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Elizabeth Holtzman, Barbara Jordan, Lewis Lapham, Elizabeth De La Vega, John Nichols, www.afterdowningstreet.org & others have provided solid, researched, Constitutionally-grounded essays in impeachment threads on DU. There is a lot of info out there. IMHO those references, those scholars, lawyers and former Congress members make the case for why impeachment is appropriate. Maybe you can help me understand how people who read these FACTS about the realities of the American governmental system can fall back on OPINION and memes that are based on sand and spin........... I have not seen any anti-impeachment threads that provided links or informed arguments beyond personal opinion about (questionable) strategy and (impossible to predict) predictions.
Buying into assumptions about what will happen without having any real reason to do so is what I have been calling "strategery" (thanks for that, Dubya!)-- different from the "strategy" that some anti-impeachment folks claim. "Strategery" is all about memes, spin, assumptions, mindgames; relinquishing the outcome to the lameness of others; gambling the future rather than taking responsibility for it.
A DUer asked this question and claimed that those informative threads did not provide an answer:
"Please explain how impeachment alone, without a conviction in a Senate trial -- which we couldn't get now, since it requires a 2/3 majority -- would be a good thing for us? Why do you want Bush to be able to say he was tried for impeachment crimes and found NOT GUILTY? Why not just make him wallow in investigations for two years and not give him a chance to free himself in a show trial in the Senate?"
Once we have some solid background info, I would challenge these assumptions that:
"Impeachment as an act was totally trivialized by the Republicans during the Clinton era. There's no putting that horse back in the barn."
Yes they TRIED that but why fall for the bullshit? Really? Do you believe that "Impeachment as an act was totally trivialized" or do you believe that OTHER people believe that? The "horse that won't be put back in the barn"-- unless it is in cans for dog food-- is the central driving force of the Constitution provided by the Founders and preserved (or abandoned) by each generation.
"Bush wouldn't feel disgraced, he would just point out that the same thing had happened to Clinton."
Excuse me but where the hell are you getting that one? How can anyone KNOW THAT? :wtf:
"The only way to make a real difference would be to convict Bush, and we don't have the votes for that."
"The only way to make a real difference..."
Impeachment and the process will make a difference by educating zombified Americans about their government, their citizenship, and flush out the national abcess "healed" over by Ford's pardon of Nixon.
"The only way to make a real difference would be to convict Bush..."
Who says? Who? Who is deciding ahead of time what the process woulda/coulda/shoulda be and determining ahead of time that there is no point to it? Again, CHALLENGE THE MINDFUCKERS! Don't buy the line ahead of time and wimp out because of it.
"The only way to make a real difference would be to convict Bush, and we don't have the votes for that."
Who said? How do you know? Even if you make the above CHALLENGED assumptions based on impossible predictions and capitulation to the worst case scenario NO ONE KNOWS HOW THE VOTE WOULD GO.
Sorry. That's reality. Honest. No one knows what will happen. No one knows how many Members on the R side of the aisle will suddenly remember what their sworn duty to the Constitution actually is; how many of them will hear from constituents who remember Watergate and Iran/Contra and know that Gerald Ford did not "heal" the nation by pardoning the crook Nixon. Instead of counting Republican votes, maybe we should be discussing how many Democrats are prepared to stand for Truth vs. Strategery. Hmmmmmm?
I don't buy all the assumptions that these arguments are based on. I don't see these assumptions supported by facts, links, research, law, Constitutional references, essays-- it's all Think Tank Meme Bullshit.
They're selling you out. And you don't have to buy it.
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