Will Bush be impeached??

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Underseer


Gotta love conservatives and their endless false equivalency arguments.

And you gotta love noobs for calling me conservative...

So you're saying that what Bush has done is no worse than what Clinton did?

We prosecuted Germans and Japanese for what Bush did.

We did not prosecute Germans and Japanese for what Clinton did.

I apologize for not making that clear in the first place.

Now, answer me. Were we wrong to prosecute those Germans and Japanese then, or do you think we're wrong to avoid prosecuting Bush now. You can't have it both ways.

Not the point. The point is that the Senate will never convict, so an impeachment, whatever its merit, will look politically motivated and backfire on teh party that pursues it...just like last time.

[Ninot]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
No...by that book, he was head of the CIA...or, I dunno, maybe something higher. IIRC, the book was Rising Sun -- it was about then, I gave up on the series...for obvious reasons.

He was Vice President when the plane hit the Capital Building. He was replacing the disgraced former VP, who was caught up in a sex scandal, possibly with a minor, I forget.

He was sworn in like a couple of minutes before the plane crash, and almost died himself, if I recall correctly, as he was just about to enter the building for the State of the Union Adress, something like that.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Darius871
IIRC the Tenure of Office Act was passed (and subsequently violated) before Johnson was impeached. At the time of impeachment there was clearly violated legislation on which the House could base its decision.

When was the "Disingenuous Embellishment of Pre-War Intelligence Act" passed?

Errr... the one big thing that you are forgetting is that the Tenure of Office Act didn't make removal of a cabinet member a "crime" or misdemeanor. No where in the act does it amend the criminal code to say the President gets fined or goes to jail for violating said act.

If you don't think a Congress could impeach a President on the basis of lying to them to get them into a war (if they had the evidence), then you are smoking something.

[Berzerker]

No impeachment, the Dems saw the GOP take a hit over impeaching Clinton and wont take the risk, which is why I dont support the Dems either.

Thinking that Bush would lie about WMD is silly. If he knew they weren't there, then he would know that it would come to light.

And? Oops seems to work for his base, well, he aint exactly saying oops, yet...

Similarly if he knew that we would have a sticky mess of an insurgency/civil war since the Iraqis are basically rude tribesmen, then he would have prepared for it. He was naive and stupid. Not dishonest.

Is he really making the decisions? He listens to his generals
I have to believe smart people drew up the policy and the battle plans, so either they really aren't smart at all but are in fact criminally incompetent, or they are smart and they wanted Iraq to fall apart. Clues are found in the "rhetoric" used to justify invading Iraq. Fight them over there instead of over here needs a translation - lets turn Iraq into a warzone to attract terrorists.

Afghanistan is too far and the terrorists weren't Afghans anyway, they came from Arabia. And Iraq becoming a mess justifies us staying there a long time which is exactly what "we" want because Iran and possibly Syria are on the list. Where would we go if Iraq had a stable gov't that asked us to leave? We need chaos because the terrorists need chaos, an efficient Iraqi gov't is an impediment to both the terrorists "freedom" to operate and our ability to attract them onto our battlefield. But how do you sell that argument to Americans? Hey, lets invade Iraq so the terrorists will follow! Dont sound all that moral...

I notice a trend, we haven't actually declared war properly since WW II... Even this invasion of Iraq was a congressional green light to let the Prez decide if we need to invade. We've been sneak attacking the 3rd world for decades...

[Berzerker]

When was the "Disingenuous Embellishment of Pre-War Intelligence Act" passed?

Ratification of the Constition, its called "misdemeanor", it refers to, among other things, behavior unbecoming the office and is obviously somewhat subjective but thats why the Framers left the power with the Senate, the more "mature" body. Lying us into a war is certainly an impeachable offense, its a hanging offense. Clinton should have been convicted but the more "mature" body didn't want to take the hit politically (sound familiar?) so they let him off for lying under oath. The nature of the lie may not have been a "high crime" but it sure was a misdemeanor.

[civman2000]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Errr... the one big thing that you are forgetting is that the Tenure of Office Act didn't make removal of a cabinet member a "crime" or misdemeanor. No where in the act does it amend the criminal code to say the President gets fined or goes to jail for violating said act.

Actually, although this in no way resolves the constitutional question, the Reconstruction Congress wasn't taking any chances, and explicitly called any violation of the Act a "high misdemeanor" punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and/or 10 years in prison (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage...db&recNum=0461). It's not clear, though, that Congress even constitutionally has the power to define what a "high misdemeanor" is.

[Elok]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
And you gotta love noobs for calling me conservative...

Yeah, that made my day. Almost as good as the time Fez (IIRC) called me a fundy...

[Aro]

Originally posted by Jack_www


Nixon's first VP was caught up in some kind of scandle, and he was forced to resign.

Almost everybody was caught up in some kind of scandal, in that administration… Good ‘ol times!

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Underseer


Gotta love conservatives and their endless false equivalency arguments.

No ob

[Aro]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


No; there will be no impeachment because, for one brief shining moment, the Dems seem to have a scintilla of political acumen and a willingness to learn from history.

