Is it possible that the decision not to seek impeachment is because

[Cleita]

Congress wants to use it as a stick? It occurred to me and family members over Thanksgiving dinner if Congress pushed through legislation like ending the war in Iraq, access to health care, dumping no child left behind and in general repealing everything the Bush administration has stuck us with, he would veto everything to cross his desk.

Could it be that what Pelosi and Conyers have in mind to prevent him from vetoes, is the cloud of impeachment hanging over him? I know they will be doing investigations, so they will have documentation for impeachment if they want to move it forward. If this is what they are up to, I say more power to them.

[JoMama49]

1. Big Ed Shultz already floated this idea on his radio show --

use it as leverage - not a bad idea. Of course, when the investigations come out with the truth, they'll have no choice but to impeach anyway!

[Demeter]

2. I Think It's Laziness, Myself. And Cowardice.

When Congress decides to impeach, it means taking a stand and dividing the world into friends and enemies, crooks and jury, right and wrong. This simply terrifies people who talk out of both sides of their mouths---they could go down in history as the one to kick out a president, or jail him.

They would be marked for life, lose support, lose political funds, even lose elections.

Then again, they could gain a country's, nay, a WORLD'S gratitude and all the honors pertaining.

Or if the BFEE isn't taken out entirely, an assassin's bullet.

Or a sense of honor and justice done.



I think it's a no-brainer, myself. But then again, I don't whore for votes or money, either.

[Hamlette]

3. I don't think it's laziness

the amount of work and energy needed to prove the charges is monumental. The WH is not going to cooperate. Think of how much time and money ($80M) it took Starr and all he could prove was a blow job.

[Demeter]

5. It Wouldn't Take Even One Percent of Starr's Effort to Produce Charges

Conyers has already done the work. All it takes is one come-out-of-the-shadows and take a stand VOTE

and we better get that vote soon.

[Hamlette]

12. and the proof?

it's one thing to make allegations, but who is there to prove he knew what he was saying was a lie? I've not seen the evidence.

[Davis_X_Machina]

6. The case will be self-making...

...and require no money to investigate.

The White House will essentially impeach Cheney and Junta Boy for us.

And rather than a long and ,messy process figuring out who lied to whom, when, over Iraq - and the President's traditional free hand in foreign policy as a trump card.

It will instead be a clean case, with precedent, and recent history. Many Congressmen were there -- Clinton and Snowe were both on the staff of the House Judiciary or one of its members, for example.

The White House will refuse to comply with subpoenas. The White House will be found in contempt of Congress. And it's 1974 all over again. US v. Nixon is still good law, it was decided by an 8-0 court. That case is not going away; it's not going to get overturned.

The winter of 2007-8 will be as exciting as that of 1997-8.

[Cleita]

14. I love your vision of the possible future. n/t

[porphyrian]

24. That time and money was spent trying to prove Clinton guilty of real estate fraud.

When no evidence that this was true emerged, they set Clinton up to catch him in a lie under oath in order to justify the time and money they wasted. They still failed, because they didn't have support for kicking Clinton out in both the House and the Senate.

To contrast, the current President and administration have committed multiple impeachable offenses, at least two of which the President has admitted his guilt in committing, though he just doesn't think it was against the law. Evidence to impeach ALREADY exists. However, many citizens are still unaware of the depth of criminality displayed by this administration (they are guilty of trusting corporate media to actually report news that matters without extreme bias). This will rapidly change in 2007, as investigations reveal more and more, exploding some heads and creating an angry uproar as the rest of the people realize how much and how long they've been lied to by this administration.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Gee, It's So Unlike The Brave Congressional Dems

to refuse to take action.

The explanation has got to be something like that.

[elocs]

7. Well, the Democrats have not even taken power in Congress yet

and already the rank and file are cannibalizing their own leaders. Pretty par for the course. After we are done destroying our own and running them into the ground will there be any left for 2008?

[Parisle]

8. Impeachment isn't the worst thing Bush could face,...

---- ...... particularly after leaving office with a democratic president following him, and comfortable majorities in both houses of congress. At that point, his fate could hinge on one privately-spoken sentence.
---- Bush is doing the democrats' work for them right where he sits. The more incompetence, treachery and just pure evil the administration heaps upon itself in the next two years will only serve to dig their hole deeper. I'd be buying them the shovels. If the democrats solve the defict problem, fix social security and show the way out of Iraq, it will be worth a dozen impeachments following 2008.

