not have 7 years left in office). If Bush comes out clean after that then great.
What does troops in Iraq have to do with anything? The President becomes immune to being held accountable for anything and can do as he pleases as long as he has troops fighting somewhere? Considering the “war on terror” is likely to exist for the next few generations do American presidents now have carte blanche to do as they please? Constitution and congress be damned?
Impweached or not the troops in Iraq will likely get on with business as usual. I cannot see how they would be adversely affected if the president was impeached.
I think John mace is right about that. Remember that impeachment is fundamentally a political process–no president is going to get impeached for starting a war for which we still have troops committed (albeit as an occupying force).
I have a dream.
My dream is that someday this board starts a thread on impeachment and it immediately gets bogged down into a shouting match over Andrew Johnson’s impeachment. It’d be a refreshing change, don’t you think?
Addressing the OP, the Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach the President if he commits “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors”. I’m no fan of the our President, but I’d have a difficult time arguing and of his activities constituted treason or bribery. So the issue would become whether or not his activities constituted a high crime or misdemeanor, for which there is no legal definition.