Impeaching Bush?
June 21st, 2008Representative Dennis Kucinich has called for a Bush impeachment. What I don’t get is why isn’t this bigger news?
Should Bush be impeached? My honest answer is I don’t know, but as far as I know, I’m more leaning towards a yes. We’re in a war because of lies in Iraq. We know that now. I fully support the War in Afghanistan, as you know. I want Osama bin Laden’s head on a pike on the White House lawn. But bin Laden is NOT in Iraq and has never been there. He’s either in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and because we’re wasting our time in Iraq, he’s still on the loose. If we had put 100% of our efforts into capturing bin Laden, we’d have him by now.
What’s worse is 4100 Americans are now dead. I’m hearing that morale there is horrible, and a disgustingly high rate of soldiers are on Prozac. WTF!
I’d like to hear more about the impeachment resolution, but apparently it’s a non-issue to our media. So maybe it’s up to us bloggers to discuss it further.
Agree or disagree with Bush’s impeachment, I’d love to hear why you feel the way you do. My personal opinion is he’s been not only an economic disaster, but he’s betrayed our beloved Constitution as well. He’s been horrible to the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Amendments. Yes, he’s been bad for the 2nd Amendment too. That’s not a misprint.
Of course economics has nothing to do with the impeachment, I just threw that in there because today’s economy sucks and I’m pissed off about it. The real reason he may be impeached is because of lying about the Iraq War. I got friends there and of course they’re doing a great job serving our wonderful nation, but they should be killing bin Laden’s followers instead of wasting our time in Iraq.
UPDATE: Thanks, Laura. I’ve read them now, and these Articles I most strongly agree with. I’d now like to see him impeached. Won’t happen though, because the Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi, are a bunch of pussies who would rather play politics than do the right thing. Like I told Laura, Nancy Pelosi is so full of political b.s. that I can practically smell her letters before I read them. (I regularly correspond with local politicians).
Read here for more info.
Article I
Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for War Against Iraq.
Article II
Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression.
Article III
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War.
Article IV
Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States.
Article VII
Invading Iraq Absent a Declaration of War.
Article XXIII
Violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
Article XXIV
Spying on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment.
Article XXV
Directing Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens.
This is far more complex than my current loacation will allow me to write about. (I’m at my sister’s house and rugrats running all around.) But with most of the population of this country having no family member fighting they are disconnected to what is happening almost to an Orwellian level. Plus throw in the fact that its mainly poor kids fighting and with no draft Mr. and Mrs, Middleclass don’t have to worry about their precious offspring from missing college time and derailung their career paths.
iraq and trampling on the constitution….uh…yeah, impeach the bastard. it should have happened years ago. i am ashamed to admit i voted for him the first time. i did not make that mistake twice though.
Beach - That’s the thing. Most Middle Class people don’t know people that are in the Iraq War. It’s mostly Working Class and the Poorer Classes that are doing the fighting.
Lime - I’m more in favor of impeachment. I still haven’t gotten around to reading the articles Kucinich has written up yet though.
FoxNews must have had a story on this, because my parents were having a hissy-fit over it. Other than that, the only place I’ve heard about this is in the blogworld.
I’m torn on the subject of impeachment. On one hand, it would divide the country and be very expensive. Is it worth the cost when Bush is on his way out?
On the other hand, I think this is the ONLY way we can send the message to our elected officials that we won’t tolerate them messing with the Constitution. I also think that Cheney’s Haliburton ties should be investigated by Congress.
Tshsmom - Yeah. I think doing the right thing is more important though, so I’d like to see him impeached. And I’ve read some figure about $32 billion tax dollars wasted with a former subsidiary of Haliburton. I hate seeing my tax money being wasted. There were allegations of criminal intent with that money, i.e., theft.
the only trouble with impeaching him is the guy who fills his post……
Lime - Heh. Almost wonder if Dick Cheney’s a life insurance policy because no matter how much anyone hates Bush, Cheney’s probably worse.
I feel like this guy has already done lots of damage to his country as well as to the rest of the world.
He should have been impeached 9 years ago (or he should not have been elected in the first place). What took this long to come to this decision?
For me i like him more as a comedian.
AND its quite amazing to see us (with million heads together) make a unanimous mistake of chosing a wrong leader. IT happens everywhere in every country.