The public turned against congress during the Clinton impeachment, and Clinton's popularity climbed during the ordeal. There's no reason to assume a Bush impreachment would be any different. It would be a dumb move, and a bad lead-in to the 2008 election.

What we will see are endless "fact-finding" hearings on Iraq and other topics (like Cheney's energy task force), which will have the same desired effect as an impeachment (airing the administration's dirty laundry and embarrassing its officials) without its downside (pissing off the public, installing Cheney as Overlord, etc.).

Originally posted by notyoueither
That would be too intelligent to expect from American politics, Rufus.

Not really… It’s quite common. You don’t need to be that intelligent to do it, and you don’t even need to plan it… This kind of thing moves by itself, “e pur si muove”, and the fuel is the desire of keep alive, media exposure, narcissism… You know. You don’t really need a plan, it’s a wave and you surf on it. So, you don’t need intelligence. You do need good reflexes, though. In Brazil, we call this a “fritura”, or “fritar” the involved people. This means to “fry” or “sauce”… In a metaphorical way, means deteriorate the person, politically… The press usually goes enthusiastically on that, ‘cause this sells, the politicians are on it by their sense of surveillance, common people because this distracts them for their little and bored lives… Oh, well...
The English language certainly has a word for this, hasn’t?

[Pekka]

No.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Errr... the one big thing that you are forgetting is that the Tenure of Office Act didn't make removal of a cabinet member a "crime" or misdemeanor. No where in the act does it amend the criminal code to say the President gets fined or goes to jail for violating said act.

Wrong, but Civman beat me to it so just refer to his post.

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
If you don't think a Congress could impeach a President on the basis of lying to them to get them into a war (if they had the evidence), then you are smoking something.

I won't argue that they couldn't, just that the Constitution doesn't provide for it. But who cares about that silly old piece of paper anyway?

[Elok]

Originally posted by Darius871
I won't argue that they couldn't, just that the Constitution doesn't provide for it. But who cares about that silly old piece of paper anyway?

Well, Bush doesn't, judging by his ongoing violations of the Bill of Rights (kangaroo courts, denial of habeas corpus, wiretapping sans warrant, extraordinary renditions, etc). Congress could almost certainly boot him for those. Probably won't, though. By the time they work up the indignation/guts to do it, he'll be on his way out the door anyway. Good thing, too; GWB has wasted enough time, money and energy screwing up his job, we don't need to waste even more kicking him out.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by civman2000
Actually, although this in no way resolves the constitutional question, the Reconstruction Congress wasn't taking any chances, and explicitly called any violation of the Act a "high misdemeanor" punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and/or 10 years in prison (http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage...db&recNum=0461). It's not clear, though, that Congress even constitutionally has the power to define what a "high misdemeanor" is.

I stand corrected... though, of course, the Supreme Court would later declare the act to be unconstitutional in the first place.

Oh, and besides, one of the charges that the Republicans tried to impeach Clinton on was "abuse of power". However, that article of impeachment failed to gain the requisite number of votes. I'm sure lying to Congress about the reasons for a war falls under the "abuse of power" charge.

And interestingly enough, the first use of impeachment was in 1802 when the Congress impeached District Court Judge John Pickering for the high crime and misdemeanor of "chronic intoxication".

A good resource on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors

A good excerpt from it:

Impeachment fell out of use after 1459 but Parliament revived it in the early 1600s to bring the King's ministers to book. In 1621, Parliament impeached the King's Attorney General, Sir Henry Yelverton for high crimes and misdemeanours. The charges included failing to prosecute after starting lawsuits and using authority before it was properly his.

After the Restoration the scope of the charge grew to include negligence, and abuse of power or trust while in office. For example, charges in the impeachment of Edward Russell, 1st Earl of Orford in 1701 included many violations of trust and his position. In this case, he abused his position in the Privy Council to make profits for himself; as Chief of the Navy he embezzled funds; and, as Lord High Admiral of England he got a commission for the pirate William Kidd.

"High" in the legal parlance of the 18th century means "against the State". A high crime is one which seeks the overthrow of the country, which gives aid or comfort to its enemies, or which injures the country to the profit of an individual or group. In democracies and similar societies it also includes crimes which attempt to alter the outcome of elections.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Lord Nuclear
If a President knowingly lied to the American public and Congress about a nature of a war, it would be a high crime.

It's not a crime to lie to the American people. It is a serious crime to lie to Congress. That in and of itself would be enough. Conyers, IIRC, found 37 impeachable offenses in his articles of impeachment.

More importantly, however, is that fact that at least one state legislature has called fro impeachment (that being California). Under House rules, if any state legislature calls for the impeachment of a Federal officer, the House must begin impeachment proceedings. Don't hold your breath, though.

Assuming, however, that the House could impeach him, the Senate would never convict, unless the evidence was blatant, overwhelming, and millions were marching in the streets demanding it. The GOP won;t do it, and neither Senators Clinton nor Kerry want to see Pelosi become President, since that would effectively kill their bids in 2008. If they could hobble the President, however, they will.

So once again, justice loses to political expediency.