The Constitutional Disconnect (A Question)

[H2O Man]

"A Zogby International poll conducted around the time of the Wisconsin convention asked likely voters nationwide: ‘Do you agree or disagree that, if President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment?’ Among all voters, the split was 50 percent to 42 percent against impeachment, but Democrats favored impeachment under the circumstances described by a margin of 59 percent to 30 percent. In November of 2005, when Zogby again asked the question, support for impeachment had risen, with the split among all voters shifting to 53 percent in favor of holding Bush to account if he lied and 42 percent opposed. Among Democrats, a striking 76 percent backed impeachment.

"After it was revealed in December of 2005 that the president had authorized the NSA to conduct warrentless wiretaps on the phone conversations of Americans, Zogby asked: ‘If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment?’ Overall, 52 percent of those surveyed agreed, while 43 percent disagreed. Among Democrats, 66 percent agreed. In the battleground state of Pennsylvania, a separate poll by Zogby, which was commissioned by the political website OpEdNews.com, asked Democrats whether they would be likely to vote for a congressional candidate who ‘supports having impeachment proceedings against President Bush.’ Eighty-five percent of those surveyed said they would be likely to support such a candidate, while only 7 percent said they would be unlikely to do so.

"Yet, for the most part, national Democratic leaders rejected even the gentlest talk of officially sanctioning President Bush and Vice President Cheney in much the same manner that a vampire rejects the Host. Even when they were offered clear evidence that the communities they represented were overwhelmingly in favor of action, Democratic congressional leaders explicitly rejected it. …..

"The aversion even to talk of impeachment – let alone to action – on the part of so many congressional Democrats, despite their own acknowledgments that members of the administration had broken laws, lied and contravened the system of checks and balances mandated by the Constitution, reflected a broader disconnect between party ‘leaders’ and the party’s base. Not since the dying Whig Party of the early 1850s, which could not bring itself to call once and for all for the abolition of slavery, has the national leadership of an opposition party been so fully delinked from the passions of the voters on whom it relies to remain politically competitive."

--The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism; John Nichols; pages 56-60.

An interesting question for DUers to consider in discussions and debates about the process of impeachment, which is defined in our Constitution, centers on "why?"

Why do you think the democratic leadership refuses to listen to the grass roots?