Tag: Impeachment
Tipping Point: Bush’s Polling Slides Toward Impeachment
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 majority of Americans support impeachment if Bush lied about the reasons for war – and 57 percent now believe that he lied.
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.
Poll: 57% Believe Bush Lied about Iraq
America wakes up: Polls are starting to reflect the fact that George W. Bush is the Worst President Ever. But in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, one number could represent a legacy-killer, to say the least, for the president – nearly 60 percent believe he lied about reasons he took the country to war in Iraq:
Only 33 percent give Bush positive ratings for being honest and straightforward — a drop of 17 points since January
Fifty-seven percent believe [Pres. George W. Bush] deliberately misled people to make the case for war, compared with 35 percent who say he gave the most accurate information he had.
Contrary to Republicans’ hopes, the Bush CIA Leak scandal is not just an inside-the-Beltway tempest:
Seventy-nine percent think that Libby’s indictment is a serious matter … Moreover, only 33 percent give Bush positive ratings for being honest and straightforward — a drop of 17 points since January, when Bush held a 50-to-36 percent score on this question.
Bushspeak: We Don’t Torture. Now, Anyone Got a Cattle Prod We Can Borrow?
Here’s how to tell if an “interrogation technique” rises to the level of torture. It’s so simple you’ll kick yourself once you hear it (which is good because then we won’t have to kick you ourselves – not that we would):
If WE do it, it’s not torture. If anyone else does it, it is. Clear? AP:
Over White House opposition, the Senate has passed legislation banning torture. With Vice President Dick Cheney as the point man, the administration is seeking an exemption for the CIA. It was recently reported that the spy agency maintains a network of prisons in eastern Europe and Asia, where it holds terrorist suspects.
The European Union is investigating the reports, which have not been confirmed by the White House…
“Our country is at war and our government has the obligation to protect the American people,” Bush said. “Any activity we conduct is within the law. We do not torture.”
See? Any activity WE conduct is within the law. “We” pay real close attention to the law, as you kids all know. After all, if anyone violated the absolute letter (as opposed to the intent) of the law in exposing CIA agents (who do NOT torture, BTW), “we” would can their asses. But we don’t leak and we don’t torture. Other folks do that. That’s how you know. Got it?
Gas Prices Down: Bush Manipulation?
Is it just me, or has anyone noticed gas prices down, just as the CIA leak investigation is about to break, and just as the 2000th Iraq war troop died? I’d like to say that, like terror alerts, all these events are unrelated but since oil companies posted record profits in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I don’t think so.
Congressman Demands Fitzgerald Investigate Bush Admin’s Lies to Congress about Reasons for War
“The CIA leak issue is only the tip of the iceberg. This is looking increasingly like a White House conspiracy aimed at misleading our country into war – in part by manufacturing now-refuted evidence in support of its rationale, in part by smearing and silencing critics, and in part by manipulating media complicity. There is mounting evidence that there may have been a well-orchestrated effort by the President, the Vice President, and other top White House officials to lie to Congress in order to get its support for the Iraq War.
“Honest, if mistaken, reliance on faulty intelligence to convince Congress to authorize a war is bad enough. But, if, as mounting evidence is tending to show, Administration officials deliberately deceived Congress and the American people, this would constitute a criminal conspiracy against the entire country.
“We are no longer just talking about a Republican culture of corruption and cronyism. We now have reason to believe that high crimes may have been committed at the highest level, wrongdoing that may have led us to war and imperiled our national security.”
— Rep. Gerald Nadler (D-NY), in a letter to Acting Deputy Attorney General Robert McCallum, making the point that it is illegal to lie to Congress
Plame Name Game: What Did Bush Know, and When Did He Know It?
Prevaricator in Chief: The gang that can’t shoot straight now can’t keep it’s story straight. As we’ve said before, it strains credulity that President Bush – our first “CEO President” – did not demand to know exactly who said what to whom about CIA agent Valerie Plame within hours after White House propagandist Bob Novak revealed her secret identity to the world back in July 2003.
Nobody – not even Mr. Bush – is that incurious. Nonetheless, in public statements since – and perhaps in unsworn testimony to the prosecutor investigating the treasonous leak – Bush has claimed to be ignorant of the dirty deeds done by his own Flying Monkeys.
