special thanks to Nancy and Harry for taking impeachment off the table...

[mike_c]

...so the sack-of-shit in the White House and his cronies could utterly destroy everything they touched for eight full years. Bush is a miracle. Simple bad luck cannot explain the totality of his Midas shit touch. He is a freak of nature, a human black hole through which all successes and good outcomes disappear without a trace. Thankfully the democratic leadership was there to help him do the job completely.

All sarcasm aside, during the last eight years we've witnessed an historic confluence of incompetence, haplessness leadership, and cowardice in government. During some of America's worst crises, we had absolutely no effective leadership. It boggles the mind-- with three branches of government, and especially with the U.S. Congress under control of the opposition party during the last two years, one would expect the law of averages to be on our side, at least. Effective leadership should have emerged to meet the demands of the times.

But it never did. Sure, there are lots of good people in Congress-- make no mistake. But they've all either stood by, been complicit, or railed without effect as the Bush administration systematically destroyed every American institution and ideal it touched.

Here's to you, Nancy and Harry-- absolutely unequal to the leadership demands of these times!

[rateyes]

1. Yeah, cheers Nancy & Harry.

NOT.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Replace them with Barney and Hillary. nt

[Enrique]

3. impeachment wouldn't have prevented those problems

and it wouldn't solve them now.

As Bernie Sanders says in this video, "there's no silver bullet." He also says "people are working very hard" to undo the damage from right-wing extremism, and that "it will take years of hard work" to end that extremism. I recommend this video highly, I find it inspirational.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6715531

[Rosa Luxemburg]

6. it IS going to take years to break ourselves free of this right wing scourge

[mike_c]

7. effective leadership COULD have prevented them...

...and the only way to achieve that has always required impeaching the monkey king first. So yes, I do think impeachment could have gone a long way toward preventing the abuses we've seen since 2000, and even done a butt load of good if the sack-of-shit had been replaced by someone whose attention to an issue or a problem was not an immediate kiss of death.

[The Straight Story]

31. And punishing the ceo's and such of these corrupt companies won't change anything either

;)

[mmonk]

38. From Constitutional Peril: The Life And Death Struggle For Our Constitution

And Democracy" by Bruce Fein:

"Evidence of their impeachable offenses is open and notorious: detentions of US citizens indefinitely without accusation or trial; executive orders; imperial assertions of executive privilege; suspension of habeas corpus; presidential signing statements, military commissions; violations of the criminal provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978; abductions, imprisonments, and torture abroad and so on. Nothing akin to a protracted archaeological expedition to unearth incriminating facts would be required of the House Judiciary Committee,"

-snip-

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has ruled "impeachment is off the table" for President Bush and Vice President Cheney. An overriding reason is Pelosi's complicity in President Bush's major abuses through silence after she was informed of the president's illegal electronic surveillance of Americans and torture of detainees"

[midnight]

4. You do a good job in sharing your gratitude for no leadership.

I can say I have no idea what is going on in Washington.

[earth mom]

5. Wonder how much Nancy & Harry get out of the deal?

:grr:

[Romulox]

13. Nancy reportedly has a large position in AIG, along with at least 50 other members of Congress

She has a direct financial stake in the bailout.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSEtGBXG0C0s&refer=worldwide

[Canuckistanian]

20. Does "conflict of interest" not mean anything anymore?

When was the last time any politician EVER recused themselves or abstained on voting for something?

I mean, besides a court order?

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. They will definitely be blamed for anything that George Bush got away

with in the last two years of his presidency, and baby, it ain't over. We're still not in the writing fast and furious part of his term where he's allowed to pardon Hitler if he wants to.

[mike_c]

9. they were the first line of defense, and they failed utterly....

eom

[LWolf]

11. An inconvenient truth that will haunt us for decades. nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. The only caveat...

The only way I'll reconsider my opinion of them, is if they plan to try Cheney and Bush in a court of law, AFTER the pardon years. This is assuming that Bush does not have the right to pardon someone preemptively before being sentenced.

[Festivito]

10. My love for those two is immeasurable.

But, with the ever increasing abilities of nano and pico technologies, someday such a measurement might be possible.

[demnan]

12. Yes our government is broken

and who is responsible? The people in this country by and large don't care about competence in government. They don't care about anything but themselves. We see the society and the government we have made, collectively. On this forum we feel differently, however the majority of the country are responsible for allowing our country to become like this.

