Um, wouldn't we have to impeach ourselves?

Ripped from the wires ... In an editorial yesterday, the Philadelphia Inquirer explained why it's a good thing Rep. Dennis Kucinich's effort to impeach President Bush crashed and burned last week in the U.S. House:

More than half the members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to send articles of impeachment against President Bush to the lower chamber's Judiciary Committee. Of course, most of the lawmakers considered their "yes'' vote the equivalent of sending Dumbo to the elephant graveyard, from which it would never be seen or heard again.

The articles' author, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, has been written off derisively, both within and outside the halls of Congress, for having launched the impeachment process. Such was also the case last year, when Kucinich first sought to bring Vice President Cheney to trial, alleging he spewed a catalog of lies to bring America to war with Iraq.

Kucinich's effort, at this point, is counterproductive. Were it to proceed, it would bog down government in partisan rancor that would make the current state of battle between congressional Democrats and Republicans look like a church picnic. And with the Bush presidency down to months, many are asking: What's the point?

Well, there is a point, and give Kucinich credit for trying to make it. Each day, Americans are gaining more detailed information that suggests it was not so much erroneous intelligence that led the Bush administration to conclude war was necessary; it was hubris. The president and Cheney discounted any counterargument to war because their minds were already made up. They refused to believe they could be wrong.

In fact, evidence suggests they didn't care if they were wrong about Saddam Hussein's having weapons of mass destruction. He was a bad player and they wanted him out of the way. The result, they believed, would be a remaking of the Middle East, with democracy rooted in Iraq blossoming throughout the land.

No need to dust off the homily about where good intentions lead you. Suffice it to say, the Bush doctrine has been blown off the tracks, though some believe it could make a recovery over time. That might mean decades.

As history is being written in the interim, Kucinich seeks to have it on record that Congress eventually laid down the law with Bush.

But Kucinich's resorting to impeachment ignores Congress' complicity in any crime, since it authorized and funded the war. Lawmakers must plead to being either dupes or incompetents, who failed to fulfill their role in the separation of powers.

Having been read into the record, the impeachment articles now are likely to do no more than gather dust in committee. OK. But at least Kucinich did his part to place a footnote in the history books. More chapters are to be written before the saga of Bush in Iraq comes to a conclusion.

http://www.philly.com/

Comments?

Comments

[Dr. James E. Dunn]

I firmly believed in the past, that the impeachment of both Bush and Cheney was imparitive when Kucinich first brought it up.

But I think it is now too late in Bush's final term, as he only has about seven months left in office.

I also believe that the explanation he gave to Congress was also a lie, but the real reason was not to bring democracy to the Middle East - and to protect Isreal.

Bush and Cheney have hundreds of millions of dollars in oil stock, and we see the push by many today to develop alternative energy sources.

Bush and Cheney don't want to see this happen, however; so the acquisition of the Iraqi petroleum was the REAL reason!

As for impeachment taking much needed time from the busy members of Congress, I say "bull"!

It would give these procrasting #$^%'s something they MUST do!

DrJED

[Richard L. Wolfe]

The democrats in Congress are no better than Bush. They were elected to stop the war. What happened? They control the purse they could have allocated enough money to bring the troops home. They chose instead to use the war as a club to beat up on the Republicans in recent elections. Is this shameful and self serving? You be the judge.

[Denney Clements]

Well, Richard, the Democrats don't exactly control the purse strings. Remember that Senate rule requiring 60 votes to bring a matter to "cloture"? Using that power to prevent votes on war issues from coming up for final action, the GOP senators have thwarted every effort to rein in war funding and set deadlines to bring the troops home.

That's why the D's are using the war as a club against the R's in the current round of elections. The '06 Democratic revolution didn't quite go far enough, as from the D perspective, the voters didn't oust quite enough Republican senators to allow the Dems to control cloture.

I personally have no problem with this, as I have this thing about divided government. But in this instance, it is the R's who have prolonged the war. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends, of course, on one's own political orientation.

dc

[Patrick Hill]

"Impeach ourselves?"

Only on a lib. blog.

