Do you think this can happen?
OG, I hope so!!!
It would at least be a way to shift the news coverage away from Paris, Britney, Anna Nicole, Pacman and Michael Vick. I’d watch it!
Yes, I think it can happen. I also think it’s too late to get the job done while Mr. Bush is in office. Still, it might be useful to get the accusations and denials on the front pages and the evening news.
There certainly won’t ever be a chance of getting two thirds of the Senate to vote for the impeachment of Dubya, so impeachment would at most be a symbolic punishment. As any Republican who remembers 1998 can testify, a party that sets its heart on impeachment has to abandon most of its other goals for the space of about a year. So if the Democrats try for impeachment, we’ll enter the 2008 election season with no accomplishments except throwing a spitwad at a lame duck President. Far better to focus on the legislative agenda that we promised in 2006.
Without a doubt, Bush has committed many crimes, any one of which is enough to merit impeachment from a moral and legal perspective. But circumstances prevent us from actually punishing him, and there’s nothing we can do to change that right now. I hope he’s prosecuted and punished adequately some time after leaving office.
Fail or not , I want the effort. Impeach away and make these guys who would be kings think about what they are doing… I also want a vote recorded for who is for and who against.
The trial would be a great deal more than symbolic. (The procedure is, the House votes to impeach, the official is tried in the Senate, the Senate votes to convict or not – “conviction” means removal from office, not any criminal penalty.) Everything W and anyone under him has done in connection with lying us into war, drafting the Justice Department into a partisan-political tool, authorizing torture or “extraordinary rendition,” or anything else covered in the articles of impeachment would be laid bare on national television (and not just C-Span, either). Testimony would be compelled. Documents would be published. Even if this did not result in W’s and Cheney’s conviction/removal, it would personally discredit everyone highly placed in the Administration for the rest of their lives; never again could they hope to find their way back into government, as so many of Nixon’s staffers did after he avoided the whole thing by resigning.
It would also produce evidence that could be used in criminal proceedings against Bush after he leaves office. (He can’t pardon himself, can he?)
And I think so much would come out that even some Pubs would feel obliged to vote to convict, even if that means making Nancy Pelosi president, however briefly.
Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega opines it would be grounds for impeachment for Bush to invoke executive privilege, or use his control of the Justice Department, to stymie Congress’ investigation into the attorney-firings scandal.
Like Nixon was ? Hardly. Just like Nixon, the lesson of the Bush Administration will be that there is no law for the President. And America will be corrupted towards dictatorship that much more.
As for the " legislative agenda that we promised in 2006", the Democrats have already caved on that. Caving is what they do. The war, and Bush’s behavior are what matters. Congress has shown that they don’t matter. Not impeaching will simply underline that.
President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998, and acquitted by the Senate on February 12, 1999. It only took two months for that to go through. Tack on another two months for a House committee to explore the issue of impeachment and you have four months, tops.
What crimes are those? Last I checked Bush has not been charged or convicted of any crimes in the United States since the beginning of his Presidency.
A President does not need to be convicted by a criminal jury to be impeached and removed from office. Impeachment is inherently a political process.
No, he has not. That does not mean we cannot accuse him of crimes. The law must presume a person’s innocence until guilt is proven; the public need not. Just ask anyone if OJ is a murderer.
“Twopence more and up goes the donkey!”
I never said otherwise, in fact many times on these very forums I have rejected the idea that anything is an especially “impeachable offense” because an impeachable offense is whatever the House says it is, period. But I was specifically responding to the claim that ITR champion made, he specifically stated that Bush has committed many crimes. I asked what crimes he was talking about, and what evidence he has to support the claim that Bush has committed many crimes (while in office.)
Sure you can accuse him of crimes. And without evidence that he has been charged or convicted it makes people look foolish. OJ was at least charged with murder.
And, any Party with a Majority can Impeach. The GOP did it to Clinton. If the Dems do it to Bush, then it will pretty much happen every time the oppostiion party gets a majority.
The “Impeachment” of Clinton was a travesty. Hopefully if the Dems show some restraint we won’t have this going on every 4 years or so.
I’ll take a stab: Violating/ignoring the Geneva Conventions is a crime under international law, the kind you get tried for at the Hague. A case could be made that fabricating a casus belli also qualifies. W is guilty of both.
The WH’s use of the RNC server for its e-mails violates the Presidential Records Act.
Whether the attorney-firings scandal involved criminal conduct is a more complex question. See this thread.
The Republicans’ use of “caging lists” to suppress Dem votes in the 2004 elections is a crime (I finally found statutory authority for that), but there’s no proof (yet) of personal knowledge or complicity on W’s part.
If AG Gonzalez lied to Congress, that would be a crime and I doubt W’s complicity would be difficult to prove.
I agree with BrainGlutton on this. I really want this thing to happen but I don’t know if it will. I’ve been writing to everyone I can think of, for whatever that is worth.
Even though this just happened with Clinton, I don’t think that should have any impact on any decisions. I mean, Bush and Cheney are actual criminals, IMHO. Clinton, not so much. Just a horndog. Not holding criminals accountable just because we’re afraid of starting a trend doesn’t make sense to me.
Here is a list of key evidence of impeachable offenses, according to one group. I haven’t even read all this and am not saying it is accurate or anything like that. It’s just something I’ve been looking at.