[Romulox]

14. Corporations buy and sell our politicians. Not the voters. Stop blaming the victim. nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

39. Yes it's all our fault!

:eyes: Not the corpoRATS who control this maladministration. Nope, not their fault at all. :silly:

[NNN0LHI]

16. Well I see you managed to get every freeper on this site to recommend your post Mike

Good job buddy.

Keep it up.

Don

[Romulox]

18. Nancy isn't exactly known as a thorn in the freepers' side, though, so... nt

[Romulox]

19. edit: dupe

[mmonk]

35. Freepers lack the intellectual skills to realize how much Pelosi

and others helped the bush administration. They have had his back through this.

[YOY]

17. Just to play devil's advocate...

If she had started impeachment hearings on both Cheney and Bush then this fiscal sh*tstorm would have been blamed on us...despite the obvious that this deregulated crapstorm has been brewing for the past 8 years.

None-the-less, she seemed to do little more than belly up when the means called for it.

[global1]

21. And He Still Has A Few More Months To Screw Up Some More.....nt

[NNN0LHI]

23. There was never enough votes to remove him

The OP doesn't mention that.

The OP is just trolling for stupids.

Don

[mike_c]

25. THAT is part of the problem the OP is about, Don....

Stupids?

[NNN0LHI]

27. Obama is also against impeachment so why no mention of that Mike?

Could it be because you knew starting a hit piece thread against him would have got you tombstoned pronto perhaps?

So you went after some other Dems who you thought you could get away with it didn't you?

You are too obvious Mike.

Don

[mmonk]

36. He cannot initiate impeachment.

[mike_c]

40. huh? This thread has nothing to do with Obama...

...at least not specifically. It has to do with what I perceive is the failure of democratic party congressional leadership. To the extent that shoe fits Obama, he can wear it or not, I suppose.

[glitch]

26. There might have been if they'd held investigations and hearings.

You are better than the trolling for stupids remark, btw.

[The Stranger]

22. Nancy Pelosi could be one of the greatest disasters our party has ever seen.

Words cannot quite capture all of the ways in which she has failed, and failed so utterly.

[Enrique]

24. that's nearly a direct Al Gore quote

except for one word.

He recently called her "one of the greatest leaders our party has ever seen."

[The Stranger]

30. He had to be speaking in utter amazement and sarcasm at what has happened.

But if Gore is misquoting me, then maybe I should be in politics, perhaps running for President.

But rest assured, I'd challenge the stolen election in the Senate, unlike Gore.

[Enrique]

32. you can run against Al in the 2016 primaries

Nothing personal, I'll have to side with Gore until I hear more details of your program. :-)

[The Stranger]

33. Don't tempt me, or I just might do it.

But by 2016, the Junta will have us in camps.

I'll run to be elected the leader of the camp.

[dkofos]

28. Here is my big FUCK YOU to both of them. You play politics why the country suffers.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

29. Thanks to them, we still have a chance in November.

Pelosi and Reid have, at great cost to their personal reputations, stopped the Democratic party from committing mass suicide for no benefit.

Impeachment was never on the table. What was on the table was the opportunity to open inevitably-doomed impeachment procedings that would have had no chance of achieving anything except handing the Republicans the election on a plate.

Children are never grateful to adults for not letting them jump off the cliff to fly with the pretty birdies, but it's still the right thing to do.

[mike_c]

41. meanwhile, the nation has gone down the toilet....

There are bigger issues at stake that the democratic party, I think.

[suston96]

34. Most people know little or nothing about presidential impeachment and its history.....

....starting with the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and on through Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton.

It is a purely political process that the Founders carelessly inserted in the Constitution based on their fears amd hatred of George III and the British Parliament. In fact, there was a famous impeachment going on in England during the convention in Philadelphia.

The Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton impeachments were based on partisan hatred of the person in office and are glaring examples why the impeachment process should be removed from the Constitution.

Edited to add this:

http://web.me.com/suston96/Site/Blank.html

[robcon]

37. I agree with Nancy and Harry.

If we had followed up with an impeachment or trial, we would soon be inaugurating McCain.

[mike_c]

42. but perhaps in a country that had not been so badly damaged...

...by the Bush administration and its cronies. I think folks are losing sight of the real goal here-- it's to protect the country and improve our society. Electing democrats is one aspect of that, but removing our enemies from office is FAR more important if leaving them in does this much damage. I'd rather see John McCain become president of a fundamentally healthy democratic republic than Barak Obama take the reins of a wrecked fascist state. We all live here, you know.