Birmingham Progressive Politics Examiner
by Karen Harper
71% of Americans are in favor of an investigation into the possible misuse of the Department of Justice by the Bush administration according to a Gallup poll released yesterday. The Bush administration has been accused of using the Department of Justice for political maneuvering including the firing of U.S. attorneys and the investigation and conviction of Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, a Democrat.
Of the 71% who believe Bush should be investigated, 41% want a criminal investigation while 30% are in favor of investigation by an independent panel. 71% is a very high percentage of the American population.
Though President Obama has shown little inclination to get involved in an investigation and possible prosecution of officials in the Bush administration, it seems the nation wants the former President Bush to be held accountable for his crimes.
Another 63% of Americans are in favor of investigating the Bush administration in connection with illegal wiretapping. 62% of Americans believe the Bush administration should be investigated for the use of torture.
As a nation that holds its citizens accountable for their actions, we should not let the President and those who acted with him, go unpunished for activities that would see the average American citizen in prison for committing torture, illegal wire-tapping or misuse of the Justice Department.
A House committee led by Representative John Conyers has already issued subpoenas of former Bush administration officials. Earlier this week, Senator Patrick Leahy announced he would like to see a special commission to investigate the Bush administration for alleged torture of terrorist suspects and the abuse of the Department of Justice.
The persecution of Democratic Governor Don Siegelman has been widely criticized by U.S. attorneys across the nation, both Democrats and Republicans and there is mounting evidence of political maneuvering aided by Karl Rove in a falsely created investigation and subsequent prosecution of the former Alabama Governor.
There is also a great deal of evidence in the case against the Bush administration for its use of torture as the former Vice-President has all but bragged about his role in the use of illegal torture.
Though the new Obama administration doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to investigate crimes committed by the Bush administration, Americans are keen to see the former President investigated.
President George W Bush was sworn to uphold the constitution of the United States but did not. He ignored Geneva conventions that America has held to since WWII.
To simply give a pass to those who break our nation’s laws and rules sets a frightening precedent. If officials in the Bush administration shouldn’t be held accountable for their crimes, then who should be?
(Source)
[Ed: Today’s posts by Mr. Danske are being edited as a one-time courtesy. Any further bile-filled, abusive diatribes will be deleted in their entirety and Mr. Danske risks losing his posting privileges completely in the interest of maintaining a modicum of civility and raising the public discourse.]
Geez. You guys are so intent on tilting at this Impeach Bush windmill that you’d find a divine sign for impeachment in a piece of burnt toast.
You’re presenting this 71% result as evidence that America wants to impeach Bush, or, at best, 71% are looking into an investigation to set up a case to prosecute criminal activity.
That is not really what the poll found. 41% want a criminal investigation. The remainder of that 71 just want a panel investigation. Funny how you failed to mention that [Personal attack deleted].
And if you bother to actually look at the Gallup page, you find out even more that is revealing. Firstly, the title of the poll itself reads “NO Mandate for Criminal Probes of Bush Administration.” Did you notice that? Of course not. Kids stopped doing their own homework ever since public schools started turning into ideological puppy farms.
What else do we find on that poll page? Further on down the page, it breaks down the results according to political affiliation. Is a desire for criminal investigation a bipartisan phenomemon? Hardly. Democrats show the highest percentage of pursuing a criminal investigation (no surprise there), but even they are pretty much split down the middle on it. No wonder this whole impeachment thing isn’t getting anywhere.
And what of the sampling? How many people were interviewed? Millions? Ten Thousand?
Nope. 1027. That’s kind of like taking a “campus-wide poll” at a 27,000-student university but really only getting the opinion of one person, and that’s being very generous.
[Actually, that is a very common and widely accepted number for sampling in national polls with those contacted found in a balance of locations around the nation.]
And, there’s no indication of where the sampling was taken from. Urban areas where Democrat opinion generally tends to rule? An even sampling of Urban, Rural, and Suburban areas? We don’t know.
[It is a Gallup poll – widely accepted as one of the most trustworthy poll number sources in the nation for decades.]
So, I was right in that Leahy post about not taking this 71% number too seriously. And, since you guys are intent on being intellectually dishonest about the matter by the spin you’ve put on it, doubly so.
