Guest blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review.
When the Democrats regained control of the House in 2006, the new Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, famously took the impeachment of George Bush “off the table.” This puzzled and disappointed millions of people who rightly wondered why a president could be impeached over a sex lie in 1999 but not over a lie just four years later that sent hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths in Iraq while draining the U.S. Treasury of billions upon billions of dollars.
In parliamentary proceedings, however, any item that can be taken off the table can be put back on it, if conditions change and the leadership wills it so. As we reported yesterday, Speaker Pelosi has signaled that an Article of Impeachment charging Bush with lying to Congress about his pretexts for invading Iraq might at least get a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee.
There’s no way to know what, if any, changes in conditions may have prompted her to rethink impeachment, but it may have something to do with a new Rasmussen poll released on Tuesday that found approval of Congress at 9 percent, which is essentially a statistical zero.
Pundits have long speculated that Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and the other leaders have been averse to impeaching Bush because the impeachment of Pres. Bill Clinton put the Republican-controlled Congress in such bad odor with the public.
Let’s assume that Pelosi and company are not so blind that they can’t see the difference in severity of Clinton’s misdemeanor and Bush’s high crimes — or that they’re such bad politicians that they can’t judge the difference in the voters’ view of Clinton, whose approval rating remained in the mid-60s throughout the ordeal, and its disregard for Bush, whose approval is in the low 30s. Nor can they be unaware of the corollary fact that disapproval of Bush’s misadventure in Iraq is in the upper 60s.
But the bottom line for Pelosi is, with approval of Congress at statistical zero, what has she got to lose? A good politician in that kind of trouble should not be averse to throwing some red meat out to the base.
Late yesterday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio introduced a single Article of Impeachment before the House that charged Bush with the high crime of “deceiving Congress with fabricated threats of Iraq WMDs to fraudulently obtain support for an authorization of the use of military force against Iraq.”
The Article closes by stating that Bush “invaded Iraq and occupies it to this day, at the cost of 4,116 lives of US service men and women, injuries to over 30,000 of our troops, the deaths of over 1 million innocent Iraqi civilians, the destruction of Iraq, and a long term cost over $3 trillion.”
True, this does not rise to the level of a sex lie about a blowjob, but it at least deserves a hearing.
You’re being played like a fiddle. Forget it…. Pelosi is the problem, not the solution.
As has been said elsewhere this is pure kabuki theater designed to distract angry citizens from the gutted remains of the U.S. Constitution left behind by the congresscrapper’s FISA capitulation… and pure kabuki theater is all that impeachment will
ever be.
That was a load of crap from the git. The Democratic Party strategy for the 110th, since they barely have the majority in the Senate, was to just keep holding hearings to get Republican perfidy aired, but not try to DO anything about it, lest they be seen as losers when they couldn’t get enough votes to override the inevitable vetoes.
Impeachment was off the table for the pure and simple reason they knew they could not convict, not enough votes. That’s obvious. They have refused to stop funding the occupation of Iraq because they will lose funding from AIPAC contributors and contractor lobbies if they do. That’s obvious. They even came out and stated their strategy after the 2006 elections, but then suddenly “pundits” started wondering and convinced everybody of how mysterious this stuff is. Balderdash! It’s 100% calculation, and they have spent the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and let the Constitution go down the crapper to stick to their strategy. The only hitch has been that most of their base is not brain dead. We can see how despicable and unAmerican this is.
Comment #1 says it like it is . . . it’s totally a political strategy to take our minds off our thinking of how badly we were screwed on the FISA bill. We signed away the rest of the Constitution. Pelosi needs to be removed and someone with strong leadership to take the helm.
i was watching msnbc this morning and when the broadcastor said, leader of the house nancy pelosi then it “switched” to an old movie and message this was comcast public service….bout 40 secs later the announcer came back on with the reg msm bs…since i read brad everyday i am guessing there were mentioning the impeachment articles
when i watched the debate before the fisa vote on cspan while 3 senators were speaking(leahy,spector and i forget 3rd)the screen went black ,no sound no pic
couple nights ago watching pbs(gwenn i)screen goes fuzzy with lil pixels dancing all ovr and no sound when the pic/sound came back on she says now in john mccains defense..or something to that effect
i think these r examples of censorship at a very high level
has anyone else noticed it?
is there anything we can do about it?
but on the bright side, 99 at least the dems r making “them” nervous enough to censor the news
Do not vote for Obama.
Excepting feeble Democrat-Ick leadership in the House and Senate, the expected solid Democratic majorities should be able to achieve similar legislative results and override vetoes with or without Pelosi’s and Reid’s sock puppet, including every issue related to the Iraq invasion and FISA immunity.
