Impeach President Bush
 

I can't believe I'm even saying this, and 6 months ago I would've argued against it, but President Bush must have charges brought against him. After reading stories like this one every day, I'm left wondering if this president has any regard at all for the U.S. Constitution.

As I've said in the past--I don't hate him, I don't think he's OMG the worst ever!!, but he is setting dangerous precedent on multiple levels. If we do, God forbid, elect a real power monger one day, President Bush will in many ways have enabled that man (or woman's!) reign.

He needs to be held in account for these domestic spying programs, and it needs to happen now. President Bush is out of step with most of the country on most issues. I don't think that's always a crisis, but when the constitution is called into question, it becomes one. We can't wait until 2009 (that's when he loses power, folks) to have a referendum on this. it needs to happen sooner.

Maybe some of the more conservative/libertarian mockers can talk me off the ledge, but I doubt it...

Kevin you are going to give Max a heart attack.

Damn, just when I thought we had you converted to the Darkside.

I don't understand why it has taken so long to impeach him. it always trips me out that Clinton was going to be impeached for STICKING A CIGAR IN SOMEONES VAGINA, but declaring war illegitimately and whatever else the guy has been responsible for is apparently not nearly as morally repugnant.

clinton stuck his cigar in a some bitch's mouth not her vagina. OBVIOUSLY AN IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE

It's not a Domestic Spying Program. It's not unConstitutional.

Personally, I sleep better at night with the knowledge that at least some phone calls made from the United States to, say... Lebanon... Saudi... Iran... pick one... are potentially being listened to. It's nice to know that at least somebody is making some sort of efforts to stop future 9/11s, despite the hard work of those that label such efforts in such a way as to make them SOUND LIKE something bad.

There's plenty of things you could reasonably be pissed at Bush's administration for. This is simply not one of them. There are very obvious and practical uses for NSA counterterrorism, Gitmo, water-boarding and (Max's favorite) SEEEEEEEECRET prisons. Do they blur the lines of Presidential Authority? No. War does that. It always has and it always will. Lincoln suspended Habeus Corpus for God's sake! Roosevelt interned over 100,000 Japanese-American citizens and legal Japanese guests, but only after he set government in competition with private industry with the creation of the TVA. Hoover wiped his ass with the Constitution every morning before breakfast, and Kennedy was told specifically by the leader of the French forces in Vietnam that any American involvement in that mess over there that was pursued in the manner he and 4 other Presidents adopted as their model was doomed to failure.

Not all of these examples of Presidential overreach were specific to wars, but they were all Presidential answers to extremely difficult questions involving the lives and deaths of millions of people. You know I have a hard on for Constitutional rights, but even I'm not going to weigh a terrorists right to plot the destruction of my city against my right to not die a firey death so a bunch of assholes can continue to live in the 12th century.

omg it was just her mouth? Fucking lame. I can't believe they even went to court over that...

I was wondering when the total tonnage of his contempt for the law would get to you.

While I'll cop to hating him as much as you don't, loathesomeness isn't an impeachable offense.

I think, and have thought for some time, that W believes himself to be not above the law, but the law itself. And I think tat is very, very bad juju for America.

Oh, and Preech, I think the protection of Terrorists constitutional rights were exactly what known liberal pansy Ashcroft was considering resigning over.

from the Washington Post Editorial page

It doesn't much matter whether President Bush was the one who phoned Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's hospital room before the Wednesday Night Ambush in 2004. It matters enormously, however, whether the president was willing to have his White House aides try to strong-arm the gravely ill attorney general into overruling the Justice Department's legal views. It matters enormously whether the president, once that mission failed, was willing nonetheless to proceed with a program whose legality had been called into question by the Justice Department. That is why Mr. Bush's response to questions about the program yesterday was so inadequate.
"I'm not going to talk about it," Mr. Bush told reporters at a news conference with departing British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "It's a very sensitive program. I will tell you that, one, the program is necessary to protect the American people, and it's still necessary because there's still an enemy that wants to do us harm."
No one is asking Mr. Bush to talk about classified information, and no one is discounting the terrorist threat. But there is a serious question here about how far Mr. Bush went to pressure his lawyers to implement his view of the law. There is an even more serious question about the president's willingness, that effort having failed, to go beyond the bounds of what his own Justice Department found permissible.
Yes, Mr. Bush backed down in the face of the threat of mass resignations, Mr. Ashcroft's included, and he apparently agreed to whatever more limited program the department was willing to approve. In the interim, however, the president authorized the program the Justice lawyers had refused to certify as legally permissible, and it continued for a few weeks more, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey's careful testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Under the Constitution, the president has the final authority in the executive branch to say what the law is. But as a matter of presidential practice, this is breathtaking.
These are important topics for public discussion, and if anyone doubts that they can safely be discussed in public, they need look no further than Mr. Comey's testimony. Instead of doing so, Mr. Bush wants to short-circuit that discussion by invoking the continuing danger of al-Qaeda.
"And so we will put in place programs to protect the American people that honor the civil liberties of our people, and programs that we constantly brief to Congress," Mr. Bush assured the country yesterday, as he brushed off requests for a more detailed account. But this is exactly the point of contention. The administration, it appears from Mr. Comey's testimony, was willing to go forward, against legal advice, with a program that the Justice Department had concluded did not "honor the civil liberties of our people." Nor is it clear that Congress was adequately informed. The president would like to make this unpleasant controversy disappear behind the national security curtain. That cannot be allowed to happen.

