Debate:Should Dennis Kucinich have brought articles of impeachment against Bush

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Actual impeachment referred to (on Kucinich's Website).

This started in the Conservapedia talk section, it was moved upon request of Human

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I know this doesn't have to do with Conservapedia, but I know that posting it here will get the most views and responses, so here we go.

Recently, Rep. Dennis Kucinich from Ohio introduced articles of impeachment against the decider, in an hours long presentation on the floor of the house, he detailed the many "high crimes and misdemeanors" the President is guilty of.

When I first found out about it, I did a little leap for joy, (OK, not a real leap, I was in bed reading fark.com on my laptop, but my foot kicked the air so that constitutes a leap, right?), finally, some accountability! But as I waited, news stories did not flood in, it was not all over the web (if I recall correctly, it took cnn.com almost a day to feature the story on their front page). I expected Rep. Kucinich to be in in high demand for interviews, if only for his eccentricities, but so far I've only see him on O'Reilly.

What is going on? Is there some kind of cover up here? A congressman introduces articles of impeachment, and all you get is a blurb from the AP? Why isn't this all over the place? You'd think that CP would use this as ammo against Dennis, but as far as I know it hasn't been mentioned. On Dennis' page over here it wasn't until last night (Australia time) that it was added to it.

So come on people! Let's get this going all over the internets!

Let me conclude with a thought from Bill Maher, even if Dennis doesn't win the general election his wife gets to be first lady :)

DLerner 03:26, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

I read about this last week or so and this isn't the first time he's introduced something to try to impeach Bush and like the other times the "charges" were pretty weak. In my eyes Kucinich is pretty much a joke. Jrssr5 08:30, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Why is he a joke? He's actually following the fucking constitution! And he's the only one with the gonads to go after Bush and Cheney, according to the CONSTITUTION! Pelosi saying "it's off the table" is pure cowardice, she's looking out for her party instead of the good of the country! (You'd think she would want to rush impeaching Bush and Cheney, 'cause if it's done on the same day, she becomes president). This country impeached a President over a blowjob, why not over the thirty five articles by Kucinich. I understand now why congress has such a low approval rating, they don't do shit DLerner 10:15, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Articles of Impeachement DLerner 10:16, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

If you want to be technical about it, Bush was following the constitution too. While he may have misled people, Congress still overwelmingly approved the military action (and on several other occasions defeated resolutions to end the conflict). The President doesn't declare war, Congress does. The beauty of our system is the whole checks and balances thing. If you want to impeach Bush for all those reasons, you're going to have to go after every single Congressman and Supreme Court Justice who supported any agreements. Kucinich's Articles are all political grandstanding. What will it achieve? Looking over that list it appears that Kucinich just pulled a bunch of random claims together in hopes that one might stick. Jrssr5 10:35, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Bush was following the constitution? LOL DLerner 10:41, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

How was he not? Given the intelligence he had at the time he approached Congress and they approved the invasion. That's how it works in the Constitution. You can always say hindsight is 20/20 and sure, knowing what we know now it wasn't the right course, but it wasn't illegal. Jrssr5 10:48, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Well, that depends on if he was providing doctored intelligence to Congress, doesn't it? - Lardashe

Good point, but as far as I know there's no real proof of that, just allegations by those who now oppose the war and/or Bush. Jrssr5 12:52, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

And I believe that's covered under the impeachment hearings. There's evidence for it - http://intelligence.senate.gov/080605/phase2a.pdf I quote from page 92 (doing this at work, so I'm not sure how relevant it is - "The Administration's misuse of intelligence prior to the war was aided by the selective declassification of intelligence reporting." There's more, but it's a pdf, and I've got work I should be doing here. - Lardashe

<-- (unindent) True, but in the same report on page 3 the committee states: "The committee is fully aware that officials may have had multiple credible sources of information ... but has not attempted to document ... since it it beyond the scope of this report." The problem with this is that there may be information which is never declassified which either exonerates or damns the adminstration's actions. I think pursuing an impeachment won't accomplish anything but make the entire US look more foolish than we already do in the eyes of the world. I'll throw in the same caveat you did as I'm at work, so I don't have time to read the whole thing. Jrssr5 13:47, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Doubt it'll happen, since the Democrats are a bunch of spineless cowards, but I do think Bush has failed miserably at the "protect the Constitution" part of his oath of office, and NEEDS to be called on it. Like I said in my letter to my Congressman, "Bush's job title is 'President', not 'Emperor', and he needs to be reminded of that."
And if a blowjob was worth three years and millions of dollars, I think letting a major city get washed into the Gulf of Mexico and starting a war on transparently bogus grounds ought to be worth putting a few people on the stand.
And then there's the Bush appointees Congress supoenaed, who never bothered to show up....
Yeah, I think there's enough meat there to keep Congress (and Bush) busu until at LEAST 1/21/2008. Shame the Democrats are terrified of somehow 'offending' the people who have publicly stated they want to destroy them. --Gulik 14:20, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

