What are the prospects for impeachment?

[Renew Deal]

Does anyone here have a handle on this? Can it happen? Is there evidence? Will it work?

[Silverhair]

1. ZERO!!!!!!

Wake up!!!! Both houses of congress are controlled by the Reps. Do you honestly think that a Rep congress is going to impeach a Rep POTUS?

[nostamj]

9. people who believe * will be impeached by this House

need an intervention.

sorry kids, NOT possible.

bushco controls the repukes in both houses AND the SCOTUS.

"anthrax"

never gonna happen. never.

[0rganism]

13. I do wonder about this, are these people in denial or truly insane?

Even the Democrats didn't try to impeach a Reagan. Why in the world would republicans bother impeaching bush?

[Jackpine Radical]

26. The Dems were living in a different world in those days.

They thought it was for the good of the country to just let Iran-Contra pass rather than tear up the national fabric. Little did they know whom they were dealing with. They could maybe have strangled the monster in its crib back then, but they let the opportunity pass , apparently because they mistook their opponents for honorable people with a few bad apples.

[indepat]

15. Would likely never muster even three Republican votes in the House

no matter how high and numerous any alleged high crimes.

[Jackpine Radical]

25. Both houses and the lapdog media

are controlled by the Repugs.

Edit: typo

[grytpype]

2. None.

[TheBrownDog]

3. On what offense?

[stilpist]

14. Offense? Lying

to everyone. Over and over. He keeps claiming that he's the president of the United States of America.

[patricia92243]

4. No impeachment. Wonder if it gets bad enough, the pubs might not want Bush

to run again and let them run somebody who they feel could win.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. I think a lot of them...

really don't want him around for a second term, but aren't openly saying so.

Watch for some sabotage of his re-election campaign if we run someone they can live with.

Impeachment, btw, is a purely political act. It was recognized as such by the framers, which is why there is no specification of th4e charges for impeachment. It's entirely up to the House to decide what "high crimes and misdemeanors" are.

Every one of the four attempted impeachments we've had were purely because Congress simply didn't like the sitting President, and thought there was enough public dislike to make it all stick.

Even Nixon's.

[rustydog]

8. Sorry, Nixon BROKE the law

not toopolitical, he covered up the burglary (a criminal act) of the Watergate Hotel Democratic headquarters. A crime that was put into action by Nixon's inner-circle.
This was not a political thing simply because the opposition party was in power and wanted him out, ALA Republican attack on the "i did not have sex with that woman"statement.

[TreasonousBastard]

10. Don't doubt...

he broke a lot of laws, as did Reagan.

But, Nixon got impeached over Watergate, and Reagan never heard squat about Iran-Contra.

Why is that?

The actual impeachment was political. Nixon haters and Clinton haters both smelled blood and found a way to try to get rid of a President they felt had no business being in office.

Personally, as much as I disliked Nixon, I never thought he was stupid enough to actually authorize a breakin.

Stupid enough to hire people who would, though.

[leyton]

12. Nixon was not impeached.

Though he probably would have been, he resigned before it could happen.

[TreasonousBastard]

20. True, he did quit.

Poor choice of words-- "impeachment proceedings" is a bit more accurate.

It would have been interesting to see the trial, though.

Even more interesting if someone like Agnew was still VP.

[forgethell]

16. It was still political

or why wasn't Lyndon B. Johnson impeached? His lies got us into a much worse war than * has. The man was as crooked as a broken-backed sidewinder. He did some good things (civil rights act), but he was a crook.

Oh, and that's right, Nixon was never impeached, although he would have been.

[librechik]

6. everyone says it's too close to the election to bother

If he gets in again, then we impeach.

[forgethell]

27. actually, it seem to me that

the symbolism of the thing would be effective if it happened only a week before he would be out. But it's not going to happen. The Repukes will hang together like the Dems did for Clinton. And they are in the majority. A resolution will never make it to the House floor.

[Qutzupalotl]

7. Kucinich says it would garner sympathy for Bush.

Plus it's a non-starter. Kucinich says we the people should take him out in November, rather than let congress do it.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

11. Zero...

unfortunately.

We have real criminals committing real crimes against the people, and out elected officials will never do anything about it.

That's just the hard, cold truth.

As always, it's going to be up to the people to take care of this mess.

[eridani]

17. If Bush steals the election--

--or wotthehell, even if he doesn't and wins anyway, I say go for impeachment and anything else to make it impossible for him to govern.

