What would impeachment entail and what would the final results be?

[yy4me]

I have wondered just what we could expect if B***and Cheney were impeached. If the procedure was started, how long would it take? Could they both be impeached at the same time? Considering the lines of succession, would we end up with someone with equal blood on their hands? I have a feeling that * and company have had these bases
covered from day one. Seems ridiculous that we have no constitutional provision to get rid of ineffective or worse politicians. Drumming these jerks out of town just won't work.

[ClassWarrior]

1. Doesn't matter. The damage would be done.

The rest - imprisonment, removal from office, the death of the Corporatist Republicon Party - would be gravy.

NGU.

[Lori Price CLG]

2. We'd get stuck with Nazi Bill 'Cat Torturer' Frist, who is actually worse

...than Bush and Cheney, which is why we are going to get him. Once electronic 'voting' is in every state (paper trails or not), corpora-terrorist Frist is going to be installed as the next pResident.

Lori Price

[rodeodance]

3. You need a Congress with the political will to bring it up--and it ain't

gonna happen with this Congress.

[ClassWarrior]

6. Doesn't matter. It helps our cause to just TALK about it.

And we need to make sure we change that political will in '06.

NGU.

[calimary]

8. Doesn't matter. We should be strategizing ANYWAY. And, true, THIS

Congress won't do squat. But THIS Congress prevails only til NEXT NOVEMBER. That's why while we're strategizing about IMPEACHMENT (which we absolutely SHOULD BE DOING), we should also be saving up to contribute to the campaigns next year. rick santorum and tom delay need to be OUSTED. And EVERY republi-CON needs to be targeted. That jean shit whoever who just beat Hacker should be seriously challenged next time. We NEED to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to get the House back. THAT is where IMPEACHMENT proceedings begin. Really, that's ALL we need to do. Even if we don't have the Senate, if we get the HOUSE back, then we can have IMPEACHMENT proceedings.

But just because things don't look good NOW doesn't mean a thing. Don't let the NOW conditions frustrate you about the NEXT YEAR conditions. NOW will not remain the same NEXT YEAR. NEXT YEAR will be different.

And remember: NOTHING, repeat, NOTHING lasts forever. Even Reagan, "The Thing that Would Not Die," finally did.

[JBear]

9. Really?

I would think that congress would have to roll first...and that would likely mean the senate would too....which would leave Frist out in the cold.

Keep thinking those happy thoughts!
J.

[calimary]

10. Welcome to DU! And YES, keep thinking those happy thoughts.

Thoughts are things.

Visualize IMPEACHMENT. Pass it on.

[William769]

12. No not Frist.

It would be the speaker of the House (Dennis Hasert).

[ironman202]

14. actually it would be Hastert

[DJ MEW]

4. impeaching

Clinton was impeached for far less then what Bush has already done, but Clinton did not have a liberal senate or house to protect him. Bush has both the house and the senate to back him up so there is no way any kind of impeachment proceedings would ever get any where.

[AlGore-08.com]

7. Actually the Senate protected him - - they voted against the charges

Which is why he was able to serve out his term.

I'm just sayin'...

[calimary]

11. Welcome to DU! Glad you're here.

Now get to work! We need to TAKE BACK THE HOUSE IN '06.

[RobertSeattle]

5. Need to impeach all of the following concurrently:

President George W. Bush,
Vice President Richard Cheney,
Speaker of the House John Dennis Hastert,
President pro tempore of the Senate Ted Stevens,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
Secretary of the Treasury John Snow,
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld,
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,
Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton,
Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns
Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson

Then, Secretary of Transportation Norman Yoshio Mineta (D) President!

:evilgrin:

[Teena]

13. Don't forget...

Education Secretary "if parents only cared enough about education to invest a little more in it" Margaret Spellings! I can't stand her.

[RobertSeattle]

17. I was using the list from the current wikepedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_line_of_succession
There are a couple of ineligibles. Not sure when the new bill regarding DHS will kick in.