[Buck Rabbit]

9. The threat of impeachment is the only Veto stopper the Dems have.

They don't have anywhere close to a big enough majority to override any veto.

Once you play the impeachment card you have nothing but deadlock and a war you cant win for two years. Conviction is impossible without making a deal with the Republicans to allow them to appoint a new Republican VP prior to impeachment. The fantasy that Nancy Pilosi could become President through impeachment is absurd. The Republicans would never let it happen. Just as the Democrats in the Senate never would have allowed Bill Clinton to be convicted.

So you can try to push your agenda and hope the impeachment card, held in reserve, prevents Bush from vetoing everything. Or you forget about passing anything and spend the next two years trying to remove a lame duck a couple of weeks early and replacing him a Republican who can run for reelection.

On the other hand, if don't proceed on impeachment and Bush still vetoes every Demo bill that comes before him, then yes you have nothing to lose by proceeding on impeachment even though you can't get a conviction. Might as well have fun during the 2 year deadlock.

[pnwmom]

10. I have wondered that myself, Cleita. I think that impeachment

isn't as important as thoroughly airing all the dirty laundry and thoroughly discrediting him and his administration with the American people.

Clinton was impeached and yet it never touched his popularity. Bush may never be impeached -- and it won't matter, as long as the American people come to see him for the person that he is.

[Cleita]

11. I do not want him to walk off into the sunset like Nixon

without being accountable for his crimes, however, if not impeaching him gives us more immediate goals to meet, I'm for it.

I suppose there are other ways to get him and the whole terrible cabal tried through the criminal justice system after he is out of office. I hope those who know how to do it get it done.

[pnwmom]

13. Me, too.

[Connonym]

21. As much as I'd like to see W have an official reprimand

I agree with you pnwmom that we don't really need impeachment if the dems conduct investigations and expose exactly how rotten to the core this administration really is. AND if the news media covers it as thoroughly as they covered Monica's blue dress.

Oh the other hand, I think that an impeachment would be a good way to redeem the US standing as a civilized country.

[Cleita]

22. I think so too. Right now we are the most hated people in the

world especially in Asia. Bringing the Bush regime to justice either through impeachment or other means, would tell the world it was a rogue government that perpetrated all the suffering on them by misusing our military and international economic power against them. It would tell them that we will do what we can to make amends beginning with taking care of this internal problem of ours first.

[pnwmom]

23. The other problem with impeachment

is that if he were impeached but not convicted (a definite possibility since you'd need a 2/3 vote in the Senate for that), that's the same as being indicted but not convicted.

So he could go around claiming that the Senate had found him not guilty. Do we really want to give him that out? Or is it better to let him wallow in the mud and NOT give him a chance to wash it off?

[garybeck]

15. no.

you don't impeach at this point. you start an investigation.

congress has not "decided not to impeach."

patience.

[Zorra]

16. Yes. Bu*h and Cheney are Nancy's new poodles. n/t

[Cleita]

17. LOL! I love it.n/t

[Disturbed]

18. Prove that Bush and Cheney commited crimes?

“Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.” GW Bush April 2004

At the time of this statement GW Bush was authorizing the spying on American citizens and their communications by the National Security Agency and other U.S. police and intelligence agencies, in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

[Cleita]

19. There is plenty of evidence of war crimes.

Let's start with the Downng Street Memo. Then you can move on to Abu Ghraib, rendition to Ubezkistan (which Cheney has visited in the recent past. There is more. However, I will leave that up to a Congressional committee set up for investigating these and many other instances that have come to light.

Also, where has all the money gone, both that was confiscated in Iraq and that has disappeared from our Treasury in a period of time that Halliburton has tripled the value of its shares on the stock market?

There is lot to investigate here and and a lot that there should be hearings for them to answer questions under oath. There is more less publicized appearingly criminal activity with key members of the Bush cabinet.

[librechik]

20. good thinking--besides, we aren't in charge yet

it would be rude to brag about how we will kick their ass in the 3rd quarter before the halftime break is over.

heheh