Maybe we could accomplish more without impeachment.

[pnwmom]

We could hold investigations, air out the dirty laundry, and then hang the threat of impeachment over Bush's head -- either he cooperates with us, or else . . . .

(Something to remember -- even if we impeached him, we don't have the votes to convict him in the Senate. So he'd probably remain in office, just as Clinton did post-impeachment.)

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. As long as we can use the same approach for street crime?

Fair is fair. Give all drug pushers, murderers and rapists a slap on the hand, and send them on their way. I'm sure our kindness will be its own reward.

[pnwmom]

2. We do use the same approach with street crime.

Prosecutors do not bring cases to trial that they have no chance of winning. And we don't have the votes in the Senate to put him out of office.

However, if we do the investigations and the evidence is overwhelming, then Bush might be vulnerable. If enough Republicans would vote to convict, that would change everything.

[Loge23]

3. Crimes are too great.

I understand your point and it's well taken. However, Bush's crimes are simply too enormous to go unpunished:
Lying to the country, wrapping himself in the flag, the needless deaths of so many Americans and Iraqis (not to mention the Afghans), ignoring the majority of Americans, ignoring Katrina, ignoring the 9/11 warning, spying, torture, remission, and just being the evil imbecile that he is.

[pnwmom]

5. Let the investigations begin!

[jojo54]

4. Killing thousands vs. a stained dress?

I know where my vote lies. At the least, I think he should be strung up in front of the W.H. so diplomats from all the other nations can come and throw rotten tomatoes at him, or stick him with straight pins, or something! I want * to feel the pain that he has caused so many hundreds of thousands of Americans, and everybody else that he's snubbed his nose at.

We've got to get him where it hurts.....dry up all the oil!

[pnwmom]

7. The Rethugs were hurt politically because

of that impeachment.

Of course we have far more reason to impeach. The question is whether we should be focused on punishing them or on winning the Presidency in 2008. If we can do both, fine. But I think the FOCUS should be on moving the country forward in a positive way (raising the minimum wage, getting out of Iraq, etc.) and positioning ourselves for 2008.

[Morgana LaFey]

42. No reason we can't do both

Americans asked for some accountability at long, long last in this election. There'd been absolutely NONE since Bush took office, and they finally intuited enough of the truth that they came out in record numbers to demand change, specifically citing both CORRUPTION and the IRAQ WAR as areas in which they want change.

How do you end corruption with installing accountability? How do you implement accountability without some punishments for wrongdoers?

Most important of all, though, is that if we let Bush get away with all that he's gotten away with, without holding him accountable, we'll further embolden and enable the Bush Crime Family -- whose evil deeds we've been suffering through off and on since the 1930s -- for future crimes against us, the Constitution and humanity. THEY HAVE TO BE STOPPED. Impeachment is one avenue, and an important one.

[pnwmom]

56. There is more than one way to hold him accountable.

Putting him in literal handcuffs is one way. Putting him in figurative handcuffs is another.

If we impeach him, that is the same as indicting him. But if impeach him and can't convict him in the Senate (for which we need a super-majority), then he will be able to say that he was found NOT GUILTY.

How will that benefit us?

Better to concentrate on "draining the swamp." If we find enough bodies that the Republicans are willing to join us in convicting him, that would be a different matter.

[earthside]

6. This 'Revolution' Will Die

This repudiation of Bush and the new Dem revolution will die a quick death if the anti-impeachment attitude takes over among Democrat officials.

War crimes cannot be just "dirty laundry" to be aired ... if there is not accountability exacted by the new Congress, regardless of the odds of conviction, then this nation is still on the track to oblivion.

[pnwmom]

8. If we can prove war crimes on the part of Bush/Cheney,

then we should be able to convict in the Senate. That could change everything.

[Zhade]

71. The Iraq war itself is one massive war crime.

What more do you need?

[El Fuego]

9. Let's just throw out the entire judicial system then.

Prosecuting criminals just takes up too many resources. :eyes:

WE NEED TO IMPEACH TO SEND A MESSAGE TO FUTURE PRESIDENTS. If the bush administration gets away with this, the routing of our Constitution and the illegal expansion of executive powers will continue with the next GOP president.

[pnwmom]

32. Impeachment without conviction -- which we don't

have the votes for -- won't send any message except that Bush was found NOT GUILTY in the trial in the Senate.

Is that the message that we want to convey to the American people? That the House impeached (indicted) him, but the Senate found him NOT guilty?

[El Fuego]

39. But we DO have the votes in the Senate. It is a NEW DAY!!!!!!

We won Montana. Webb will prevail in Virginia!

WE CONTROL THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE!!!!!!!!!!!!

