Arguments Against Bush Impeachment…

            <br /><strong>&#8226; If we impeach Bush, we&#8217;ll get President Cheney!</strong><br />The most recent impeachment resolution introduced by McKinney included Bush, Cheney, and Rice. Although, even if we only initially pursue Bush, initiating the impeachment process will lead to an investigation that will implicate lots of people in the Bush administration who are guilty of committing crimes, including Cheney.

In addition, no matter who we get to replace Bush, we’ll be showing those in power that anyone who breaks the law will be held accountable.

• Promoting impeachment will seem too “extreme.”
Demanding that crimes be investigated is NOT extreme. Some previous impeachment attempts were considered extreme because they were pursued for actions that didn’t rise to the level of a Constitutional crisis, which is what the impeachment tool is meant to be used for. Nixon’s impeachment, however, was bipartisan.

• We should wait to impeach…
Wait to impeach? We’ve waited 3 or more years too long already. We had enough evidence to impeach years ago. Remember, an impeachment only means you have enough evidence to warrant a trial, just like an indictment. Our congress people didn’t take an oath to bipartisanship. They took an oath to the Constitution. Besides which, our troops, Iraqi civilians, and our own civil liberties are all waiting for this.

• Before we impeach, we should get some legislation passed…
And with unconstitutional Presidential Signing Statements, veto power, and the power of "Commander in Chief" at his disposal, how do you think Congress is going to get ANYTHING accomplished without first impeaching Bush? Some people discuss the power of the purse, but do you really believe Bush will stop using the nation’s credit card because Congress passes a law?

If your tire blows while you’re driving, do you stop to fix it? Or do you continue driving on your rim because to stop would take too much time?

• It hurts the democracy to go through a presidential impeachment. And Bush is a lame duck anyway.
Holding government officials accountable for their actions strengthens our democracy. Letting lawlessness stand weakens it.

Sometimes reprimanding a child (president) doesn’t make the family (Washington) a happy place. But you still have to do it so the child and his siblings (future presidents) learn about accountability. Impeachment is horribly UNDERUSED, which is part of why there’s so much corruption at the top. Politicians must learn to fear it. People think things are better because we improved the make-up of our law-making body, Congress. But Bush is BREAKING LAWS. So, it doesn’t matter how many laws Congress passes if they don’t serve their OVERSIGHT duties as well by impeaching. They swore to defend the Constitution. What are laws without enforcement?

Besides, Bush can still do a lot of damage. Our troops, Iran, and our Supreme Court are all endangered so long as he remains in office. Waiting until Bush is out of office will leave us complicit in any further crimes he commits. The Union of Concerned Scientists has estimated that the death toll from a "tactical" nuclear weapon of the kind Bush is contemplating using in Iran would be at minimum 3 million men, women, and children. The path of death would stretch across country boundaries into India.

Perhaps worst of all, we set a terrible precedent by allowing Bush to stay in office after he’s broken so many laws. Impeachment will stop future presidents from using Bush’s actions as justification for even more lawbreaking and erosion of civil liberties.

• I’m a Democrat/Republican. If we support impeachment it will lower the chances of my party winning in 2008.
So, your party would rather win elections than do what’s right for the country? I hope you’re wrong. I also hope the public is willing to throw additional support to any party that holds our elected officials accountable for their actions. This has been historically true with every single impeachment effort launched. And this impeachment effort would begin with majority support (unlike most past impeachments including Nixon).
 
• Impeachment will never happen. The Republicans will block it.
Well, all we need is a majority of support in the House. And 2/3rds vote in the Senate to remove Bush from office will happen once the evidence gets aired on the floor of the House, and subsequently the national media outlets. The political pressure will become too great.

Today’s impossibility is tomorrow’s reality. Republican Congress members will realize that tying their political future to Bush reduces their chances of getting elected. Remember, one way or another, Bush is gone by 2009— but members of Congress may retain their offices beyond that date. Bush’s poll numbers are extremely low, and most Americans support impeachment. This is a bipartisan movement. This means that if we make the pressure unbearable for Members of Congress, they’ll turn on him to keep their own seats (like they did with Nixon). It’s already starting to happen. While many Members of Congress have behaved unethically in the last few years, it’s important to understand that this is related to their warped view of what’s in their self-interest. Let’s wake them up to their true self-interest (impeaching the president), by showing them our support for impeachment.

And even if we only impeach, and the Senate fails to do their duty and remove him from office, it will only implicate the Senators who fail to do their sworn Constitutional duty.

• But Speaker of the House Pelosi said that Impeachment was "off the table."
Pelosi most likely said this to remove any appearance of conflict-of-interest that would arise if she were thrust into the presidency as a result of the coming impeachment. What we need to do is to pressure Pelosi not to interfere with impeachment maneuverings within her party. Sending her Do-It-Yourself impeachments legitimizes her when she joins the impeachment movement in the future.