[rick campbell]

actually denny you and the so called liberal media should in fact be held responsible as much if not more for the war crimes that cheney and dumbya have committed....by turning a blind eye and to this day still reporting from the whitehouse point of view you have enabled this administration and fell completely on your face as well as most reporters of your ilk....when malkin and o'really are your GO TO GUYS for your op eds we see how far the journalistic integrity has fallen...maybe you could get jeff gannon the gay escort masquerading as a journalist for the whitehouse and more specifically for rove (at some odd hours of the night i might add) then you can regain some of the integrity with your readers.....as for me ...i am a lost cause...i will never trust this or any other republican rag for the garbage you print and try to throw off as NEWS....a better name for this paper would be FOX FAKE SUN-NEWS!

[PREFAB SPROUT]

As much as I hate to defend McClatchey, the current series they are running about the innocents abused and locked up at Gitmo and the phony "legal opinions" by Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, etc is quite an eye opener. There is no doubt that the press blew it in the run up to the war in Iraq-lets hope they learned their lesson.

[Denney Clements]

Thanks, Sprout (though I fail to understand your anti-McClatchy vitriol). Moreover, the former Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau, now the nucleus of the McC bureau, did raise serious questions about the validity of the intelligence that got us into the war. And I personally editorialized against getting in on the basis of what the Bush adm. was selling to the public at that time (early '03).

So Rick, with your comment you have committed the classic assumption blunder and made a fool of yourself. The entire U.S. press did not fall lockstep into line with the administration at the time. The media are not a monolith, though I understand that it is convenient for folks who want to swap ideological formulas and overgeneralizations for careful thought to pretend they are.

dc

[Denney Clements]

Patrick: Perhaps the head was a bit obscure for a person of your particular orientation. It is written from the perspective of those in the U.S. House who considered the Kucinich proposal.

Come to think of it, however, perhaps we should all impeach ourselves for being so vulnerable to Bush propaganda on the war, due to our fear and anger over Sept. 11 and our desire to punish someone of Islamic persuasion.

Contrary to what Rick Campbell says, there was plenty of skeptical reporting in the press, including this newspaper, and beyond that there was the obvious fact that Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Too many of our compartiots went along with the propaganda because they WANTED TO, for the satisfaction of seeing some Arab butt kicked.

Then we re-elected the same Congress and president that did this to us. In this country, we get what we deserve, don't we, since we have the power to change goverenments virtually at will?

dc

[PREFAB SPROUT]

It isnt vitriol-it's a comment on a company seems determined to downsize itself out of business.

[DanielC]

The Bush/Cheney administration spent 1.6billion in advertising the war on Iraq not Afghanistan.

Afghanistan did not need selling at all, "Hey look the ppl that blew up the towers are here, points to 'X' on map in Afghanistan."

The military complex put Ret. experts on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC and etc. to present the war for the populous.

It has been reported that Senior Editors and Management of various press "steered" the articles, reports, sound-bites and suppressed investigations towards the Administration's will of presenting War with Iraq as a "good thing".

So don’t get upset when ppl say the “press” did it. They are more than likely generalizing the “press” in regards to the above stated facts, and the knowledge that Joe 6-Pack sits on his/her duff and watches the sound bites for “the news”.

I don’t know how many times I hear, “Did you hear Rush last night… boy those Democrats are real nut jobs.” Then there is the, “Did you hear Sean Hanity last night… how the Democrats can nominate a Muslim, Jew hating, Black Panther, mind-controlling liberal like that…” Finally there is the, “O’Really showed us last night… that anyone that doesn’t agree with ‘out thoughts’ has to shout a lot louder, and they are not patriotic, and they are blame America first, and they are demoralizing the poor families of the victims of the tower, and we don’t need to re-investigate what happened that is UNAMERICAN!”

Jon Stewart’s show last night really told it like it is… It’s the MSM that is steering the sheeple. So Impeach the MSM, educate the ppl, and vote all the bums out! If it say incumbent, pick another one.

However, this is totally OT; It is great that Mr. Kucinich got something “on the record”. We will never see Bush/Cheney behind bars, because it’s hard to imprison Dictators. While we will never see the impeachment, it is nice to finally shed some Sunlight on the problems we have been subjected to by the administration.