:woohoo:

[pnwmom]

54. No, we don't. More than a majority vote is required to convict.

A LOT more. Do we have 2/3 of the Senate?

[brentspeak]

10. Agreed 100%. The nation didn't vote Democratic so that impeachment

hearings would be conducted; it voted Democratic to get us out of Iraq and to stop Republican corruption.

And what would be the point of impeachment hearings, anyway? So that Dick Cheney could become President? And besides, the Democrats will be holding a razor-thin majority in both House and Senate, with a lot of the newly-elected Dems who are rather conservative; there will not be party concensus on impeachment, by any means.

The Democrats would lose the goodwill they just won from the public if they pursue a vendetta. They should (and will) get smart, not get even.

[lefthandedskyhook]

12. Think about what this means

"...and to stop Republican corruption."

What is the constitutional remedy for corruption (specifically "high crimes & misdemeanors") in the executive branch?

[hijinx87]

22. the whole point of the election last night . . .

was that we DID stop republican corruption. the nation voted a shit
load of them out of office, and flipped control of both houses of
congress. they are effectively emasculated.

THAT is the (best) constitutional remedy for corruption.

[lefthandedskyhook]

26. Can't disagree with that n/t

[lefthandedskyhook]

11. Once the crimes are exposed...

...there will probably not be any choice but to impeach. The repugs will likely break their lockstep habits under the fallout and some of their senators could even vote to convict junior in order to save seats. He stole two elections after all... etc. etc.

Can you say: "President Pelosi"?

[luckyleftyme2]

13. THIS IS ABOUT TRUST!

HANG THE CHIMP!
HE SHOULD BE IMPEACHED AND THEIR IS ENOUGH REPUBLICANS THAT WILL VOTE HIM OUT! THEY WILL JOIN THE DEMOCRATS ON THIS ONE!

[Nederland]

14. Very true

Although nobody here at DU will get it.

Just look at what impeachment did for the Republicans in 1998...it got them nowhere.

[lefthandedskyhook]

16. It hurt their party because...

...it was done for purely political purposes. This isn't about politics or vengeance. This is about high crimes and misdemeanors.

[Nederland]

19. Yup

High crimes and misdemeanors. That's what the Republicans thought too.

I guess you don't get it.

[lefthandedskyhook]

23. There is a difference

Clinton's "crime" doesn't even compare to what junior has done. I really don't care if they impeach. I'd rather see all the malignant legislation reversed and the courts balanced. The simple fact is that it is required by law.

[Nederland]

24. Response

I understand that you believe that Clinton's crime doesn't compare to what Bush has done. But what you and I believe is not important. What's important is that wider electorate would prefer to see Congress fix their problems instead of waste time impeaching a guy that's going to be gone in two years anyway.

[lefthandedskyhook]

25. You make a good argument

I'm happy to let our recovering system sort it out.

[pnwmom]

31. I'm encouraged by Pelosi's assertion that they're going to

"drain the swamp."

I think she's going to handle this well.

[partylessinOhio]

15. The crimes of * are just too serious and we have sustained too much

damage to our Constitution. We must impeach!

[hijinx87]

27. WE DON'T HAVE THE DAMN VOTES!!

why don't people understand that?

[lefthandedskyhook]

34. I think people do understand

It is far too early to talk seriously about impeachment. We will just have to wait & see what happens to the republicans in the coming months.

[pnwmom]

36. Agreed. Time-- and the evidence -- will tell.

[El Fuego]

40. We control the Senate now!!!!! We have the damn votes!!!!

:woohoo:

[Richardo]

48. Get a civics text, for Christ's sake.

You need 67 votes to convict.

[hijinx87]

17. I have been saying this for months

every minute spent on impeachment detracts from our legislative agenda.

fuck him. he's irrelevant now. he will be damn near invisible in 6 months,
and totally gone in two years.

we need to consolidate our position in the house and senate, and concentrate
on creating a record of progressive achievement during the next two years so
we can increase our majorities in both houses.

anything else is just plain short sighted.

[lefthandedskyhook]

18. You are correct

"every minute spent on impeachment detracts from our legislative agenda."

There are mountains of bad legislation to undo.

[Imagevision]

20. I agree, Bush needs to be proven guilty for AA illegalities he's responsible for instead of

merely allowing this crooked-president to take a hike back to Crawford? - No, that would be counter-productive. This failed leader must be shown as the crooked and corrupt politician that he is...

It's not like impeachment means, life or hanging, duh!

[pnwmom]

28. Assume we impeach him. That means we indict him.

But we don't have the votes to CONVICT him.

So he would always be able to say (just like Clinton) "I was impeached, but NOT FOUND GUILTY."