• But the public doesn’t support impeachment.
Newsalert: Newsweek’s recent poll shows 51% support for Impeachment.  Not to mention that Bush’s approval ratings are less than half that of Nixon’s prior to his impeachment investigations.

• You’re just angry at what happened to Clinton
Impeachment is a nonpartisan issue. It’s not about Clinton, Lincoln, or any other president. Some previous impeachment attempts were considered a waste of time because they were pursued for things that didn’t rise to the level of a Constitutional crisis, which is what the Impeachment tool was intended for. The argument that we can’t impeach Bush because there are previous presidents who also did bad things is the same as the argument you might hear from your child that you shouldn’t punish him because the neighbor’s kid did the same thing and didn’t get punished. We don’t want a presidential rush to the lowest common denominator. We have a duty to hold THIS president accountable to the Constitution.

• If we don’t support our president, we aid the terrorists.
We support terrorism when we fail to deal with its root causes (poverty, lack of education, support of dictatorships, etc.). We also support it by enabling a president who creates breeding grounds for terrorists — like Iraq has now become, thanks to our invasion and occupation.

Middle Eastern countries are upset with the oppressive international policies of the past and current administration. We might develop more healthy relationships with these countries if we appeared to learn from our mistakes by impeaching a president who has been so instrumental in that oppression.

• Impeachment is the wrong approach. Our government is tyrannical, and needs to be violently overthrown through a popular revolution.
What makes you think that if our government fell today, the U.S. population would replace it with something better? Violent revolutions are bloody business, and there’s absolutely no guarantee that even with the best of intentions the resulting new government would be an improvement over the current one. Indeed, it could be much worse. This is because revolution only makes sense once the people understand the problem. Thanks to a complicit media, most people don’t have the information they need to fully understand what’s currently happening in the U.S., so before we can create positive change, we must help them to understand the situation we’re in. We don’t do that by pushing them away with what appears to be extremism. We must use skillful means to reveal the tyranny of this administration (and government in general). We can do this by making reasonable demands (for instance, that suspicious activities become subject to investigation). Each time we’re denied, more and more people will see the injustice (especially when we take to the streets each time!). Slowly we’ll get enough people on board to create the changes we need, whether our goal is gradual repair of the system or revolution. But either way, the path is the same: First, we try to change the system. When the system shows itself to be tyrannical and unwilling to change, the people will move closer to revolution. If instead, the system allows the demanded changes, then we’ve won a victory — and maybe the theory that the system is hopelessly tyrannical is flawed. The real point is that political change is a process, and we need to have the resolve to see it through. Demanding immediate perfection is unrealistic and counterproductive, and too easily turns into a cop-out for failing to do the hard work of creating meaningful change.
 
Side note:

Some Democratic Members of Congress have indicated that they’re not currently pursuing Bush’s impeachment. While this is upsetting, they percieve it to be in their (and the Democratic Party’s) political best interest, at least until the political pressure builds. There are other reasons they’re waiting as well, and one of those things is us. They (as well as Republican members) need us to legitimize their support for the process. Having millions of ImpeachForPeace.org’s "Do-It-Yourself Impeachment" arrive at their door is one powerful tool toward making that happen.

15 Comments

  1. I fully support your efforts to impeach Bush and Cheney. i believe their Acts in Iraq are criminal and cuts in the social service safety net are cruel.

  2. I am a registered Republican and have never voted for a Democrat in my life. After 8 years of Bush I will, very likely, never vote for a Republican again.

    The failure of the new Democratic Congress to live up to its promises to investigate and/or impeach the President and Vice-President is inexcusable. It just shows that government is completely corrupt in both parties and at all levels.

    Nancy Pilosi, who Republicans have always seen as the ultimate left-wing Democrat, has been a complete disappointment. George Bush couldn’t have hoped for a better “yes-man/woman” even if there was a Republican running the House of Representatives.

  3. President Bush, by his own admission and his own philosophy is the decider: his word is law, and he claims he is soley accountable for actions:. Well and good: to be accountable is to be obligated to explain actions one allows or orders appointees to undertake.

    Democrats wish to have no questions to ask him. Though they say, Yes! It’s true! He did this and that and misled us and as Commander-in-Chief he lied to his troops and distorted their mission to cover his true motives and goals and he allowed those in the White House to retaliate against those whose speech offended him and he ordered his appointees to hold us in contempt and he abused his powers in permitting good employees to be replaced those who were loyal to him personally, all at the expense of the safety and welfare and best interests of the nation and the people!

    The democratic party has insulted its most loyal longtime followers in its quest to curry favor with republicans or through individual acquiescence to the threat of blackmail or exposure from the White House, à la Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. They wince and twist and cringe as if they were gagged and bound and beaten and unable to rise to their feet like free citizens with free speech.

