Impeachment, what about it?

[Orrex]

Many among us are entertaining thoughts of the magic I-word in the wake of Conyer's commendable work and the (one hopes) eventual awakening of the MSM and public-at-large to the rampant crimes of this idiotic administration. Hell, I've been dreaming of his impeachment since sometime in late 2000.

But are we all just pumping ourselves up, or do some of us think it's likely to take place?

I'm curious to know people's thoughts on this. Even with his abyssmal approval ratings and ever-more-obvious criminal maladminstration, I have trouble believing that it will happen.

Still, hope springs eternal...

[dogday]

1. You start with a hearing, you bring in everyone involved with

the Downing Street Minutes including Blair, You bring in The Administration including Bush, you have them all swear an oath and then let the chips fall where they may....

[havocmom]

2. With lock step GOP voting in D.C. it isn't gonna happen.

Best bet: Work like hell for HONEST ELECTIONS and good DEM candidates. Work like hell to get them elected in 06. Until that happens, the I words is just so much spinning of wheels and diversion from what IS possible.

[tecelote]

3. There's a problem with Impeaching Bush.

With Nixon and Clinton there was a competent Vice President.

With Bush, the whole Administration needs to be removed.

[dkofos]

5. Get b*sh first

The rest will fall with him.

[havocmom]

10. Get bush* and Cheney will find (or create) a reason to declare martial law

There is a long line of very bad people who would be sworn in. Each one has reasons to cling to power to save their own ass.

[calimary]

26. I posted this elsewhere... it is NOT an exercise in futility to consider

impeachment. Or even to work toward impeachment as a goal. Not at all. Every little bit of positive effort will ultimately produce results. The tide is turning, and the momentum is now on OUR side.

Here's something posted earlier - hopefully to answer the questions of one of many who wonder if this is just spinning our wheels...

Why push for impeachment?

Because of the signal this will send, Julie. It's VITALLY important that we at least try for it. Look what our pushing and persistence has yielded thus far - the Downing Street Minutes and more are starting to hit the mainstream media, FINALLY!!

It's important. It sends the kind of message we SHOULD have sent in November 2004 - that we will NOT tolerate or reward bad behavior. If your kid was misbehaving would you reward him or her with that sleepover or the new video game or the whatever-it-is they were asking for? Would you let him/her stay up late and party it up or go out with friends? Or would you apply discipline or other appropriate corrective measure or penalty to discourage the bad behavior? We had a chance to do that last November when he should have been TURNED OUT OF OFFICE, so America could go to the world and to the UN and to the airwaves everywhere and announce that we were formally and officially UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT, and that the bad guys and their bad deeds and their bad judgments and their bad decisions got the unemployment and the eviction from power and prominence that they deserved. But it didn't happen. What the world saw was that we presumably approved of what the bushies did and wanted four more years of it. (I know, I know, the voter fraud figures in here, too, but that's the overriding message that was sent to the governments all over the world, and the bushies did not hesitate for a minute to exploit this and ram it down everyone's throats). In effect, we "punished" their bad behavior by reinforcing it, and them.

This would be a MOST needed, and appreciated, rehabilitative move for this country to make to the world. AND TO OURSELVES. It will be a CRUCIAL lesson for our children to see and absorb. That crime really doesn't pay. That evildoers really do get their comeuppance. That lying and cheating and stealing and bullying doesn't win in the end. And that the bad guys don't always get away wit it. Our kids NEED to see that in the real world. Our kids NEED to see that our government is OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, AND FOR THE PEOPLE, and the people in that government are absolutely ACCOUNTABLE to US - THE PEOPLE. And that NO ONE, NOT EVEN THE WEE WOULD-BE DICTATOR, IS ABOVE THE LAW.

It would also be a HUGE shock to the system of the neocon movement, the republi-CON party in general, and all their assorted feeder groups like the fundies and other assorted wrong-wing wackos. A HUGE shock.