Just my half-a-gallon-of-gas worth,
DanielC in SC

PS. I would show links to articles but, well let’s not go there right now.

[Rick]

Wasn't Dennis Kucinich the mayor of Cleveland when the Cuyahoga river caught on fire. He was practically run out of that city. He has been a laughing stalk ever since. The people from Ohio think he is a joke. I think he was drinking water from the Cuyahoga and it affected his brain.

[Rick]

Wasn't Dennis Kucinich the mayor of Cleveland when the Cuyahoga river caught on fire? He was practically run of of town after that. He is a laughing stalk and NOBODY ever takes him seriously. The people from Ohio think he is a joke.

[Rick]

Sorry for the double post. It didn't go the first time so I had to write it over again. Then it magically appeared when I reposted.

[Denney Clements]

Daniel: Great comment -- a full gallon's worth.

dc

[Dr. James E. Dunn]

Rick:

Kucinich ran for the federal House of Representatives while he was the mayor of Cleveland.

He won, and he has represented these same people on the Federal level for more than 25 years now.

I don't like him much either, but he was not "run out of town"!

DrJED

[Patrick Hill]

"A full gallon's worth"? Yea, Daniel, it was worth $4.00.

Denny, I will concede that Bush was re-elected because I and others were watching on the internet Berg's and other's heads being sawed off.

You are correct (not Right) when you say that anger makes us do goofy things.

Good to see you Rick Campbell.

[Patrick Hill]

Denny!!! "Perhaps the head was a bit obscure for a person of (my) particular orientation"?

Was that entire editorial reprinted here? I don't think so. Perhaps it was "ripped" from the full column, practice used to impeach responders to your game of copy and paste.

I read the article initially, and again just now. Please copy and paste again the part that lends credence to the perspective of a congressman. Was it written by a congressman? No. That would be certain credibilty roulet.

Tell me, pray tell - What is my orientation? And when you say "head", don't you mean "Heading"?

[Patrick Hill]

Denny: I have sat in that big brown chair at the top front of the US Senate (January 1981). Took a nap waiting on a fellow Page working in the cloakroom. Probably not the first to do so, BUT I am sure I gave as much attention to this article as Hillary Clinton did to the reasons (intelligence) for war in Iraq.

[Patrick Hill]

By way of alluding to The Sun News and describing my feeling at the time - I bring up the Titanic metaphor.

I felt like the United States Vice President for a minute at age 17. This was the same seat my mentor, Sen. Thurmond, President Pro Tempore delegated to others.

In a phrase from Titanic, "I'm king of the world!"

[Rick]

I used to live 50 miles from Cleveland. Believe me when I say that he was run out of town. He was a nut case. I believe he lost the mayor re-election and later when he moved he ran for the house of representatives. I think he also stated that he has seen UFOs and believes in aliens. (not legal or illegal ones) ET.

[Patrick Hill]

Did you also live in Cleveland when Jerry Springer was Mayor?

[Patrick Hill]

So there

[rick campbell]

...sorry denny...i would be defensive for letting this happen as well....

[DanielC]

PH,

I don't mean ta be mean, so don't take it that way. But dude you're so OT it's a bit wtf is he say'n some times.

This article was about the fact that we re-elected, via electronic voting machines (that can not be hacked, ha), Bush and since we did it's our fault that we are in the current mess we are in with the War, dollar value, and such.

I'm glad ya sat in the brown seat that Strom sat in, that's kinda neat. Please don't tell us about the fumes rising up out of the chair. *giggle*

Now warp forward to 27 years later and get a grasp of what the topic is in this post please.

Thanks,
DSC

[Denney Clements]

Rick Campbell: I'm not in the least defensive about what has transpired with the Iraq mess or about the performance of those media types who abetted the war. Neither I nor the organizations I worked for back then (Knight-Ridder) were part of that. I was just trying to get you to think a little more granularly, buddy -- apparently to no avail. But that's OK. Like Patrick, I'm delighted to see you back on Opinion Blog and hope you're settling in for a long, long stay.

dc