    I appreciate their fears, but people died for the rights the citizens in Congress are now too delicate to protect.

    We would have no nation if the American revolutionaries had cried, “There is no time”, “We will probably lose” ‘We haven’t enough support”, “We should concentrate on what the King will allow us to do”, “We need more proof that our cause is just,”
    “It’s a distraction” “It would be divisive!”

    One thing: those who struggled for independence did so for the rule of law and to overthrow one-man rule.

    They didn’t not sacrifice so much, risk everything, so that Congress today could timidly offer excuses about why it’s just not the right time to protect our rights, our liberty, our freedom.

    This is the time to decide: Will it be liberty or is tyranny ok for us now?

  4. If not now, when? If not impeachment, then what? The way I see it, since Bushco has usurped many of our freedoms (all in the name of homeland security from enemies real and/or imagined), do you suppose that the Articles of Impeachment could just be the next item taken away from the people (Congress) by the angry ‘Decider’? After all, we have a Congress that does not stand up to him to let him know his boundaries! (These are just things that make you go hm-m-m-m) So, why are we mad at him? We should be angry at a Congress that allows this twit to get away with it without so much as an explanation or keep him in check! Congress needs to respond to the will of the people… or get voted out of office. Put pressure on members of Congress to impeach; then remove. Finally, have them tried for treason and murder!

  5. May i suggest one of the lessons we must learn and inform the citizenry. The next time other citizens votes are taken from them. Not to set back, ignore and do nothing. The next time it could be all of our votes.

    There is no question about it, impeach them. That’s what the LAW requires. If impeachment is not for these occupants, we just as well throw out the impeachment process all together.

    The impeachment process may very well, have the positive effect of exposing much more about this criminal element. What better way for people to learn, when the process is nationally televised.

  6. Bush and Cheney are both liars and war criminals with strong bloodlust for arabs and need to go

  7. It is outrageous that nancy-AIPAC-pet-Pelosi andyhe woosie congressmen INSULT THE INTELLIGENCE OF AMERICANS by using such sick ‘excuses’! How stupid are THEY to say such damnedfool things as “impeachment would be too ‘divisive'” “impeachment would be ‘disruptive’ to the work we need to address” “impeachment could endanger the prospects of Democrats in the 2008 elections”
    POPPYCOCK AND BULLPUCKIE!!
    iT IS THE WAR which divides and disrupts America! It is the DEMOCRATS that endanger the 2008 election results
    – because NONE OF US WILL VOTE FOR THE LOUSY BAS—-S AFTER THEY REFUSE TO OBEY THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE!!

    Both dems AND repubs need to prepare to vote for some ‘new’ party in 2008! It is time to teach the Corporate Party bosses that operate and finance BOTH partys a Constitutional
    lesson !! We began as a nation OF the People and BY the people – and they have transformed us into a nation OF the people.
    Time to FIX THAT, my friends! Jodin is smack-on about how ridiculous it is for the Dems to support BushCo and give us such shoddy, flimsy STUPID excuses!
    SCREW BOTH THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!
    !!

    IMPEACH NOW!!! let the world SEE that we won’t stand for TYRANNY!

  8. “We must get everyone to agree”

    That never will happen and never should happen. The basis of democracy is resolving differences of opinion in a civilized manner. Everyone agreeing can only come through brainwashing or dictatorship.

    If the price “bushco” pays is less than full accountability, to that degree we will suffer for the lack of justice in America.

  9. We must get everyone to agree. That includes EVERYONE. There has to be a candidate that will be able to get 70-80% of the vote. Like the olden days. I think we should let the process take its course. The justice department, the FBI and the CIA have reputations to defend and repair after these guys get out. bushco will pay a price, but it doesn’t have to be impeachment. The truth will shine in America again and that will be the victory. America will survive if we resist becoming the Divided States of America, and become and remain the United States of America. It is time to re-read Lincoln’s autobiography. Union at all cost. If we give inSanity and druggie grist for the mill, they will use it.

  10. I say fight for the highest values of liberty and justice for all. If we succeed and American stays with us, then America was worth fighting for. If not, then America was an illusion.

  11. I have a concern I don’t see here, if we, whoever we are, acieve this goal, they, whoever they are (the acolytes and sycophants), will go ***-****. I fear the worst. I hear them talking about Civil war, specifically, on a regular basis. They think god is on their side. It will be planet of the apes! It is what makes me hesitate.

  12. Impeaching Bush/Cheney will put Democrat Pelosi in office. And regardless, history shows the party which pursues impeachment gets the political spoils.

  13. Here’s a question: it will put a republican in ofc who will stand for election in 2008. seen as a savior, the thug could win.

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