I don't know. Last I checked, being an incompetent lying asshole was not an impeachable offense. The Supreme Court has handed him defeats on some of his biggest abuses of power, and they're the first check and balance before you go ahead with impeachment. And let's not forget how well impeachment went last time it was tried. Failed miserably, made the Republicans less popular leading to losses in the next election, and Clinton left office with higher approval ratings than ever. We have, what, half a year left of this guy? Do we want half a year of President Cheney and a boost for McCain in the polls? I don't. Give him enough rope.... DickTurpis 14:28, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

"Enough Rope"? Bush has had PLENTY of rope. It's time to throw one end over a tree-limb and start pulling. Also, I have this weird notion that impeachment for "Lying this country into a quagmire of a needless war" might have just a LITTLE more popularity than "Lying about his sex life", but I'm overly optimistic that way. --Gulik 17:58, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Well, lying is not an impeachable offense. Lying under oath, technically, is. According to the law, it doesn't matter how insignificant the lie was, it can still be considered perjury. Yes, impeaching Clinton was stupid, and the Republicans played a price. Impeaching Bush would accomplish nothing but garner sympathy for the guy. If I thought there was any chance of it being successful, and if his term weren't likely to end around the time the trial would, I might be in favor. As it is, I'm too pragmatic for that, and I know it would only help the Republicans. That's my one problem with the gay marriage controversy: whenever it becomes an issue, it's the Republicans gain. That helps no one. In any case, yes, we have given Bush a lot of rope. What has he done with it? He's dragged himself and his party into historic low approval ratings. He's made the election into what should be a cakewalk for, of all people, a black man. Impeachment stands to do nothing but reverse that. There are 49 Democrats in the Senate, does anyone honestly think Bush has any chance of being removed from office? DickTurpis 22:23, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Massachusetts School of Law Organizing Bush War Crimes Trial. DLerner 21:32, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Hey, let's move this to a debate page so we can continue the discussion! ħuman 22:37, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

I'd like to comment that the reason Congress' rating tanked in '07 was they didn't go after the criminals in the Administration. If we don;t go after them now, it'll take historians 40 years to say, "oh, gee, Bush 2 were a criminal operation after all". Hearings can make it obvious in short order. And I don;t think Bush et al are gonna get a "sympathy bump", since what they have done is utterly egregious. ħuman 23:30, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

I agree, I think the Scooter Libby pardon itself is grounds for impeachment, remember Olbermann's special comment July 4th last year? Powerful stuff. DLerner 23:37, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

I'm not convinced that's why Congress's approval rating is down. I'd at least like to see evidence that it is. I believe it's down because Congress, split nearly 50/50, is deadlocked and hardly able to get anything done. Is a long, arduous impeachment proceeding with a foregone conclusion supposed to be some sort of improvement in that respect? If we really want an even less productive Congress, then impeachment is probably the way to go. As for Libby, am I wrong or does the President have the authority to pardon (or commute the sentence of) anyone he wants? (I think there was even some discussion that, prior to his impeachment, Nixon may have been able to pardon himself, but I could be mistaken there). If the people are as pissed off at Bush as they should be, we'll have a Democratic President and a more solidly Democratic Congress in January. That's what I'm banking on. But leave it to the Dem's to screw it up. They seem to have an uncanny talent in that respect. DickTurpis 23:54, 17 June 2008 (EDT)

Well, obviously it's hard to "prove" that sort of thing. But Congress can't do much with a promised veto of anything we'd want, and as pointed out only 49-ish in the Senate (they did manage to raise the minimum wage). Maybe they're unpopular for continuing to fund the war. Anyway, I think there does exist a constitutional duty to process these charges, some are pretty serious. The Bush admin outright lied us into an aggressive war of choice, killing huge numbers of people who never attacked anyone. When I say "lied", I mean it. Is it a "higher crime and misdemeanor" to lie under oath in answer to an indecent, private question, or to lie (under oath of office, keep in mind) to the entire world in order to start a war against a crippled country? And lie they did. All evidence as it comes out (starting with crappy lies to the UN...), shows that there was no truth, no credibility whatsoever, in their claims of things like "WMD"s. If they "knew" they were there, they would have found them years ago. This whole thing was a put-up job, and violated so many aspects of civilization it's embarrassing. Violating the Geneva conventions. Violating habeus fucking corpus. Violating laws against wiretapping US citizens. Taking crony capitalism and incompetence in political appointments to important offices to a new unforeseen height? Using the US attorneys offices for political gain? It is historically important that these issues get raised while they are still in office, not parked on a back burner for historians to chase down. What's Congress supposed to do for the next 6 months besides run for office? Enact single-payer health care? Hell, the administration even instructed their officials to ignore congressional fucking subpeonas. At least Clinton turned up for his, eh? Sorry, but I am glad that finally, these complaints were at least read into the record. Bush and Cheney both belong in jail, stripped of pensions, stripped of the right to privately profit from their having held office (ie, no speech fees, no books, etc., to say nothing of the rape and pillage of the Treasury for the benefit of Halliburton et al.), humiliated and punished as a lesson to those who would ever try this kind of misuse of leadership responsibilities again. There, I said it ;) ħuman 00:22, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