And, apparently, a good part of the world doesn’t think too much of it, either. It’s largely absent in newspapers like Aftenposten (Norway), Jyllands-Posten (Denmark), Aftonbladet (Sweden), Die Welt, Die Zeit (Germany), Le Monde, Le Figaro (France), news services like Sp!tsNieuws (Netherlands) and Reuters. Any mention at all in any of these in recent history (if at all) simply reports Kucinich’s failure to pass that squib of an impeachment bill through Congress (unanimously killed by the Dems, by the way) this past June. Even a left-leaning newspaper like The Mercury (South Africa) makes ZERO mention of it at all!
But, if you guys feel this gives you purpose in life…hey, keep tilting!
[We will tilt forever in the general direction of justice for all: Republicans, Democrats or any other public servants who abuse their authority and betray the public trust.]
#8 Ben- WITCH HUNT?
Ben, what in the world are you talking about?
We already KNOW the witches; their names are bush, cheney, rove, rice, gonzales, rumsfeld, wolfowitz, libby, silverstein, etal.
AND We KNOW their CRIMES(!) for pete’s sake!
Just let it go, huh? Sorry, for MILLION OF AMERICANS that is NOT DO-ABLE!
What I would like to know is, exactly WHAT hit the Pentagon? Release those security tapes!
And don’t give me the tired, old, “Well, it’s a gov’t facility, therefore security issues are not made public.”
I’m calling BULLS*IT. By bush-protagonist-holier-than-thou-logic, if it’s a commercial airliner, then what do they have to hide???
Well, I guess that’s the crux of the situation, now isn’t it?
Ben,
An investigation into criminal activity already confessed to with so much more already revealed is not, by definition a “witch hunt”. The “good in society” is preserved by being committed to insisting that the Rule of Law be paramount and that habeas corpus take precedent over political motivations.
A big reason we are in this financial mess is the looting of our treasury by multi-national corporations, aided and abetted by the Bush Administration. No oversight, no accountability, no regulation, just an open back door and Brinks trucks backing up and taking everything we have invested in our government.
The financial crisis can be dealt with simultaneously with bringing justice to the Bushies.
Well done Tom. The comment you answered so deliciously made my brain hurt with pain and sympathy for the slow minded commenter.
I’m not arguing that wrongs have not been made, and that those things shouldn’t be allowed to happen again. But, a witch hunt is sure to come of this…and why not for the time being preserve what good you have in society, Some people may think the current economic climate was brought on by a rash of poor choices over the bush era. It was more like the final choices that brough you down to your knees.
How about dealing with what is relevent right NOW, and worrying about the past when you have the financial stability to do so
Brilliant, Tom!
Den,
We have been lied to about 9/11. There is no question about that. What the full truth is – that is the question.
The plane that augered into a field in Pennsylvania? According to newspaper articles in small towns the next morning, the pieces of that plane were scattered over 5 miles and the ‘impact’ area had very little in the way of plane parts to be found. The ‘impact hole’ was not substantial enough to look much like an airplane hit it.
Building Seven – the third steel tower in history to collapsed ‘due to fire’ – collapsed into its own footprint without being hit by a plane and with a couple of tiny fires burning on two floors. It housed evidence about Wall Street scandals, ENRON evidence and the emergency bunker Giuliani had built specifically for such a situation. The landlord owner of the complex had added the phrase “to include incidents of terror” to his insurance policies 10 months prior and was quoted as saying about Tower Seven “the decision was made to pull it” – a planned demolition term. Multiple eye witnesses quoted and video cameras recorded ‘first responders’ as telling everyone to get away from building Seven because “it has a bomb in it”.
I could go on for hours and hours…
We were lied to.
We deserve the truth.
The widows, widowers and other survivors deserve the truth.
Mikael 9/11,huh? well the evidence is it was a conspiracy.Four jets hit buildings and Mikael it was Cheney problem they hit.The terrorist stories are a lie I never beleived terrorist stories ever from Bush who should have buried himself in a hole in a ground where he belongs.
Well me, by that logic since during my tenure as President of my college Improv club you were not killed by terrorists or eaten by a lion.
(Troll) Me,
I see that you are based in Herndon, Virginia, just outside of DC. We also discover that the email address attached to the above post isn’t active. Any chance you are getting paid to regurgitate that bullshit onto this site?
Do the 3,000 families that lost loved ones on 9/11 due to W’s negligence (at least) owe W something too?
And PLEASE don’t play the moronic “it was Clinton’s fault” canard. We are all more intelligent than that.
How does it feel to be in the stupid 29% anyway?
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove along with others in the republican parties military industrial complex should be jailed for at least 25 years. Lets not forget Valerie Plane and at least half a million dead people do to Bush and his part time brain.
Not me. Hey is your family dead from terrorist? You owe W.