I would rather lay out all the dirt, and let people make up their own minds. I don't want him to be able to say that the Senate found him not guilty.

[kenny blankenship]

21. Impeachment without conviction would backfire and make Dems less popular

We won't have the strength to go all the way in the Senate, which will be nearly split, even if we control it.

What we can do is investigate and uncover the corruption and abuses of power. There's MORE than plenty for 2 years.

Cnn opened their discussion of the exit polling results with the "surprise" that voters were pissed off about corruption more than any other single issue, including the war. That will allow us to charge down two paths of investigation at the same time: uncovering individual Repuke vote selling and larceny AND exposing and rolling back Execbranch/GOP systemic abuses of power. As long as there's more dirt to dig up in the first category, we will have authority from the public to keep digging in the second. IOW: make the connection in voters' minds between the common kind of corruption (like Duke Cunningham) and worse systemic corruptions (warrantless spying on citizens, Executive power grabs, the introduction of legalized torture) We'll have a finite time to set things right in gov't and pour in buckets of disinfectant; we don't know how long but we know the public will at some point lose interest or tune it out as "politically motivated". All indications are that DC under the reign of Tom Delay and Karl Rove is a federal prosecutor's dream come true though, so we might still have popular attention with investigations all the way through Nov. 2008. And as for "punishing Bush" the investigations themselves should destroy him and could uncover enough evidence on how he took us into an illegal war and paid off his backers with war contracts, so that he spends the rest of his life fighting extradition to an International Warcrimes Tribunal.

[pnwmom]

30. I agree. Impeachment without conviction is worse

than no impeachment at all. It would give Bush cover -- he could always say he wasn't convicted.

[Richardo]

29. K&R

You're right on, pnwmom. :thumbsup:

[mtnsnake]

33. Hell no. I wanna see "Impeached" next to his name in the history books

If any president deserved to be impeached, it's Bush.

[pnwmom]

35. Do you want to see: NOT GUILTY by his name?

Because that's what will happen if we impeach (indict) him but don't have the votes needed to convict him in the Senate.

[mtnsnake]

45. Why do you assume he'll have Not Guilty after his name? Don't give up so easy

[Richardo]

49. Name the 67 yes, sixty-seven, Senators who will vote to convict.

I'll be waiting over there. :eyes:

[mtnsnake]

50. Roll your eyeballs all you want. Give up, too, while you're at it

I'm not arguing over whether he'd actually be convicted. However, unlike you, I give a shit about the dipshit getting impeached. You wanna let him off scott free, that's your perogative.

[pnwmom]

51. We're letting him off easy if we let him forever say "NOT GUILTY"

Better to let him roll in the filth of being the WORST PRESIDENT EVER TO NOT HAVE BEEN IMPEACHED.

But if, in the course of "draining the swamp." enough evidence comes to light that EVEN Republicans are clamoring for conviction, then fine -- impeach and convict him.

Otherwise, impeachment will roll right off him. After all, Clinton was impeached -- and found not guilty. And people still love him.

[rocktivity]

37. We can't not try to impeach

Win or lose, there MUST be investigations. And who says we can't find ten Repubs to go along?

:headbang:
rocknation

[pnwmom]

57. Investigations are a separate issue and they will go forward.

That doesn't mean we're "trying" to impeach. But if enough bodies remain when the swamps are drained, who knows?

On the other hand, you can count on the Bush administration to stonewall any investigations. By the time we have forced him into a legal corner, he might only have a few months left of his Presidency.

[C_eh_N_eh_D_eh]

38. There are more important things than impeachment.

Even if the Dems did have the votes they'd need to guarantee a conviction, the impeachment process would tie up the government for months, or even years. Do you think the Republicans will all of a sudden start playing nice in the courtroom just because it's in a great big venue? Hell, no! They'll pull every sleazy trick in the book, and drag the whole thing out until everyone's completely sick of it.

And meanwhile, all the problems plaguing the American people, many of whom voted Democrat for the first time in their lives yesterday because they were desperate for any kind of a change, will be ignored because the majority party in Congress is wasting all their time, energy, and resources on a court battle whose ultimate outcome won't change a bloody thing. And things will only get worse for everybody. Oh sure, you'll prove to the nation that George W. Bush was beyond a doubt complicit in war crimes, treason, contempt of congress, and Gawd knows what else. But that won't make a scrap of difference to the single mom who can't pay her kid's medical bills, or the engineer who hasn't been employed in three years, or the soldiers who are being forced to kill and be killed thousands of miles away from home for no good reason.

