John Conyers tried to convince Cindy Sheehan that there aren’t enough votes for impeachment. Yadda yadda yadda, Sheehan got arrested again. Link. And he’s the guy who is most open to impeaching the President!! What kind of message would it send if the Dems tried to impeach Bush and they lost the damn vote?
Clinton’s actions were certainly motivated by politics. However, it’s still a bad comparison to compare Clinton’s firings of US Attorneys to Bush’s doing of same.
It’s a well established tradition that when a new president takes over, he fires all the current US Attorneys and appoints new ones that will focus on his prosecutorial agenda. The current President Bush did it, President Clinton did it, former President Bush did it, and so on.
It appears that this current president has systematically fired those attorneys (who he appointed) who focused “too much” on possible Republican electoral misconduct or “not enough” on possible Democratic electoral misconduct. Now this may be legal or it may be illegal, I don’t know, but it does violate custom in a way that President Clinton’s mass firing of attorneys at the beginning of his term did not.
It’s not exactly a fringe movement. The desire to impeach cannot be waved away as some kind of nutty fringe thing that’s not worth considering.
Here are poll results from this month:
45% of all adults want Bush impeached
54% want Cheney impeached
And, yes, some of those are even Republicans.
Do we have some sort of memory loss infecting the SDMB? This was all described and discussed when the current scandal first broke, months ago.
Every new president fires all the current attorneys when taking office. Bush I did it. Reagan did it. Carter did it. Back to some distant past, every president has done it.
Bush II did it without anyone raising an eyebrow in 2001.
The only way that Clinton did it differently was that it is usually a two to three week process of asking for individual resignations and Clinton did it in one fell swoop. Given the silence that greeted Bush II’s repetition of the exact same firing of all the attorneys in 2001, I think it should be clear to most people that simply dismissing those people who served at the pleasure of the president is not an issue–even for Bush haters.
The issue in this specific case is that in the middle of a presidential term, the president fired a limited number of people whom he had appointed, who had gotten consistently good reviews for their performance, and several of whom were fired after declining violate Justice Department regulations that prohibit prosecutions of political opponents within a specific time frame prior to an election.
Which part of “at the pleasure of the President” is unclear?
One suspects that this allusion will be lost on one as well.
Regards,
Shodan
I think everyone knows that US Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President, which is why I doubt that Bush’s actions in firing them were illegal. I’m just saying that you shouldn’t compare them to the Clinton firings, as you did, because the Clinton firings were customary, and these weren’t.
Actually, I was comparing them in the sense that neither was illegal, and therefore not a reason for impeachment.
If Democrats are going to complain that anything not customary is grounds for impeachment, then any new policy by any President is grounds for impeachment. And Clinton should have been impeached for “don’t ask, don’t tell”.
Regards,
Shodan
Try to follow here: all employees serve at the pleasure of their employer. It is still illegal for an employer to fire an employee based on their race (or gender, etc.). So, the whole “at the pleasure of the President” is obviously not the end-all-be-all that so many think it is.
Well, we’re not completely sure that nothing illegal was done. Know why? It has something to do with this administration trying to stonewall any kind of investigation. Funny that.
LilShieste
So, the issues are:
[ol]
[li]middle of a presidential term[/li][li]fired a limited number of people whom he had appointed[/li][li]who had gotten consistently good reviews for their performance[/li][li]several of whom were fired after declining violate Justice Department regulations that prohibit prosecutions of political opponents within a specific time frame prior to an election[/ol][/li]
- So what? How is that an issue?
- Again, so what?
- Third chorus. I bet that many of the guys Clinton fired got good reviews, too. As did Bush 41’s, Reagan’s, Carter’s, etc.
- THIS is the kicker. I agree that this distinguishes the earlier practices from now. The President has the right and the power to fire any of these guys at any time. What he can probabyl legally do, but certainly shouldn’t do, is fire them for failing to prosecute political opponents.
I do love how the Bush supporters seem to think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with trying to game the justice system to coordinate a permanent Republican majority. Do none of you see how absolutely antithetical to the traditional American concept of justice that is? Aren’t any of you afraid of what a Democratic president could do with that kind of setup? Is there something wrong with you people?!
