If The House Moves Forward With Impeachment

[cali]

and bush replaces cheney with, for example mccain, and then resigns himself, will that be OK with you? Will you consider that it was worth it because justice was served?

In my opinion, that's the most likely outcome of Impeachment proceedings, and it's risky. I don't know how I feel about it. I keep going back and forth on the merits of impeachment.

[eallen]

1. How would Bush get an opportunity to replace Cheney?

Nixon had to replace Agnew, who was forced to resign from a bribery scandal entirely independent of the scandals surrounding Nixon. If Bush and Cheney are impeached together, for related crimes, it is less likely that Cheney would resign during the process, since that essentially admits guilt for the administration, or that the Senate would confirm a proposed replacement for Cheney during the process.

Let's be real, here. The existing Senate will not convict either Bush or Cheney. Conviction requires two-thirds vote, and 40% of the Senate would excuse Bush any crime. So the real question is whether impeachment does any good, when conviction is impossible.

[elocs]

9. Good luck with the getting real attitude. Not many here want to go down that path.

Thoughts and fantasies about impeachment consume many 24/7, but it would be impeachment that consumes everything for the next 2 years to the exclusion of doing much else and at the end there would be conviction. If it were a sex act the end would be very disappointing. I would love to see impeachment if there were any real chance of conviction. Only hearings and oversight and investigations can bring an even remote chance of conviction or resignation.

[The Magistrate]

2. There Will Be No Conviction In the Senate, Ma'am

So none of that would come to pass.

The point of securing Articles of Impeachment in the House is to establish a record blackening the name of the current regime to the pont that the usual rightist line of "who lost Iraq?" will be useless in coming years after the inevitable disasters attendant on our withdrawl from there. It must be made quite clear that the answer to that question is "The criminal fools who got us in there in the first place!"

[Boston Critic]

4. If it's just for the record, do it...

...after the 2008 election.

[Demeter]

6. Can't Do It After Election

Even in a lame duck session, won't happen.

I think there are 67 true blue American Senators, especially if we have some special sauce for their personal geese.

[Boston Critic]

17. Sure you can...

...indeed, the Republicans impeached Clinton in a lame duck session after the '98 midterm elections.

The House Judiciary Committee, with proper preparation, could vote out articles of impeachment in November 2008 and the House could approve them. The Senate could then vote to table them. Bush and Cheney would remain impeached but unconvicted since it's unlikely the new Senate would want to try him (as they did Clinton) after they begin a new session.

The idea was to do this "for the record." It would be a black mark on their records (as if there weren't enough already) while sparing the country a protacted Senate trial.

[cali]

5. I agree that a conviction in the Senate is highly unlikely

(unless investigations produce evidence of such clear malfeasance that there's really no choice) but that's not the point I was trying to make. I was pondering what the result of an impending impeachment vote would be on bush.

As far as the record on Iraq goes, I don't think Articles of Impeachment on necessary to counter the feeble lines from the rightists. It's already quite clear who's responsible for Iraq.

[elocs]

10. If there is no chance of conviction in the Senate

an impending impeachment vote would have little effect on Bush. It would be spun as the Democrats doing impeachment because they can and as payback for Clinton's impeachment. And for some (I said SOME) that probably would not be far from the truth.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. It would not be in the DEMS self interest

to impeach Cheney first this time.

They both need to resign together and that would put Nancy Pelosi next in line.

[PSPS]

7. There is no choice

If there isn't an impeachment, what exactly does the country stand for? Letting war criminals skate?

The only thing worse for the country than having a war-criminal as president is having a war-criminal as president and doing nothing about it.

If the new congress just sits idly by as even more innocent people are killed, this will just increase exponentially the number of people committed to the harming of our country and its citizens as retribution for bush's many crimes against humanity.

I'll say this: If this new congress does nothing about this, we've gained nothing at all in the 2006 election. It's just more of "stay the course" with a big fat "D" on it.

[cali]

8. Of course there's a choice. That is a fact.

You may not like but that's the reality. And not impeaching does not necessarily mean that the 2006 election achieved nothing positive. There are other issues of import aside from impeachment.

[elocs]

12. For many, impeachment is the only issue, to the exclusion of all else.

Hearings and investigations will expose everything as much as impeachment without conviction and the reality is that there will be no conviction. Reality is a harsh mistress.

[Senator]

16. You're right - it is a fact that they can choose complicity

It's also a choice many "may not like."

But the reality is that on the first day the new majority "takes control," the years of war crimes at Gitmo will be ongoing, as will the illegal spying. The UN's completed war crime investigations and the USSC's ruling that Geneva has always applied are really unnecessary, as the regime does not deny the charges, they just makes legalistic (rhetorical) "defenses" for them. (The same is true of the illegal spying. The FISA court's ruling of illegality is beside the point.)

Just like Warner, McCain, and Graham had to decide whether or not to put the war crimes in their names with the "War Criminals Protection Act" (they refused), the Dems will face the same crossroads.

No legislating or non-binding resoluting satisfies their oaths of office to defend the Constitution from these criminals. Only by impeaching will they acquit themselves under our laws and to history.

And while they can certainly deal with "other issues" concurrently, I have trouble seeing how any level of import applies to those while war crimes are being committed in our names.

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[blm]

11. My guess is that it never reaches impeachment, that just a few open books and

both Bush and Cheney are forced to resign - and it is the House that votes for a VP replacement, not a President. You may recall that when Agnew left, the House voted for Ford.

[Toots]

13. The most likely outcome is a long drawn out investigation into all aspects of

Administration Dealings. Into FEMA and it's status, into Homeland Security, Into Environmental dealings, into energy meetings, into the Administration's politicizing of all things. I expect these to take place over the next year or so and the Administration will fight tooth and nail every step of the way. All making for good news stories for the Media. I expect because of these investigations the Republicans will be in defensive positions throughout the '08 campaign. We may never get to Impeach but we very well may get to Indict...and I doubt much of their program will make it through Congress so we may have "stopped the bleeding" anyway..

[Melynn]

14. Don't think that there will be impeachment

I do think that there will plenty of investigations into the corruption of the current regime which like Toots says, will neuter the whole wingnut agenda.

[Boston Critic]

18. You've got that right...

...the only way there's impeachment is if some heinous NEW crime comes out of Congressional oversight hearings.

I wouldn't rule it out, but I wouldn't count on it either. Let the investigations run and lets keep Bush, Cheney, and Co. on the defensive for the remaining two years they've got left.

[Senator]

15. That scenario is (nearly) constitutional -- within the "consent of the governed"

I only say "nearly" because no action since the election theft has been legitimate, therefore it follows that none of the bushkid's appointments carry legitimacy.

However, impeachment is a protection against the "present danger" the regime continues to pose to the nation. And since any replacement would now have to be approved by a "non-one-party" congress, that VP-then-P would carry the legitimate approval of the people.

I wouldn't pose, or expect, any significant level of objection.

But "the result" remains irrelevant to the moral, patriotic duty to impeach.

The chips can fall where they may. It's that important -- and non-partisan.

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