But now the veneer of ignorance supporting the President’s plausible deniability appears to beeroding. A leak to the New York Daily News reveals that Bush knew about Rove’s role in the scandal by the fall of 2003, at the very latest:
An angry President Bush rebuked chief political guru Karl Rove two years ago for his role in the Valerie Plame affair, sources told the Daily News.
“He made his displeasure known to Karl,” a presidential counselor told The News. “He made his life miserable about this.”
Bush has nevertheless remained doggedly loyal to Rove, who friends and even political adversaries acknowledge is the architect of the President’s rise from baseball owner to leader of the free world.
And…
Other sources confirmed, however, that Bush was initially furious with Rove in 2003 when his deputy chief of staff conceded he had talked to the press about the Plame leak.
Whether Bush learned about Rove’s shenanigans in July 2003 or three months later is immaterial. Now we have a leak from the President’s staff admitting for the first time that Bush knew what had been done in his name. This renders disingenious everything Bush has done and said – no matter how carefully parsed – especially his unsworn testimony to investigators on July 24, 2004.
Poll: Bush Approval Among Dems at 8%
Single digits: This new number is just as encouraging as the 2 percent approval Bush got among African Americans last week. According to the new CNN poll, the number of Democrats who support Bush dropped from 15 percent to 8 percent. (As Olbermann pointed out – 8 percent of Dems must be in the Zell Miller wing.)
Bush’s overall approval was at 39 percent. Worst news in the poll, however, was a 10 point loss among suburban voters, sticker-shocked over the cost to fill up their SUVs.
Poll: 50% Would Favor Impeaching Bush
He should resign now: In a new poll from Ipsos Public Affairs, Americans are in favor impeaching President George Bush by a margin of 50 percent to 44 percent, if he lied about the reasons he took the country to war in Iraq.
“If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him.”
Conversely, 44 percent disagreed, and 6 percent said they didn’t know or declined to answer.
Breakouts by party affliliation were also significant: Over half of Independents – 56 percent – favored impeachment, while 72 percent of Democrats favored impeachment, compared to 20 percent of Republicans who apparently want Bush to be named “Dictator for Life.”
Support for impeachment has increased since June:
The Ipsos poll shows a dramatic transformation in support for Bush’s impeachment since late June. (This is only the second poll that has asked Americans about their support for impeaching Bush in 2005, despite his record-low approval ratings.) The Zogby poll conducted June 27-29 of 905 likely voters found that 42 percent agreed and 50 percent disagreed with a statement virtually identical to the one used by Ipsos.
| Question | Ipsos 10/8-9 |
Zogby 6/27-29 | Net Change |
| Support Impeachment | 50% | 42% | +8% |
| Oppose Impeachment | 44% | 50% | +6% |
| Impeachment Margin | +6% | -8% | +14% |
New, Unbelievable White House Spin: Rove Lied to Bush about Leaking Plame’s Name
They’ve got to be kidding: Last Sunday, George Stephanapolous dropped a bombshell on his ABC show when he said that a source told him that both the President and Vice President were aware of the efforts of their flying monkeys – including Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and others – to smear ambassador Joe Wilson that led to the leaking the secret identity of his CIA agent wife, Valerie Plame. Now we get this malarkey from the spin room at the White House:
Maybe the Unsmart Americans who comprise Bush’s base will buy this load of crap but count us out! What did the president know – and when did he know it?
Senior aide Karl Rove denied to President Bush that he engaged in an effort to disclose the identity of a covert CIA operative to discredit her husband’s criticism of Iraq policy, say people familiar with Rove’s statements in a criminal investigation…
Beginning two years ago, the White House flatly denied that Rove had been involved in unlawfully leaking the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
The White House denials collapsed in July amid the disclosure of Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper’s conversations in July 2003 about Wilson’s wife with Rove and I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff.
Bush asked Rove in the fall of 2003 to assure him he was not involved in an effort to divulge Plame’s identity and punish Wilson, and the longtime confidant assured the president so, people familiar with Rove’s account say…
Bush’s discussion with Rove did not get into specifics concerning Rove’s conversations in July 2003 with syndicated columnist Robert Novak and Cooper, who wrote stories identifying Plame, the people familiar with Rove’s account said.
Maybe the Unsmart Americans who comprise Bush’s base will buy this load of crap but count us out! What did the president know – and when did he know it?