I am not in this thread to argue for impeachment. I was simply surprised to see the “Clinton did it!” claim thrown into the mêlée when we had long ago established that Clinton did nothing different than his predecessors, (or successor who was not chastised when he imitated Clinton), and that it only became an issue on point 4.
The whole point of my post is that points 1 through 3 are non-issues for anyone who has been paying attention, but that a comparison to Clinton is silly (unless one wishes to make the comparison to the earlier Bush, Reagan, Carter, etc.).
Well, one of the articles of impeachment against Andrew Johnson was because he “declare[d], with a loud voice certain intemperate, inflammatory, and scandalous harangues…against Congress”, so the bar for impeachable offenses has been set way below “illegal”. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that Congress should attempt to impeach Bush. It won’t be successful, will be seen as grandstanding, and there’s been way too much of this impeachment nonsense in the last ten years. I’m just saying that the Clinton comparison was a bad debating tactic, confused the issue, and wasn’t really worthy of the high level of debate I’ve seen you exercise in the past.
Well, sure, in theory the Dems could impeach Bush for the way he parts his hair. But the less obviously illegal an impeachable offense is, the clearer the motives of the impeachers become. If they can’t even find a statute to point to (like, say, perjury or obstruction of justice), and impeach anyway, it becomes almost impossible to deny that they are not impeaching for any other reason beside they have a majority in Congress.
FWIW, I don’t believe that the majority of the Dems in Congress are so stupid as to impeach Bush for something they know perfectly well was legal. Hold hearings and try to imply that it was, sure - that’s what Conyers is up to. But actually impeach?
I hope not. It would be bad for the country, even though it would be worse for the Democrats.
Regards,
Shodan
I’ve decided to stop arguing that there are insufficent grounds for impeachment of the President.
Instead, I will accept that there are clear, convicing grounds for impeachment, conduct so scandalous that it clearly must be met with impeachment immediately.
Well? What’s the problem? Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi doing it? Is she so dense, so traitorous, so politically-ensnared, so… something… that she refuses to support impeachment in the face of these clear heinouos crimes?
If so, shouldn’t she be removed from leadership?
Neither do I, and I’m not arguing that Bush should be impeached. I don’t think that would either be appropriate or wise. I was just addressing your specific comparison.
She should be impeached!!
Rove should be impeached!!
Chaney should be impeached!!
HRC should be impeached!!
Every senator and congressman who was in office at the time (even if they recently got kicked out) and who supported the war should be impeached! And anyone who didn’t support the war should be impeached too…I’m sure they have done SOMETHING wrong!!
That guy with the chicken suit from yourtube that was in the recent debate should be impeached!!
You, Bricker…YOU should be impeached too!
-XT
Is it your position that there is no valid reason for Pelosi not supporting impeachment if she believes Bush deserves it? That sure *seems *like your position from this post. But since that would be such a ridiculous position, I wouldn’t want to attribute it to you unless you explicitly say as much.
Actually, the Justice Department and Alberto Gonzalez claimed that the attorneys were fired for poor performance, and later it came out that those attorneys, in fact, had GOOD performance reviews and that there may have been other reasons for their dismissal discussed in Justice Department emails.
This is not good, since while it’s certainly legitimate to argue that the President can fire his attorneys for any reason, lying about that reason to Congress is a definite no-no, and kinda raises the specter of WHY Congress was lied to.
If she believes that Bush has legitimately committed a high crime or misdemeanor, or if he’s engaged in bribery or treason – those being the grounds for impeachment – then it sure seems to me that she’d have to have an extraordinary reason not to go forward… I’d say that I’d sure want to hear WHY she didn’t. I don’t say there’s no conceivable reason, but if these facts were true, I’d certainly want to know what set of facts stayed her hand.
I think, to address the OP, the administration’s violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which the president has publicly bragged about, constitutes a clear reason for a Congressional investigation, and likely a reason for impeachment of several members of the adminstration, including the POTUS and VPOTUS.
The suspension of habeus corpus without a clear and pressing reason (IMO) is another reason that seems sufficient to start some sort of proceedings.
Both of these seem stronger than the attorney scandal, though that has the advantage of an existing investigation.