The Democratic Party's one and only objective is to help the American people, and undo the harm done by this maladministation. Justice must be seen to be done, absolutely, but in this case it's not worth the expense, not yet. Meanwhile, keep up the investigations. Seek out all of the GOP/PNAC/FNORD secrets, and drag them into the light for everyone to see. That should be the real goal of impeachment anyway; whether or not W himself actually ends up in jail isn't really important.

[pnwmom]

58. Well said. Thanks!

[slackmaster]

41. What's the BEST possible outcome we could get from impeachment

President Cheney.

Enough said.

[lefthandedskyhook]

55. Not quite

If junior goes down do you think shooter would be left alone? I don't.

The best possible outcome would be President Pelosi. That outcome might weaken our cause in '08.

[pnwmom]

59. It wouldn't be President Pelosi. They'd pull a "Nixon."

If conviction looked likely, Cheney would resign, Bush would appoint his replacement, then Bush would resign. Then the new President would be perfectly situated to run for President in 2008.

We would have given John McCain a leg-up.

[lefthandedskyhook]

65. OK I'm convinced

Every scenario looks either too risky or not very advantageous. We'd all like to see justice, but its important not to throw the baby out with the bath water.

[Strawman]

43. We need some investigations in order to sort out Iraq in order to govern

It may be that in the process of those investigations, the spadework for impeachment will be done. I wouldn't rule out impeachment categorically, but to say impeach now is kinda like putting the cart before the horse. Investigations might make it so that the Republicans needed to sucessfully impeach the President and Vice President will need to support it to save their own asses, like with Nixon.

Should we be able to impeach based on what we already know? In a more just world, yes. Can we say that is priority #1 today and have any hope of achieving that? No. No way.

The Democrats, above all else should govern. We need a government that believes in governing. We haven't had any semblance of one for the past 6 years under unified Republican government. Govern sensibly and effectively and at some point in the near future if you can justify impeachment in terms of necessity for effective governance, try it. It might be more prudent, albeit less perfectly just, to just wait out this lame duck president. It might not.

[pnwmom]

52. I agree: investigations are paramount. "Drain the swamp"

as Madame Speaker puts it.

[KoKo]

44. Yes....investigations forcing him to RESIGN or at least holding him

Accountable enough so that he can't Pardon his gang of Criminal Conspirators and that Civil Suits can proceed once he's out of office.

That would be far better in the limited time we have left than Impeachment as much as most of us would wish it. There's so much that needs to come out about what they've all done that Impeachment is a "simple solution" to a grave breach of our Constitution.

[pnwmom]

61. Especially since impeachment doesn't mean CONVICTION.

Who here would be satisfied if he were tried in the Senate and found not guilty? What a waste that would be.

[Barack_America]

46. If you want to hand the 2008 Pres Election to the Republicans...

Then by all means press for an impeachment.

But if you want to hang on to the fragile support that the voters of this country have given the Dems, then push this Congress to actually accomplish something.

This election does not show overwhelming support for Dems, but overwhelming disdain for Republicans. Don't be foolish like Bush and think that some sort of "mandate" has been given here.

[omega minimo]

47. Maybe we need to protect and defend and restore the Constitution

:hi:

[pnwmom]

62. Of course we do. But what's the best way to do that?

I agree with Nancy Pelosi. Let's "drain the swamp."

But if we don't find enough bodies there to guarantee a conviction in the Senate, I think we're worse off if we impeach him. He'd remain in office and could say that he was found "not guilty."

:shrug:

[Imagevision]

53. Bush can't handle impeahment or investigations - he would crack up for sure...

[pnwmom]

63. There WILL be investigations.

So this should be interesting . . .

[struggle4progress]

60. We need the investigations anyway. The oversight is critical, and

Americans need to know what BushCo has been up to. There would be no way to justify impeachment without the results of investigations, and without really damning results we wouldn't have two/thirds of the Senate anyway. And within about a year, everyone is going to think that it's easier to wait for an election than to impeach. So unless investigations turn out something really really bad, really really soon, there won't be any impeachment.

So of course we should talk about multiple serious investigations immediately. This is critically important for the country, and its critically important for the Democrats in 08 also.

[pnwmom]

64. I assume Pelosi means investigations when she says

"drain the swamp." But if she doesn't, then I think pressure should be applied.

[struggle4progress]

66. Pressure should always be applied, even when people are inclined to

do the right thing: better that The Honorable Speaker be able to say, "Well, you do understand that I am trying to be moderate, but half the country is asking that you be treated with tar and feathers ..."

[pnwmom]

69. good point!

[wordpix]

67. we have to investigate first, impeachment or no. First things first, please

[OzarkDem]

68. As long as there is full legal remedy

No one should get off the hook, no one.

[Zhade]

70. Yeah, why hold criminals accountable?

THIS is a win? THIS?