An impeachment of bush, or even the attempted impeachment, would force what's left of this rat's nest to limp to 2008, the party tarnished, some of their "finest" perhaps facing charges and prison terms, and few people in their "right" minds willing or honest enough to call themselves republi-CON (no less vote that way). They would be hobbled either way, if bush survives an impeachment or not. And if he doesn't, and we're stuck with cheney, remember one thing. Here's what dick cheney hates: having to operate in the open. Being up there at the very top where he's highly visible to EVERYBODY. He's the guy who likes to move and shake and pull strings in the shadows, under cover, behind closed doors. Because what he's usually up to is something he doesn't want you to see. HMMMM... wonder why THAT is... To have him out there in the fresh air and sunshine is what every cockroach coils from in revulsion, and he will, too. He will hate it, and he'll behave as though he hates it. And in the climate that will be left in this country after an impeachment, things will not be favorable OR easy for him. In private, he will tell friends and family he rues the day he ever ran across george w. bush. So will EVERY republi-CON on the face of the earth. Because they got thisclose, under him, and then he screwed the pooch for them. Maybe for DECADES.

It will be a setback of enormous proportions. Psychological as well. Whether impeachment goes through or not.

What have we got to lose - except our nightmare, and the nightmare-bringers?
From DU thread:
Mothers of Slain Soldiers, Others, Demand Bush's Impeachment
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1557056

[mitchtv]

4. Impeach? what a laugh

if they have one thing, its discipline. When they are trapped then they lie, boldfaced.

[Kazak]

16. They can lie all they want...

it won't help a bit in the face of hard contradictory evidence.

[Independent_Liberal]

6. Check this source out...

www.recallthecongress.com

WE NEED TO FORCE THE CONGRESS TO IMPEACH GEORGE W. BUSH!

We're going to subject every Congress member to recall if they don't impeach.

We're going to use the RICO Act to overthrow the government.

"WE THE PEOPLE" have the power to do it!

[Independent_Liberal]

13. Is anybody listening to me?

Hello! Recall the Congress folks! Recall!

[Imagevision]

14. got to organize - how do you think Viet Nam came to an end

Someone has to step forward (Ralph Nader?) to organize a March on Washington to put this DSM in Bush-Cheney's face. Then we can deal with Rove counter-moves...!

[EVDebs]

25. Actually, the money ran out. Amb Graham A. Martin was still calling for

more just weeks before Operation Eagle Pull. See Frank Snepp's Decent Interval.

Guys at the Pentagon were more worried about getting gasoline for their cars at that time than in pouring more into Operation Rathole, oops, I meant the Vietnam War circa 1972-75.

What is it now, $170 million per day or $5.8 billion per month (so, close to $70 billion a year ).

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_cost_111804,00.html?ESRC=eb.n

Maybe the 51st state talk isn't a comedy line after all ! And talk about Republicans being 'fiscal conservatives' should have Rep John Conyers laughing out loud.

AND REPUBLICANS WANT TO CALL LIBERALS 'CRAZIES'. They might take a good long look in a mirror.

[sui generis]

7. just having the word brought up by our folks in the senate

is a notable event unto itself. The simple fact that the republicans might take it seriously enough to formulate a united front against it is even more noteworthy.

Whatever happens is going to have to gain momentum in the middle. There are people who will content themselves with putting their head in the sand on this issue because they've bought into the whole "the world is better off without Saddam anyway", everyone I suspect, but the parents and spouses of our dead soldiers.

Bush lied, they died. That's the lesson that must be repeated ad nauseum, made all the more haunting by the fact that it is the simple and plain truth.

He lied to congress, which is an impeachable offense. He lied to the children of our nation we sent into another Vietnam to come home in anonymous aluminum coffins away from public notice, by republican law.

He lied, they died.

[Imagevision]

8. If repug Senators want to keep their jobs after DSM exposes Bush

they will jump or go down with a sinking ship.

Repugs control House & Senate so what? - how bad does Bush have to fall before you consider rationality, there is the possibility of some republicans becoming unseated in 06 depending on how pathetic the current administration becomes.

DSM? it's like "remember Pearl Harbor" or at least remember 9-11

[earthboundmisfit]

9. I believe the fact that the British aren't letting go of this will help

The Brits are a huge help in keeping this going. I really believe if they had not given it press we never would've had yesterday's hearings - the mere mention of the minutes would've been quashed by Shrubco here. But they made enough noise in the U.K. - and they continue to do so. It's a damn good thing they do.

Edit:can't type today

[Imagevision]

23. IT DOES SEEM LIKE THE BRIT'S HAVE LESS MEDIA CENSORSHIP

[ktowntennesseedem]

11. Push for it as if it will happen tomorrow.

Either the Repug majority will continue to blindly follow their dismal leader over the cliff, in which case we can easily purge Congress in favor of Dems who will proceed with impeachment, or some of those with questionable support in their districts will actually develop enough backbone and conscience to stand up against Chimp to save their own political asses. Push as if it will happen tomorrow, and keep pushing it till it does happen.