I was talking with someone the other day in my school about this and they are a supporter of Bush and they believe that things like this should be aloud and that "if your not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about" which seems to be the terrible mindset that a lot of people have these days.

don't you live in the u.s.?

yes. When the Clinton scandal was going on I remember thinking it was ridiculous and not paying attention... but i thought he had stuck the cigar in her vagina. That was probably from all the jokes or something ;/
now that entire situation makes even less sense to me :(

I thought Geggy would be the one to get a heart attack.

so can someone explain to me why Clinton was going to be impeached? Wasn't it for perjury about having sex with Monica Lewinsky? How did they even get him in a court room to testify about his sexual relations?

sorry it's always been something i wondered about because it seriously annoyed me when it happened :(

Yes it was for purgury for lying about having sexual relations, When he was accused he got on TV and stated that "He did not have sexual relationshions with that woman" And then Monica Lewinsky described his penis and that was that for Clinton.
And as far as impeaching Bush, it's a nice thought but it will never happen. He is at the end of his reign and he doesn't care about what anybody thinks about the job he is doing. He will do whatever the hell he wants regardless of what anybody says, i.e. setting a deadline for the troops, well OF COURSE he was going to veto that proposition. I'm not even sure the next president is going to be able to fix the mess we're in now.

If Presidant Bush were impeached and kicked out of office, wouldn't he just be replaced by Cheney? Or do impeachment have different rules for deciding who takes over?

If Cheney would be next in line, then would it all really have been worth it at all?

Well actually, now that I think about, it would still be a good sybolic victory, even if the overall situation doesn't really change. :\

Clinton was impeached by the House for Perjury. Not for anything he said on TV, you aren't under oath on TV. He denied extra marital sex while testifying under oath before a grandjury on th subject of Whitewater, which was about real estate dealings he'd been involved in while he was governor.

While the question has nothing to do with real estate, it is against the law, perjury to knowingly lie to a grand Jury. Wether or not one thinks the question was fair, perjury is a crime, and the President of the united states is no more allowed to commit crimes than anyone else.

The Senate chose not to punish him from the cimre of perjury for which he'd been convicted.

Nixon was never impeached. He resigned when it became clear the House would impeach him. It was very likely the Senate would have removed him from office, but his crimes were a little more severe than perjury.

It is my opinion that W (and Cheney) are guilty of several crimes more significant than Nixons, and that there is ample evidence in the public domain. Unfortunately, impeachment is way more about the collective balls fo the House of Representatives than it is about the law.

I understand that you aren't under oath on TV, unless of course it's court TV, but anyway, didn't it all start from that comment that he made on TV.

And of course I agree that the crimes commited by Bush are extreme, but it's unfortunante that the people that have enough evidence to report the crimes are being kept quiet with $money$.

"Not for anything he said on TV, you aren't under oath on TV."

lol that's what i was thinking ;o

I heard he got out of it because of the way he phrased his answer which he could've argued wasn't a lie. Like if he said, "I did not fuck that woman's vagina!" and instead he fucked her mouth.
I wonder why he didn't plead the fifth :O

anyway thanks for the answer Max. I guess all we have to do is get president bush in to court on some entirely unrelated issue and then hit him with a ton of questions.

Oh noooooo kevin is turning anti-america. What do we do now?

At least kevin's not so dense in his thinking anymore and finally be able to disintinguish the difference between the citizens of america society and the us government who decides which policies should be based on the country and foreign countries that many of us oppose or would oppose if we knew what their real purpose was since they're secretive as hell.

Btw read this article if you're too slow at understanding why it's impossible to impeach bush. That's right

oh geggy...

give him an inch and he takes a mile.

:lol

give him an inch and he travels light years :O

GIVE HIM AN INCH AND HETRAVELS THE DISTANCE OF A MILLION KALPAS AND ALL THE KALPAS IN BETWEEEN

You know I'm REALLY starting to agree with this even though i voted for him.

He has violated the first, fifth, sixth, and nineth amendments. He needs to be charged for it.

He has also ruined it for Republicans who AREN'T Douchebags who would succeed him. Now cause of his crimes I'm probably gonna have to deal with President Hillary. But I suppose an annoying nannystate isn't as bad as an ineffective police state.

The Democrats have "draft Gore" campaigns, is anyone else behind me for a "Draft Alan Keyes" campaign? (for those of you who don't know he was the black politician in Borat)