Another problem with impeachment ... read up on Nixon's. He and his VP, Agnew, were both accused of various things. So Agnew resigned, Nixon appointed a supposedly clean Ford as new VP, Nixon resigned, Ford became President -- and pardoned Nixon and Agnew and everyone in sight, for any and all past OR FUTURE crimes, iirc.

The GOP would just use the same tactic again. It doesn't matter which puppet they have in the White House -- Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr, or some new 'Ford'. Halliburton and Enron people would still control the government.

Imo Pelosi and Feinstein and others are right. Attempting impeachment would waste time and energy and annoy the shallow public, which might lose us the 2008 elections.

If we can get WH and House and Senate and a few more SC justices, then maybe we could pass something that would make future impeachments more effective.
Imo the public woudn't support impeaching a lame duck without enough votes in the Senate to actually throw him out. To many people who don't read much except the headlines, it would make the Dems look as silly as the GOP did in 1998. And if there were enough votes in the Senate, those Senators would just quietly tell him to resign, as they did Nixon.

Still, for those pushing impeachment now, here's some ammunition:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/transcript2.html
JOHN NICHOLS: .... an awfully lot of Americans are concerned about with this administration and with the executive branch in-- general, that it is lawless, that-- it can rewrite the rules for itself, that it can protect itself.
....
You are [mistakenly] seeing impeachment as a constitutional crisis. Impeachment is the cure for a constitutional crisis. Don't mistake the medicine for the disease. .... We have procedures in place where we can sanction a president appropriately, do what needs to be done up to the point of removing him from office and continue the republic.
....
BRUCE FEIN: I think that if impeachment proceedings began and the president and the vice-president sat back and said, "We understand now. We both understand. We renounce this claim. .... We're going to comply with the law," the impeachment proceedings ought to stop and they should. .... And all of the purpose of impeachment would have been accomplished.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/transcript2.html

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bemused_leftist

August 2012

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