Booman Tribune

Impeachment Moment

by Steven D
Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 03:13:34 PM EST

Are we there yet? John Nichols at The Nation (vis CBS News online) says -- almost:

Former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough had me on his MSNBC show Monday night to talk about impeachment.

It was smart, civil discussion that treated the prospect of impeaching the president as a serious matter. [...]

No, Scarborough is not jumping on the impeachment bandwagon.

He is simply treating the prospect seriously, as did CNN's Wolf Blitzer earlier in the day.

What I told Scarborough is what I have been saying in public forums for the past several weeks: We are nearing an impeachment moment. The Alberto Gonzales scandal, the under-covered but very real controversy involving abuses of the Patriot Act and the president's increasingly belligerent refusals to treat Congress as a co-equal branch of government are putting the discussion of presidential accountability onto the table from which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tried to remove it.

Can't come soon enough for me. How about you?



Display:
Right now would be good.

If you want things to get better, be prepared to deal with change.
by Kahli on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 03:23:54 PM EST
For me too.

Obama is a Patriot
by Steven D on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 03:29:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Better get them quick; very shortly we'll be at war with Iran and the entire middle east will be involved... and then we'll be looking at Martial Law here, and anyone raising the question will just go away.

We are all captives of the pictures in our heads -- our belief that the world which we have experienced is the world that really exists. -- Walter Lippman
by stormkite on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 04:20:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't think we could survive the next incarnation of this bunch.

Land of the watched, because of the cowed.
by hens teeth on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 04:12:50 PM EST
it's nice of comcast to give me back my internet access.
by BooMan on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 04:23:16 PM EST
So that's where you went.  Frustrating isn't it?

Obama is a Patriot
by Steven D on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 04:35:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
kinda puts a crimp on my style...
by BooMan on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 04:45:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]
when I see this...


© doodabides
clik to enlarge

bring it on indeed



lTMF'sA...the revolution will not be televised...Peace

by dada on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 05:22:55 PM EST
"it will be BLOGGED!"


Grandma Jo
by glitterscale (glitteryscale@yahoo.com) on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 05:53:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]
And then, Darth Cheney ascendant?

Fear will keep the local systems in line. -Grand Moff Tarkin Survivor Left Blogistan
by boran2 (blogistan@yahoo.com) on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 03:41:26 PM EST
I would assume that Cheney would be impeached at the same time if we're going to do this at all. After all, even among Republicans, Cheney is almost unbelievably unpopular for someone who isn't named Clinton.

---Cthulhu for President: Why vote for the lesser evil?
by eodell (eodell at naqada dot org) on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 03:45:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Nobody wants Cheney as President.  Well other than his family and various sadists.

Obama is a Patriot
by Steven D on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 03:48:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]
David Lindorff has addressed this canard recently:
One argument I hear over and over when I talk about the need to impeach President Bush for high crimes against the Constitution is that it can never happen because "then we'd have Dick Cheney for president."

A second argument is that impeachment could never happen because even if Bush and Cheney were removed, it would mean Nancy Pelosi would become president, and Republicans would never allow this to happen...

First Cheney. There is a precedent here. Richard Nixon, as he faced impeachment, also had what many said was a kind of impeachment insurance: Spiro Agnew. Agnew was in some ways like Cheney...

In any event, when it became clear that Nixon was going to go down, Republican Party leaders looked aghast at the prospect of facing the voters with Agnew as the face of the Republican Party. They found a way out, by having the Justice Department indict Agnew on bribery charges. He was gone in a flash, and thus they were able, with Democratic Congressional support, to put a safe, uncontroversial place-holder into the vice president's office, Gerald Ford, who was at the time the minority leader of the House. It made a certain sense given that had Republicans been in control of the House, Ford would have been the next in line for the presidency.

If impeachment hearings made it clear that Bush's days in office were numbered, as I believe would certainly be the case, Republicans would be at least as concerned about being stuck with Cheney as their party leader heading into 2008 as their forebears were of having Agnew in that position. I have no doubt but that they would push him or threaten him or drive him out of office in the same way that they eliminated Agnew. They'd have several ways to do that. Cheney, who has myriad health problems, including a bionic heart and thrombosis, could simply push a little emergency escape button on his life-support system and claim he was having some heart problems and had to leave for health reasons. If he didn't do that, there is no doubt a file lodged in the FBI somewhere with enough serious dirt on Cheney's financial chicanery to pull him down with an indictment. He knows that, and so would almost certainly cut a deal that would allow him to skate away free. In any event, he'd be gone.

As for Pelosi becoming president, I think it is impossible for two reasons. Firstly, if Democrats ever develop the courage and sense of principle to initiate impeachment hearings into Bush's crimes, they, like their predecessors in 1974, will want to gain at least some Republican backing, and they could never do this if Republicans thought they might be handing the White House over early to them. Clearly they would want to make it plain that they had no intention of installing Pelosi in the White House via impeachment. I suspect that the same kind of arrangement would be made in Bush's case as was made in Nixon's: Republicans would be able to pick an uncontroversial, lackluster replacement for Cheney--probably someone like House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH)--to take over from Cheney.



The Clintons represent the Republican wing of the Democratic party.
by Alexander on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 04:31:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I read that also.  They like Cheney at fundraisers, but they don't want him as the primary face of the GOP.  He's their red meat to the base guy.

Obama is a Patriot
by Steven D on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 04:34:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]
So far to date, since Reagan, every single time someone's said "The GOP would NEVER do that; it'd be political suicide" it's turned out to be their PLAN EFFIN' A.

You'll forgive me if I'm a little unconvinced that there's anything at all they won't do, right up to and including nuclear war and/or martial law (for which they've snuck in legal clearance).  I tend to think, based on what we're finding about 2006, that the D's won that one simply because enough people turned out to overwhelm the planned and executed election theft, and that's a mistake they won't repeat.

These are the bastards who think "setting off Armageddon so Jeebus will come back" is a high level foreign policy plan.

If they decide to muscle Cheney out, it won't be until AFTER the Constitution is officially replaced with either the KJV or the PNAC Manifesto.


We are all captives of the pictures in our heads -- our belief that the world which we have experienced is the world that really exists. -- Walter Lippman

by stormkite on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 11:22:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Bring It On!  As someone once said.
by wcnews (wcnews@eyeonwilliamson.org) on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 04:59:11 PM EST
I am so there I am almost convinced we've done it already!

Grandma Jo
by glitterscale (glitteryscale@yahoo.com) on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 05:52:44 PM EST
http://www.americanpatrol.com/
You have to line them all, up against the wall!
by Lasthorseman (Lasthorseman@comcast.net) on Tue Mar 27th, 2007 at 06:26:14 PM EST


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