The prospective candidates for the presedency post doesn’t look that much good either. ITs time you make a run for the post, lol.
The only thing charming and apealing about BO is that he’s black. He doesn’t talk much sense to me. The other guy, i don’t even like him. He looks like someone who’ll make even worst mistake than the current President.
Do we know that he intentionally lied, or that he was completely and utterly wrong? I’m not a Bush supporter anymore, but I am interested in what can actually be proven. I realize there is a section of the country, over half, that believes he is a criminal on the level of Adolf Hitler, but what do we actually know for sure? That’s all that’s going to matter in impeachment proceedings. And before anyone attacks my asking of the question, it really is a question, not a challenge or refutation.
The only thing I would address to Scott, and not as a challenge, is this “Do we know that he intentionally lied, or that he was completely and utterly wrong?”
“Completely and utterly wrong”… isn’t wrong, in this case, wrong enough? Does it have to be some extreme that leaves room for wiggling? How big does the cost or how untrue do the lies have to be for him to be completely and utterly wrong?
Look at it this way maybe, what has he done well? What are the shinning remnants of his time in office? What are his memorable words of wisdom? Why shouldn’t he be impeached?
The answers to these questions need just as much proof as his impeachment.
Impeachment isn’t going to happen for several reasons. For one, Bush is indeed finally on his way out, and by the time they finished the proceedings they would be practically irrelevant. But the primary thing is that to impeach the President you have to have a case and you have to have evidence. Many people don’t like the fact that we are in this war. That is understandable. Many people believe that President Bush coerced the country into the war. That is questionable, and would require substantial evidence to prove, evidence which if it exists, has not come to light.
As to the Articles:
I - What evidence is there? The very wording of Article I smacks of conspiracy theory.
II - CONFLATING the attacks of September the 11th???? How many American civilians were killed on our own soil?
II, III, IV - Revisit Bush’s speach to the Congress where he presented his case for the war. One of the issues was our belief that there were WMDs in Iraq (a possibility which has not been disproven as they had ample time to dispose of evidence before we went in). But the bigger issue was Iraq’s failure to comply with the requirements placed upon them at the end of the first Gulf War. It was not our responsibility to prove Saddam had WMDs. It was his responsibility to demonstrate he did NOT have them. He was systematically violating these responsibilities and acting aggressively toward the US. We had very good reason to believe that he was a potential threat. Even if he never had WMDs, we had a legitimate case for enforcing the requirements of the last Gulf War.
VII - Ron Paul voted against the war. But he also told Congress that if they were going to go in, they should declare war as required by the Constitution. He was ridiculed. America doesn’t declare war anymore, we take nebulous military actions. This has been the case since Korea. It sucks. It is unconstitutional But if you are going to try Bush for it, let us talk about Vietnam, Somalia, Bosnia, and about a dozen other actions.
XXIII - Habeas corpus and posse comitatus have not traditionally been applied to aliens, and have not traditionally been applied in military situations. The recent Supreme Court ruling is a departure from historical practice of these priniciples. see Charlie Rose’ interview of Justice Scalia.
XXIV - I thought this wiretap thing was clarified a long time ago.
XXV - News to me. Need more info.
Essentially, I don’t like a lot of the things Bush has done. He has been one of the most liberal and fiscally irresponsible Presidents in quite some time, with the exception of his tax cuts. He has expanded the Executive branch considerably. He has presided over an administration that has made some serious mistakes in a war we could have prosecuted well (e.g. deBaathification).
But the fact that a President is unpopular and makes tough choices that we do not like does not give us the right to impeach him. If you have direct proof of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”, bring it forward. But the reality is that these Articles are just a silly political smear move.
I can’t remember whether it was in Tocqueville or in the Federalist where the observation was made, but one of the two pointed out that the decay of the American democracy would be evidenced by an increase in petty politically motivated impeachments. When impeachment is a political tool for removing your rivals, you have lost respect for America and her constitution.
I will grant that Clinton’s impeachment was not for Treason or Bribery, but at least there was legitimate, demonstrable proof of felonious Perjury.
Bush’s policies may be unpopular, they may even be odious, but nobody has brought forth EVIDENCE worthy of anything other than the verbal criticism we are all entitled to make.
