Now we all can see why they impeached Clinton over a trivial matter

[Walt Starr]

They went after Clinton over the most trivial matter imaginable and even though he had the highest approval ratings of his presidency because they were moving the bar for impeachment.

No, they were not moving it down. They were raising the standard required to impeach the next president. They knew that after the Clinton impeachment, high crimes that were the level of Nixon's would no longer be impeachable.

FUCKING BASTARDS!!!

:grr:

[stray cat]

1. Republican house, Republican senate

Thats what prevents Bush from being impeached. Politicians are too partisan to maintain any semblance of justice based on the actual offenses.

[mwb970]

10. It's hard for me to realize/believe that Republicans will not respond.

That they will sacrifice America to protect the ape and their party. If it's hard for me to believe, imagine how hard it will be to convince a Fox-watching Bush monkey!

[madokie]

2. I get the fucking bastards part but I'm a little dense I guess.

Peace

[zanne]

3. And Bob Barr was one of the House Managers!

He fought very hard for impeachment and talked about it every chance he got. NOW, he's calling Bush's surveillance order unconstitutional! Sometimes, it's hard to tell the opportunists from the psychotics.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. "Sometimes, it's hard to tell the opportunists from the psychotics."

Well, not in Barr's case. He's psychotic. But even paranoids get it right once in a while.

Wasn't Barr the guy who was assassinating melons with a pistol in some sort of twisted attempt to prove something about Vince Foster's death?

[gratuitous]

4. I saw a similar point made a couple of days ago

In the wake of the revelation that Bush and his criminal cabal were fighting tooth and nail to preserve their right to torture anyone they wanted, someone made the point that the Clinton impeachment had "traumatized" the nation, and so the standard for impeachment was necessarily higher, because the nation couldn't lightly enter into another such "trauma." The writer (I forget who it was, but someone whose brain usually works a little better) came down on the side that an administration that tortures folks and ignores due process is probably one that should be impeached.

But I want to back up a step to the breathtaking stupidity of the twin notions that the nation was "traumatized" by the Clinton impeachment, and that we would be traumatized again by the impeachment of George W. Bush. I wasn't traumatized by the Clinton impeachment, and nobody I know was traumatized by it. Considering that none of the charges brought against Clinton even achieved a majority vote, let alone the two-thirds necessary to convict, we all saw it for the cynical political manipulation of the system that it was.

But let's assume that the nation was indeed "traumatized" by the Republican Grandstand Play of 1998-99, when a lame duck House voted to impeach, and the Senate refused to convict Bill Clinton. We're seven years later. Anyone who was traumatized by the Clinton impeachment has surely either gotten over it, or died from nervous-nelliness due to the far more heinous machinations of Clinton's successor in office. The "trauma" of another impeachment won't affect jack shit. Instead, the general relief of getting our country back will so surpass any prospective trauma of removing this criminal administration from power. Much as the scene in "To Kill a Mockingbird" when Atticus Finch shoots the mad dog in the street. It's horrible, it's gruesome, it's sad, but it has to be done. And Atticus does the job without joy or sense of accomplishment. Similarly, the damage inflicted on our nation is nothing to be joyful about, but something to be ended, and the sooner we do that, the sooner we can get on with the process of repairing the damage.

Get these bloodthirsty madmen out of power. Get them out now. There is no prospect of reform or rehabilitation. End this rogue regime.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. I keep having this nightmare. It's 2007. The Senate is voting on

impeachment. It comes down to 1 vote. Lieberman votes against impeachment.

[WePurrsevere]

9. Americans and our Constitution will be more "traumatized" if Bush is NOT..

... impeached for all the high crimes and treason he has commited then if he is. We prefer to see our legal system work properly.

As for Clinton... most "normal" Americans were not traumatized by his impeachement. *IF* they were "traumatized by anything in regards to that whole fiasco it was the utter and blatent abuse of power by the Rebs going after a married man for lying about getting a hummer from a willing young lady when they were desparate because they could get him set up properly on any other BS charges.

[Old and In the Way]

5. True cowards in Congress are the Republican majority.

They are too afraid, too compromised or in bed with this administration. They are allowing this criminal administration to destroy this country and they have no appetite to hold their pResident to a fraction of the standards they held Clinton to.

Front guys for the Syndicate.

[Jade Fox]

8. Good point-unfortunately!

I doubt they did it consciously--these guys aren't that smart. But I believe you are correct in
that it has had the effect you describe.