[quaker bill]

18. Not good enough.

Zero, One percent? Who knows, but not good enough.

[fujiyama]

19. How's this?

0.0000000000000000000000000000001% chance of Bush getting Impeached!

[OneTwentyoNine]

21. Who cares at this stage?? Just get his ass out next November....

[LeahMira]

22. Slim to none...

The Republicans are in charge of both houses of Congress and their friends own the media.

I think we have had a coup d'etat in this country and nobody realizes it yet. We think there's a chance to take back the country when election time comes around but the more time we give them, even ten months, the more time the PNAC crew and their buddies are going to do their best to make that impossible. An October Surprise has been mentioned... Until it gets really bad for the great majority of the people, nothing is going to change.

Maybe by 2006 people will get the idea and decide to commemorate the 230th anniversary of the revolution.

[spanone]

23. Not a prayer with a republican congress...

[jmowreader]

24. They don't have to impeach him to get rid of him

I have explained the Negative Coattails Theory before, but because some of you are new here since the last time, here we go again...

A president with "coattails" is so popular, he's able to pull members of his party into congress with him--like they're riding on his coattails. (This term was invented back when coats had tails, naturally.)

Now let's talk Bush the Younger. King Sadim (read it backwards), who has the unusual gift of being able to turn everything he touches to dogshit, is becoming less popular by the day as revelations that he lied us into war, outed a CIA NOC agent as revenge, turned America into the pariah of the world and bankrupted the nation so thoroughly it's going to take Democratic presidents a hundred years to fix it, become mainstream knowledge. Once he hits his proper level of support--the twelve percent of the nation that is composed of one-issue abortion foes, hardcore racists, people who go to church seven days a week, and anti-tax crusaders, plus the filthy rich who are one percent of the electorate--his presence on the ticket will start to weigh against Republicans running for congressional seats. A truly unpopular president is able to pull members of his party back into private life--negative coattails.

There are a few safe seats--Tom DeLay's comes to mind for some strange reason--but many people will vote for Democrats just because they know what Bush plus a Republican Congress is capable of. If this happens enough, the party switch will be even more severe than it was in 1994. And we won't need a Contract on America, either--we have Bush, and Bush is the best thing that ever happened to the Democratic Party, if the Democrats have the moral courage to stand up and tell the people, repeatedly and loudly, how bad Bush fucked everything up.

Should the pre-election polls start to indicate a shift from Republican to Democratic that's larger than BBV can believably fix (no one's gonna believe that if Rick Santorum's polling twenty percent the day before the election, then wins 65-35, that the election wasn't rigged), and if two or three weeks of ads with the Democrat's face in front of a French flag set to the tune of La Marseilles don't work, they will approach the village idiot and tell him "look, we're going to give you three choices. The first is the least politically suicidal: You can do a Nixon--Cheney resigns, you elevate someone innocuous to the VP's seat then resign yourself, and then the new guy pardons you both. The second is going to be far worse for the nation: We can impeach you and Cheney, Cheney first, for the lies that started the Iraq war. There's no way you'd survive the trial in the Senate, and you know that. After you've been removed from office, a long trial will start on thousands of criminal charges. You'll go down in history as the first president to be executed for crimes committed while in office; there is no other punishment severe enough for killing a thousand American soldiers over a lie, or for allowing 3000 Americans to be killed so your friends at PNAC could have their new Pearl Harbor. More to the point, you'll be executed by a firing squad consisting of one infantryman from each division that participated in the Iraq War, plus a special forces weapons sergeant who served in Afghanistan and a New York police officer, on national television. Your third choice will be even worse for you: We'll hand you, Cheney and the whole cabinet over to the CIA. They haven't done any 'wet work' in decades, but I'm certain they could find it within themselves to accommodate you. And after the Plame case and you blowing off their analyses of Saddam's capabilities, I don't think they'd have too much trouble finding someone with a gun in her glovebox. Now, go upstairs and sleep on it, and tell us your answer in the morning. There is no fourth choice. There is no way to slide out of this. Your father will not help you on this one. Your money will not help you. Your choices are to go home and clear brush for the rest of your life, or to die. Pleasant dreams."

[Shopaholic]

28. We only impeach presidents when it involves sex

Otherwise, there's no interest in the process. If I had a dollar for every Republican who told me during the whole Clinton thing that it wasn't about the sex, that it was the lying that bothered them, well, I'd be a billionaire by now. So now that Bush has lied about WMD why aren't they screaming for his impeachment at the top of their lungs? Double-standard. Sad, huh?