Tchoden - I think his race is irrelevant. I still want to see a President judged on what they can contribute to the country and not what they look like. I don’t think either Obama or McCain have what it takes, nor do I think either of them will do a decent job in defending the Constitution.
Scott - That’s a good question. Has he been misled by his advisers? It may be, but it still doesn’t change the fact that we’re in a war because of bad information.
Clothosfate - The sad thing is I can only think of a few things he’s done that are good - tax cuts, appointing John Bolton to head the U.N. (the reason the Left hated him is the reason I liked him - he wanted the U.N. to be held accountable for OUR tax money that we throw at it each year), and appointing John Roberts to the Supreme Court.
What he did wrong dwarfs what he did right. The tax cuts were supposed to go hand-in-hand with spending cuts, which they didn’t, and now we’re in a financial mess. His record on the Constitution, especially the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Amendments are horrible. Jobs have been lost to China, India, and illegal immigrants and are not coming back. We’re in massive debt to China. The list goes on and on and on.
Perhaps worst of all though are we’re stuck in one war while Obama bin Laden is laughing at us, and 4100 Americans have already died yet bin Laden is still alive. This is almost entirely Bush’s fault because our resources are in the wrong place.
Yonder - The link to Kucinich goes into more detail about all these points. He claims to have evidence for each one, and it’s his job to prove whether or not Bush is innocent or guilty. It’s just like a criminal trial. You have the accuser and the accused. The accused is innocent until proven guilty.
Here’s the big if. If Kucinich has the evidence, I would be in favor of Bush being impeached. If Kucinich is blowing smoke, then Bush has nothing to worry about.
Yup. Bush has nothing to worry about. He’ll finish out his term, write some books, tour with his Dad and the Clintons, and grow old and rich.
I think the question should be what has he done specifically to be impeached. It has to be compelling evidence to make such a drastic move. That he hasn’t done a good job, or that he himself was misled is not criminal. Now if it can be proven that he and his cronies cooked up a phony case to start a war, there you have it. I’m on board that this may well be possible, but nothing will be gained by going in, guns loaded with blanks.
Bush is already old and rich…
Truman understood that “The Buck Stops Here.” The President is supposed to be the leader of this country. I don’t care if Bush was misled (which I sincerely doubt), he was “the decider,” and is the reason we are in such a huge friggin’ mess. He chose his advisors, ultimately, he’s the president and all mistakes are his.
Scott said: “Do we know that he intentionally lied, or that he was completely and utterly wrong? ”
Impeachment is merely the opening of the investigation and an accusation, akin to a grand jury indictment. So I think the impeachment proceedings would answer that question. The real question is, is there enough evidence that he reasonably could have known that warrants a full investigation? I say yes. Remember, he’d still have to be convicted for anything to happen.
Zombie - Do you realize that in your comment to Clothosfate you referred to Bin Laden as Obama Bin Laden? Freudian slip?
yonderincarp did my post almost exactly the way I would have done it.
Yonder - Most likely, that’s what will happen. He’s already rich though.
Scott - Laura answers that best.
Kathleen - Exactly. Playing the ignorance card doesn’t fly when you’re the boss.
Laura - Well said.
Scott - Good catch. Whoops. Possibly. I can’t stand any of those ass clowns.
Exmi - Yonder is one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met, and he’s younger than I am. If he wasn’t my friend, I’d be jealous.
there can only be 2 reasons he isn’t impeached
#1 and the most likely, he can’t be.
#2 there isn’t anyone on the Dem side smart enough to do or either none have the guts, but then they have always been the most gutless of the 2 parties (in the last 40 years anyway)
Sage: Sadly, you’re right. Impeachment only happens when those who call for it can do so safely (politically speaking). Like the Clinton affair - it was actually politically beneficial for the GOP to do what it did. Now? What would the DNC gain from it, other than losing the narrow majority that they have. Fuck what’s right, what’s politically expedient?
As for issues of evidence. Most of the reason there is not enough evidence is because Bush and his cronies have expanded “executive privilege” to damn near everything. They’ve circled the wagons and anyone who tries to break rank and talk (Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson) is tarred, feathered, and smeared. Congress doesn’t have the balls to call these assholes forward and ask them direct questions and require direct answers.
My only question is, why didn’t Kucinich do this much earlier, when it could have had more than a symbolic impact?
I’m not saying this will work now. It probably won’t.