<stand up and applauds Human for his comments> Does anyone know if Dana Perino said anything in a briefing about the articles? I'd like to read them if they exist. DLerner 00:46, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

Hey, I'm basically in agreement. But the questions remain, is violating aspects of civilization an impeachable offense under the US constitution? And, if it is, is there any chance of a successful impeachment? The answer to the first, I think, is no, and the answer to the second is definitely no. Yes, his habeas corpus fiasco is a travesty, and the Supreme Court handed him defeat on that (not by as wide a margin as I would have hoped), which is the first step in the checks and balances system. If he continues to defy the court, then a pretty strong case could be made. (Of course, with so little time left he can probably just wait it out, the asshole.) Yeah, I'm all in favor of his abuses being brought to light, but let's face it, if you don't didn't know about them before Kuncinich read the articles, then (to quote a great thinker of our time) you're clueless. If an impeachment is going to result in nothing but a boost for the Republicans in the next election (the only result I can foresee) then I see it as a counterproductive symbolic gesture. Not to condone anything here, but the truth is if you want results a Hinckley would likely do more than a Kucinich. DickTurpis 08:49, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

Human brought up the violations of the Geneva Convention ... that actually becomes a sticky point. According to the convention if there is any indication of genocide (which Hussein was participating in) the signers of the Convention have an obligation to step in. Even if the administration lied, the US has a duty to help those who are victims of genocide. I don't think we went about it the right way, but we couldn't legally stand by and do nothing. Jrssr5 10:38, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

In that case, most of the world is in violation of the Geneva convention. You have horrible stuff happening now in Darfur, Zimbabwe and other places in the world as well. And these countries sit idly by rather then risk harming their business dealings with these brutal dictators. As a society, we pretend we're a whole lot more civilized and enlightened then in the past, but are we really? How civilized are we as a human race when we won't even get involved in a fucking genocide?! DLerner 10:45, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

I don't recall an ongoing genocide being given as a rationale for war. Weren't Hussein's attacks on the Kurdish population something like 10 years before the invasion? "This guy committed genocide sometime in the past" is not exactly a rationale for action now, as it's a bit too late to stop it, especially when little was done at the time. If he were actively engaged in genocide, I think that would likely warrant some military action, but to use it as an excuse long after it ended makes no sense. DickTurpis 10:52, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

You're right, my rant was about current events not about Iraq. In the sales campaign for the war, we were told that Saddam had "weapons of mass destruction" and "was a clear and present threat" we heard words like "mushroom clouds", "chemical warfare", "biological weapons" and of course "Saddam-Osama-9/11 connection". I (along with a large portion of the citizens) were scared shitless. I remember having a pleasant Purim meal with my family in 2003, my sister had just gotten engaged and we were all in New York celebrating. All of a sudden, we heard on the radio that we had begun bombing Iraq, we all listened to the President and were pleased. (We Jews have our own reasons to hate Saddam Hussein, so the idea of him being bombed seemed pleasant at the time). Well, you all know the rest of the story. We only started hearing "liberating the Iraqi people from a viscous tyrant after we found out that all the other reasons were complete horseshit. In fact someone in the administration said before the war that this wasn't a valid reason to invade, but I don't remember who or where, I'll get back to that point when I have an answer. While taking out Saddam when he was committing might have been a good idea, we didn't do (like Cheney [or was it Powell?] said in a 96 interview, "who would we put in charge"... But I digress. In short, this is one of the articles of impeachment, he lied to us about the war. And I say if lying about a blowjob can get you disbarred and impeached, how about a fucking war? (Lying about a war gets you re-elected :( ) DLerner 11:08, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

Actually for the record Clinton wasn't disbarred, just suspended. I think the whole Clinton impeachment was a waste of time and money, as would be an impeachment of Bush. It would accomplish absolutely nothing. If what he allegedly did was so wrong, let some international tribunal decide that, let other countries waste their money and time. I want to see some time in the near future where it isn't Rep vs Dem, but them actually working together to get something done instead of constantly bickering like little bitches. Jrssr5 11:47, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

(unindent) Yes, the Clinton impeachment was a big waste of money, and to impeach Bush would also cost the taxpayer a lot. HOWEVER, we are now faced with a question: What does a President have to do to have his impeachment be worthwhile and not just a "waste of money"? Reps and Dems will always squabble over silly things like little bitches, it's just the way government and politics work. Why can't we just have a recall election like in California? Maybe that way we'd get Arnold as President ;). [Note: But seriously, if there was a way to recall Presidential elections, Bush/Cheney would be out of there in a New York minute. But the constitution says every four years so nothing we can do...] DLerner 12:02, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

If they do a recall I say go for Carl Weathers. That way we'd get an "AA pres" and a 3rd actor from Predator would hold political office. Everyone wins.Jrssr5 12:07, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

No, we should elect Mister T. "I pity the fool who tries to violate the constitution". Or maybe to keep with the tradition of the California recall, we should elect Gary Coleman.

BTW, "AA pres" WTBH? We don't use that term here Mister! :) DLerner 12:13, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

Commentary on impeachment

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