Vice President (Richard B. Cheney)
Speaker of the House of Representatives (J. Dennis Hastert)
President pro tempore of the Senate (Ted Stevens)
Secretary of State (Condoleezza Rice)
Secretary of the Treasury (John W. Snow)
Secretary of Defense (Donald H. Rumsfeld)
Attorney General (Alberto Gonzales)
Secretary of the Interior (Gale Norton)
Secretary of Agriculture (Mike Johanns)
Secretary of Commerce (Carlos Gutierrez, ineligible)
Secretary of Labor (Elaine Chao, ineligible)
Secretary of Health and Human Services (Michael Leavitt)
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Alphonso Jackson)
Secretary of Transportation (Norman Y. Mineta)
Secretary of Energy (Samuel W. Bodman)
Secretary of Education (Margaret Spellings)
Secretary of Veterans Affairs (Jim Nicholson)

[kma3346]

16. Boy, I'd love to see that!

But I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Senate passed a resolution last month to move the Director of Homeland Security (Chertoff) up from the bottom to either 7th or 8th place (either right before or right after Gonzales). The timing of this is interesting to me. Do they expect it to go down the line of succession this far?? Do they think that he could survive and would be able to issue pardons for all of them? This makes my head hurt!

[newyawker99]

21. Hi kma3346!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[AlGore-08.com]

15. The POTUS can't be impeached for incompetence, only for crimes

It says in the Constitution Article 2 Section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

So in order to impeach Smirk, he would have to have committed treason, bribery or an unspecified "high crime" ("misdemeanor" is not used in the modern sense of a lesser crime). In practice, impeachment has been used as political weapon, but that's not how the Founding Fathers intended it to be used. If Smirk committed an impeachable offense, he should be impeached (and if a Dem President committed an impeachable office, they should be impeached as well). But if Smirk has not committed an impeachable offense - - if he hasn't committed a crime that can be proven in a court of law - - impeaching him is wrong.

There is a constitutional provision to get rid of ineffective or worse politicians - - the balance of power and elections. The way to stop Smirk is to work as hard as possible on the 2006 Congressional elections, and try to win back at least one House of Congress. At the same time, it's important to look past Smirk to the 2008 Presidential elections. Smirk will be out of office in 2009, and some other Republican will be the nominee - - and they will have no problem distancing him/herself from Smirk if Smirk's still unpopular. Unless we make it clear now that it's not about Smirk, it's about the Republican party, it's about the policies that Americans overwhelmingly reject, Newt Gingrich or some other equally appalling GOPer will be giving the State of the Union addresses until 2017.

But to return to the "what if Smirk were impeached" question - - the impeachment process is long enough that, if Smirk was actually in danger of being impeached, he could do the same thing Nixon did - - make a deal with the VP to resign in exchange for a pardon. If Cheney is also in danger of impeachment, again, Smirk could just do what Nixon did - - get Cheney to resign and replace him with a VP who will pardon him.

The next issue is, as others have posted, the line of succession. All of the folks who could become President upon impeachment are either high ranking Republican Congressfolk or members of the Smirk administration. So impeachment wouldn't affect the policies being put out by the Smirk Admin or the Congress.

The final issue is a political one - - would impeaching Smirk seem justified to the majority of Americans, or would it seem like the Democrats were just using it as political payback? If there is proof that Smirk did commit a major crime, and that proof is widespread, probably not. But if Smirk was impeached based on weak evidence, or on a technicality - - or even worse, for no reason other than we have the Congress back - - then it could hurt the Democrats politically. Keep in mind that most impeachment scenarios start with us winning enough seats in the 2006 elections to make it feasible - - so we're talking about impeaching him with less than two years left of his last term - - a situation that can be as big a PR mess as Schwarzenegger's special elections are becoming... )

Also keep in mind that one of the reasons that Clinton was not removed from office by the Senate (according to Bob Barr), was that doing so would have made Gore the sitting President, who could have run for an additional two terms - - (again, according to Bob Barr) which would have meant the GOP could not use Clinton as an issue in 2000, and - - as we all should have learned from 2004 if we didn't know it already - - it's very hard to defeat an incumbent President. If Smirk were impeached, and he made a deal with McCain or some other popular Republican to be the President who pardoned him... we can all kiss 2008 good-bye...

[ClassWarrior]

18. Well, he**'s committed plenty of both...

NGU.

[AlGore-08.com]

20. But can it be proved that Smirk did commit them?

Proven, in a court of law, that these were intentional crimes, rather than gross incompetence? And if they are crimes, that Smirk himself, rather than somebody lower down on the food chain, committed them?

That's the $64,000 question.

[Independent_Liberal]

19. We need to force the Congress to impeach. Check this out...

www.recallthecongress.com

We can send unilateral congressional contracts to all members of Congress. They will be forced to comply or we can boot them out of office upon complaint by state court order. I wish more people around here would pursue this. We have the power to do it. We can get control of the government we are supposed to own.