Impeachment Moment

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?

18 Comments

Kahli on March 27, 2007 at 3:23 pm

Right now would be good.

Steven D on March 27, 2007 at 3:29 pm

For me too.
stormkite on March 27, 2007 at 4:20 pm

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.

boran2 on March 27, 2007 at 3:41 pm

And then, Darth Cheney ascendant?

eodell on March 27, 2007 at 3:45 pm

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.
- Steven D on March 27, 2007 at 3:48 pm
  
  Nobody wants Cheney as President. Well other than his family and various sadists.
on March 27, 2007 at 4:31 pm

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.
- Steven D on March 27, 2007 at 4:34 pm
  
  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.
  - stormkite on March 27, 2007 at 11:22 pm
    
    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.

hens teeth on March 27, 2007 at 4:12 pm

I don’t think we could survive the next incarnation of this bunch.

BooMan on March 27, 2007 at 4:23 pm

it’s nice of comcast to give me back my internet access.

Steven D on March 27, 2007 at 4:35 pm

So that’s where you went. Frustrating isn’t it?
- BooMan on March 27, 2007 at 4:45 pm
  
  kinda puts a crimp on my style…

wcnews on March 27, 2007 at 4:59 pm

Bring It On! As someone once said.

dada on March 27, 2007 at 5:22 pm

when I see this…

bring it on indeed

glitterscale on March 27, 2007 at 5:53 pm

“it will be BLOGGED!”

glitterscale on March 27, 2007 at 5:52 pm

I am so there I am almost convinced we’ve done it already!

on March 27, 2007 at 6:26 pm

http://www.americanpatrol.com/
You have to line them all, up against the wall!

Kahli on March 27, 2007 at 3:23 pm

Right now would be good.
- Steven D on March 27, 2007 at 3:29 pm
  
  For me too.
- stormkite on March 27, 2007 at 4:20 pm
  
  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.
boran2 on March 27, 2007 at 3:41 pm

And then, Darth Cheney ascendant?
- eodell on March 27, 2007 at 3:45 pm
  
  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.
  - Steven D on March 27, 2007 at 3:48 pm
    
    Nobody wants Cheney as President. Well other than his family and various sadists.
- on March 27, 2007 at 4:31 pm
  
  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.
  - Steven D on March 27, 2007 at 4:34 pm
    
    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.
    - stormkite on March 27, 2007 at 11:22 pm
      
      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.
hens teeth on March 27, 2007 at 4:12 pm

I don’t think we could survive the next incarnation of this bunch.
BooMan on March 27, 2007 at 4:23 pm

it’s nice of comcast to give me back my internet access.
- Steven D on March 27, 2007 at 4:35 pm
  
  So that’s where you went. Frustrating isn’t it?
  - BooMan on March 27, 2007 at 4:45 pm
    
    kinda puts a crimp on my style…
wcnews on March 27, 2007 at 4:59 pm

Bring It On! As someone once said.
dada on March 27, 2007 at 5:22 pm

when I see this…

© doodabides
clik to enlarge

bring it on indeed
- glitterscale on March 27, 2007 at 5:53 pm
  
  “it will be BLOGGED!”
glitterscale on March 27, 2007 at 5:52 pm

I am so there I am almost convinced we’ve done it already!
on March 27, 2007 at 6:26 pm

http://www.americanpatrol.com/
You have to line them all, up against the wall!

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Steven D

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