Support For Iraq War Dwindling

That's been my grounds for promoting it for five years.

 

Not saying I'm pushing for impeachment (in fact, I've come out here before saying I think it could be damaging to the country), but what's your basis for this? Please give more than a glib statement.

 

Guy --
I'm sorry. I can't find another way to rein these guys in. They refuse to recognize any limits on their power to do whatever they want; I'd argue that adopting John Yoo's theories on that power and putting those theories into practice is, in and of itself, an impeachable offense based on the standards set by the Founders at the Philadelphia convention, but let's leave that aside. Let's even leave aside the impeachable (to me) notion of transforming the DOJ into a partisan hit squad, and of playing fast and loose with classified material and then using the commutation power to short-circuit further investigation. They resist, in all cases, legitimate congressional oversight of their activities. They simply ignore laws passed of which they don't approve, or they hide behind the fig leaves of "signing statements," which they use to aggrandize their own power. They make claims of executive privilege far beyond those ever asserted by any other president, or recognized by any court (see: US v. Nixon). And that's only the stuff we know about. For example, I'lll bet all the money in my wallet against all the money in yours that they used the clearly illegal NSA wiretapping to go after their political opponents.
And, not for nothing, but every poll I've seen shows a greater support for impeaching these guys than ever was there for impeaching Bill Clinton.
They do not respond to the Congress, to the courts, or to the people themselves, and they simply refuse to cooperate with any other avenue of remedy, preferring, instead, to kick the can down the road until they're out of office, leaving behind a defaced Constitution and a debased Republic. What else is left?

 

If they were impeached, what would be the chances of Bush testifying and not claiming privilege?

 

What else is left? Perhaps a group of prominent Congressional Republicans to go to the White House to tell Bush it's over, please stop, you're killing us, like what happened with Nixon. Not that I expect Bush and/or Cheney to resign, but Bush's stance, which once looked to many as principled and brave (hey, don't we want our politicians sometimes to stand up for what they think is right over what's popular at the time?), now look like delusion and madness. And he's dragging down the Republican party with it. How many "voted with Bush" attack ads do you think you'll see in 2008?

The Bush-Cheney bunker mentality shows the down side of what happens when the vice president has no presidential ambitions following a lame-duck term. The last vice president of a one-plus term (including those presidents who filled out the remaining term of a deceased president) president NOT to run for the highest office was Charles Dawes in 1928, who along with Calvin Coolidge did not seek re-election. Not to sound all Cliff Clavin here, but Dawes was a disastrous veep as well, ripping Coolidge, the Senate and pretty much disrespecting everything else in his path.

But given the two-term limit for presidents didn't come in until FDR, Cheney is truly the only lame-duck veep who was not seeking further office. Thus, he has no incentive to tell Bush to listen to what the voters are saying, about anything.

 

Frankly, Simon, I'm afraid he'd throw the Secret Service around the WH if they ever convicted him. They literally do not believe his power is limited by anything or anyone.
And Bob, what Republicans? Where? They're practically screaming at him now -- Lugar, Voinovich, Collins, Sununu. Not that they're DOING anything except screaming, but he's not going to budge. If they defund the war, he'll find some pet lawyer who'll tell him he can fund it anyway. Hell, they're getting ready to go after Iran.

 

Oh, I don't expect the come-to-Jesus moment like Nixon got. By comparison, at least Nixon cared enough about his country to get out of the way.

That's why I highlight the stuff about the lame-duck veep. There is no one in the Bush White House right now who worries about re-election, except maybe Rove, who probably still figures he can bully the voters into choosing whatever candidates he backs. So unless Cheney decides out of the goodness of his heart that maybe this Iraq thing wasn't such a great idea, there is no public accountibility -- in the administration's mind -- for changing course on ANY issue. The only accountability at this point can come from Republicans who decide, for their own political skin, to stop backing whatever it is Bush-Cheney wants.

 

My only point is that it's hard to take you seriously that "you've come around on impeachment on both". I find it hard to believe you were ever against it.

 

That's the ONE point with which you take issue? Talk about picking nits.

I'm too lazy to look for actual posts to back up what I'm saying, but I seem to recall numerous threads where Fen was rather ambivilent about impeachment, focusing on the fact that a) it seemed unlikely to happen and b) the damage it might do if pursued.

 

It's the only conversation I'm having, I've been keeping out of these for the most part for a while now.

 

Look back through the posts, dude.
I argued against it, on purely pragmatic grounds, for a long time. But the last few months have caused me to realize that I believe the Constitution may not be able to survive if we allow these guys to do what they've done -- and what I believe they've done -- without taking the proper constitutional remedy. I don't give a damn about the political fallout any more. This is too important.

 

Oh, c'mon, Junk. You gotta admit. Scaife going over the side is a bit of a news item.