Will Bush be impeached??

[Ned]

Imran, no doubt. But so was Clinton. I am just saying that if criminal activity is the only standard, then a lot of presidents in the past should have been impeached and a lot more in the future will. I say enough is enough. Impeachment is pure politics as shown by the largely party-line vote in both Nixon's and Clinton's cases.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by germanos


I was more asking for evidence of Blix's findings being politically motivated against a 'repugincal' Prez.
(I guess that's a republican prez?)

quote:
Originally posted by BlackCat

the fact that he was convinced that Bushy had to be wrong since he was a repugincal prez.

Well, fact may be too precise a word - lets just say that when you hear him talk there is a kind of bias against repugs and bushy in particular - then I haven't said too much.

Satisfied ?

Besides that, he is a swede

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Zkribbler

Clinton did not respond with Lewinski's name.

I'm fine with the rest of your post, but you know that part's flat-out wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiIP_KDQmXs

Originally posted by Ned

I think you are right about this. But is this an argument for or against impeachment in general? Once a rare tool, it has become virtually mandatory today. The impeachment process is not so much designed to actually remove a president as it is designed to hamstring his administration and smear the opposition party. It's pure politics, but politics at its worst.

If the Dems pass on Bush now, I would oppose any attempt to get the next Dem president. But if they make the effort now, then I say that we have to pay them back once more until they get the message.

I'd go for the simpler route of taking each case on its legal merits, instead of petty partisan reciprocity 2-3 times a decade. Call me crazy.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Party line? The main reason Nixon resigned was because Republican leaders in the Congress said that most of their members would vote for impeachment or conviction.

[Ned]

We got rid of special prosecutors after Clinton's episode for a reason. It is now time for Congress to show some restraint as well.

[germanos]

Originally posted by BlackCat

Satisfied ?

Besides that, he is a swede

Sort off

I still doubt his reports were politically motivated (anti-repug). Could the interview be post-war, which proved him right?

He was riduculed and belittled, and we both remember how thoroughly the Bush-administration goes about their business.

If Blix shows resentment against Bush & Co. nowadays, I can understand that very well.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Ned
We got rid of special prosecutors after Clinton's episode for a reason. It is now time for Congress to show some restraint as well.

No.

The problem with the special prosecutor under Clinton is that Starr went way, way off the reservation and way beyond his mandate. Once he couldn't find anything that would stick on Whitewater (his original mandate), he just began a free-form investigation into all things Clinton until Monica finally showed up. Starr wasn't a Special Prosecutor; he was a Dostoevskian Grand Inquisitor, and he gloried in the role.

That's wrong. That needs to be stopped.

But a thoroughgoing investigation into how we got into Iraq (and a second one into Cheney's Energy Task Force) would be clearly focused, and entirely appropriate. If it ultimately gets into the qustion of what really happened between Bush and that pretzel, then you'll have a proper comparison; but not until then.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Darius871


As BC said, Blix only came to his own conclusion based on very limited information. As you know, Bush never allowed him to complete the inspections. Even if he had been allowed to complete them, Bush et. al would have simply claimed that the inspectors had been deceived. In either case, nobody objectively knew whether the WMD were ever there until the invasion was over with.

As I said before, even if myriad ulterior motives of Bush et. al were more important to them than WMD, that doesn't mean they didn't believe the WMD existed. And if they believed they existed, then their claims were - by definition - not lies.



Personally, I think the admin's more explicit violations of the Constitution would make a far better case for impeachment. All that would require is a paper trail of approval leading to the Oval Office (to preclude scapegoating), and congressional investigations with subpoena power could dig up that trail with ease.

I agree with your take onthe first part.

I disagree with your take onthe second part. The violations of constitution as you put it are for the most part supported by the general populace. This is a poltical loser for an impeaching party. Plus there are viable defenses in the interpretation of the constitution that muddy the clear cut violation interpretations.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
I disagree with your take onthe second part. The violations of constitution as you put it are for the most part supported by the general populace. This is a poltical loser for an impeaching party. Plus there are viable defenses in the interpretation of the constitution that muddy the clear cut violation interpretations.

Agreed, but I was under the impression that this entire thread has only been mental masturbation about what might make a working legal case, not what's politically feasible by any stretch of the imagination. The latter would require video footage of Bush eating babies (at the very least).

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Speaking of eating babies. New stem cell research from harvesting stem cells in amniotic fluid.

Yummmm....

[Ned]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


No.

The problem with the special prosecutor under Clinton is that Starr went way, way off the reservation and way beyond his mandate. Once he couldn't find anything that would stick on Whitewater (his original mandate), he just began a free-form investigation into all things Clinton until Monica finally showed up. Starr wasn't a Special Prosecutor; he was a Dostoevskian Grand Inquisitor, and he gloried in the role.

That's wrong. That needs to be stopped.

But a thoroughgoing investigation into how we got into Iraq (and a second one into Cheney's Energy Task Force) would be clearly focused, and entirely appropriate. If it ultimately gets into the qustion of what really happened between Bush and that pretzel, then you'll have a proper comparison; but not until then.

Rufus, you got it. SP's are not controllable. What he did was wrong because he hamstrung the adminstration for years with his investigation that essentially became a witch hunt.

But so did Cox.

And so did the Watergate committee.

And to some extent, so did the committee investigating Iran Contra.

Then we should mention McCarthyism and other such witch hunts.

Such investigations are harmful per se.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
[Q] [SIZE The hard left, where I am, was deliberately destroyed from without. Only once they were reduced to irrelevancy did they begin tearing each other apart over "principled" hair-splitting.

Ive read Daniel Bells "Marxian Socialism in the United States" and so I know that the hard left was tearing each other apart practically since it began in the late 19th century.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Ractionaries bent on change have little tolerance for change in ways not of their liking. Change is typically either in the wrong direction or too slow.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Ned


Rufus, you got it.

But you haven't

SP's are not controllable.

Of course they are. They operate at the behest of, and with the funding of, Congress. Congress can shut them down whenever it likes.

What he did was wrong because he hamstrung the adminstration for years with his investigation that essentially became a witch hunt.

Yes.

But so did Cox.

And so did the Watergate committee.

And to some extent, so did the committee investigating Iran Contra.

No, no, a thousand times no. Cox, the committee investigating Watergate and the committee investigating Iran-Contra all had specific mandates to look into a specific abuse of presidential power. They all stayed on task, looking at only that issue. Starr, alone, went casting hither and yon for anything he find that discredited the president. That was not his mandate; that was not his job. His actions were wrong, and the (GOP) congress's failure to restrain him was wrong.

Such investigations are harmful per se.

Wrong. The insistance that the president's actions should not be subject to scrutiny by the other branches is what's harmful, per se. It shows wanton disregard for both the letter of the Constititution and the spirit of democracy. It is essentially -- to use a word you like to throw around freely -- fascist.

Why do you hate America, Ned?

[Ned]

Rufus, the only real control of an SP is by the courts, not by congress.

I see you do not deny that prior investigations of Republicans were hamstringing the Republican administrations and were therefor harmful to the administration. You just think the investigations were justified.

I see you failed to include McCarthyism in your preferred congressional investigations list. Why? If all investigations other than Starr's were justified.