Outside the Beltway The Dems in Congress may not be contemplating the impeachment of President George W. Bush, but according to a several recent polls, half of American voters are ready to rumble.
A Zogby International poll released November 4th found that 53 percent of Americans want Congress to consider impeaching Bush if he did not tell the truth about the reasons for war. Similarly, an Ipsos Public Affairs poll from early October found that by a margin of 50 percent to 44 percent, Americans would favor impeaching President Bush if he lied about the reasons he took America to war.
These numbers represented a sharp uptick from a similar poll in June in which 42 percent told Zogby that they support impeachment if Mr. Bush lied in the run-up to war.
If you marry these numbers with a spate of recent polls that show that majorities among the public have come to see that Mr. Bush is not honest (finally!), you see that the White House has a potential crisis looming.
In particular, the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that a whopping 57 percent believe Mr. Bush lied about the reasons for the reasons for war.
Of course, in so long as everything remains status quo among the corrupt Repblicans who control the Congress, there will never be serious investigations – much less impeachment hearings – into the president’s lies.
And, absent some sort of smoking gun – a document that proves Team Bush “fixed” the intelligence for the war or a staff underling somewhere who blows the whistle on the coooking of the pre-war data – this sentiment about the President and his false case for toppling Iraq will be left to fester in public sentiment until the mid-terms.
The only hope of the White House – and the Republicans in Congress – is to keep a lid on whatever evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that exists until at least next November. If they are able to retain majorities in both houses, the president will likely get off scot-free.
The risk to the president and the GOP in this scenario is that they’ll lose and the Dems will take the Congress back. Democrats would almost undoubtedly impeach both the vice president and the president over the intelligence. If they are both found guilty in the Senate, the Speaker of the House would assume the presidency. Under this scenario, the Speaker would be the current House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
What is more likely is that Republican Party elders would strongly encourage Mr. Cheney to resign (as Spiro Agnew did) and then force Mr. Bush to accept his bosom enemy Sen. John McCain as Vice President.This would allow McCain to assume the presidency when Mr. Bush resigns rather than facing impeachment (as Nixon did).
And just in case the Dems might get cold feet about impeaching Mr. Bush, a new PAC has been formed to recruit and fund candidates for next year’s election. Check out ImpeachPAC, and contribute if you can.
I don’t think the country wants to be seen as leaderless right now, even if the mofo leader is Bush. I’m not even sure I do, and I really, really want Bush gone. I don’t want a Pres. Cheney even more, so unless we are sure he won’t step up, the devil we know…Anyway, it’s hard not to be pissed off at my fellow Americans for (re)electing this asswipe last year. What on earth did they not know then that they have suddenly found out now?
The Republicans lowered the bar for impeachment to sex lies. Taking the country to war based on lies – and doing so knowingly – is the worst crime ever perpetrated by a president.
If there is an impeachment, it will include both constitutional officers: Cheney and Bush. But, as I said, they’ll get rid of Cheney first and put McCain (or Hagel) in as VP so that Bush can avoid impeachment and resign.
We won’t be any more leaderless then than we are now.