(What's the worst they can do to us, call us "obstructionists?" They do that already--I say we start living up to it!)

[Georgia_Dem]

12. Won't happen.

The GOP does not buckle under the pressure of the American people. If
it did, it would not have dared to intervene in the Schiavo case, considering that her husbands position was shared by over 70% of Americans; Hastert wouldn't have the guts to try and change the House ethics rules to allow Tom DeLay to keep his job; Bush wouldn't have even made an empty threat to veto that stem cell research bill.

See the GOP is loyal to a suicidal extreme. At least publically. Newt
Gingrich, George H. W. Bush, Bob Livingston, and Trent Lott were abondoned or taken down by the party. But in all these cases, it was done in secret. With no way to turn on a sitting president privately the Republicans will stand by him to the bitter end.

Some around here seem to be under the misimpression that a Congressional majority is all that's needed to impeach a president. Not so! it takes 67 Senate votes to make it happen. In all likelyhood, 53 seats and one left-leaning indepedent seat are the best the Democrats can manage in '06. If they all vote for impeachment, it still takes 13 Republicans to make it happen. The words "snowball's chance in Hell" don't begin to cover the possibility of this happening.

Plus, I suspect that some Democrats may hold back out of fear of provoking investigations of past arguable violations of international
law on the part of Democrats.

Once I've put all this together, I can't help but conclude that Bush
is significantly further from impeachment for lying us to war than Ronald Reagan was for Iran Contra.

[mitchtv]

28. Fi wishes were horses, beggars would ride

better try to get honest elections and bring him to trial at some date when er can. The pugs will give each other medals for this shit and 33% of the people will back'm

[BlueIris]

15. I remain highly skeptical.

For so many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that well, I'm a Democrat. In some not-so-small ways, I curse things. That's why I'm trying not to get too hopeful. Because my hope has a tendency to poison the hopes of others.

[Internut]

18. You're right to be sceptical - for one simple reason

the first step in the impeachment process is for the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to propose a resolution calling for the Judiciary Committee to begin a formal inquiry into the issue of impeachment.

The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is Rep. Sensenbrenner from Wisconsin.

Anyone who expects him to propose such a resolution is in for a disappointment.

[BlueIris]

22. Yeah. I was also going to post that my other reason for skepticism

is the Republican majority in Congress. My pessimism isn't entirely pervasive--I think there's some small hope that upheavals could occur which--bad, bad Iris!! Everything you do is cursed! Kerry! Election fraud! Boxer! Run away, before this effort gets quashed, too!

[kentuck]

17. IMO, it is the cart before the horse...

We should first get out the truth and then, if called for, ask for impeachment proceedings...

[Independent_Liberal]

19. I'm starting to think he might resign to avoid impeachment like Nixon did.

It's a possibility.

[BlueIris]

24. That would fit the Bush Admin's style of dealing with conflict.

When it gets too awful to defend, just run away. And pretend like the fact that you ran means the conflict and your fuck-up never took place.

[Dr Fate]

20. We just need to make them discuss why he should NOT be impeached.

We dont need to actaully impeach Bush- but we should constantly ask Republicans:

"Why was lying impeachable in the 1990's but OK in 2005?"

"You guys told the country over and over that lying was a "high crime"- why the change of heart?"

[Georgia_Dem]

27. Difference is, Clinton lied under oath.

Bush has always endlessly avoided being put under oath.

Clinton, on the other hand was forced under oath to give the Republicans an excuse for impeachment proceedings.

Therefore, this comparison won't cut it, I'm afraid.

[EVDebs]

21. Even without impeachment his credibility is already impeached

Would YOU buy a used car from that man ?

[The2ndWheel]

29. No

But I'm not much of an optimist about real life issues, so think of it what you will.

The problems go beyond Bush. I know if you get rid of Bush, you can then start working on fixing the problems. Except we've been trying to fix those same problems years...no, decades...no, centuries...before Bush ever came around, and we'll still try to fix them for years to come.

It can be tried. It's like solving poverty. It'll never be gotten rid of, but I suppose it's worth a shot. Even though the underlying causes of poverty are never dealt with.

There's been a hearing. A few news stories are popping up here and there in the corporate media. Soon there won't be much to complain about, other than nothing happening as time goes on. We've had hearings and media coverage about Abu Graib and 9/11 too, and what reality do we currently live in again?