Given the past and recent words and actions of Obama, his confidants, and too many congressional Democrats (Blue Amerika Cabal), it seems to be more likely that this and certain other things may only be attainable without Obama and with a sharp rebuke to our Blue miscreants — achieve universal healthcare, reverse the FISA immunity capitulation, work toward election reform, truly support the troops, pursue censure and impeachment, improve class action fairness, etc.
Pelosi took impeachment off the table because she knew about torture and illegal wiretapping from the get-go and did nothing. Any worthwhile investigation would expose her complicity with the Bush administration on Constitutional and International violations. She won’t allow impeachment hearings, this whole thing is a sham and a distraction for sure. Best thing we can do is make sure she doesn’t spend another day in office (let alone as Speaker) past 1/20/09. That’s gotta be a full on housecleaning exercise. Sweep the trash out the fuckin door.
Wilbur ~ Checkout Karen #4 ~ Very interesting, Col. Hogan . . .
I’m too busy being dizzy with glee over The Nation joining the ACLU suit against FISA to think about more shit from the fascist media right now.
Thomas Paine is alive! 😛
Although lying us into Iraq is certainly Bush’s largest crime, maybe congress should go after the most provable. Bush broke the law (just like Clinton did) and violated the Unites States Constitution by spying on Americans without a warrant. I’d think has already been proven, or could be quite easily. Oh wait, congress (or as I call them, The Ruling Class) just voted in the new unconstitutional FISA bill, without ever being briefed on the nature of the illegal spying program. Guess that doesn’t give them much of a leg to stand on. Just like they voted for the Patriot Act without having read it. And just like they abdicated their congressional duty by authorizing Bush to start a war, without having seen or debated the proffered evidence. LOSERS. LOSERS. LOSERS. You all SUCK! The fix is in, and democrats are just as integrally part of the whole stinking, fetid cesspool. START MAKING DECISIONS BASED ON THE CONSTITUTION AND YOUR CONSTITUENCY INSTEAD FOR YOUR PERSONAL POLITICAL AND FINANCIAL GAIN. How can you even look in the mirror at night? My apologies to the few of you with integrity and backbone, but the rest of you SUCK.
Wilber ~ What the difference between nancy pelosi and an Ostrich ?
Tell me ~ An ostrich has it’s head in the sand, pelosi has her head up her ass!
#10 BH
That’s the thing though, Pelosi doesn’t have her head up her ass – her posturing here, and her consistent tabling of impeachment hearings…this is all 100% calculated to cover her own ass.
#11 SR ~ I agree ~ It will be fascinating how it all plays out.
We may speculate why Democrats in the Congress have not acted to impeach Bush/Cheney, or fail to show any backbone, or even why Obama voted for the FISA bill. The truth be known, though, is that we really don’t know why they’re not standing up to these thieves. I certainly hope the President Obama will move to investigate the extent this administration has violated the Constitution, then demand accountability of the criminals.
POL #13-
“They’re not standing up to these thieves” because they are thieves themselves, and your “President” Obama has violated the Constitution with his FISA vote even before his “Presidency” begins. Anyone who thinks this guy will demand accountability of his fellow Constitution violators is kidding their self. McCain is an even bigger disaster but the choice is sickening.
No-one has mentioned the real reason that those two criminals have not been impeached. The idea that the votes to convict are not there is a lame excuse, even if true. The fact is that Felix Rohatyn, a banker, fascist, who financed Pinochet and supplies much of the Democrats’ money, is a ‘friend’ of Nancy’s, and she doesn’t usually breathe without Felix’s permission. One fascist supports another, and Rohatyn did not want the cold light of day to be shed on Bush and Cheney. Now, however, the failure of impeachment being assured, it is possible that Rohatyn is going to allow an “Investigation” to take place, because the failure of the Senate to convict may strengthen the Fascist forces enough to help in electing McCain. It’s ALL Politics!
A cynical self-serving move with no real intent behind it. She has zero credibility with me. Just another shameless political hack.
I am thinking that any real investigation into all of the many crimes committed by the Bush administration with the CLEAR & DOCUMENTED HELP of the democratic party will bring them all down.
Not to mention possibly open up a real can O worms which is the 100% provable beyond any doubt complicity of the Bush administration, the Neofascist, and the democratic party and the Mainstream media in the planning, commission, and cover up of the false flag attack of 9/11.
Hard to ignore the big pink elephant in the room when over 50% of the country and probably at least 70% of the rest of the planet know about this crime. All we don’t know is exactly who was involved and to what degree.
“this is all 100% calculated to cover her own ass.”; Absolutely accurate. I can think of no better message to the Dem ‘leadership’ than for her to be defeated in the Nov. election. She didn’t get to be Speaker without being a consummate politician. Cindy Sheehan is giving her a run for her money because Pelosi’s constituents are disgusted with her.
Send whatever contributions you would make to Obama to http://cindyforcongress.com/
remembering that it is THE Senate ,not the President, who confirms SCOTUS nominees (besides Obama having plenty of corporate contributors.)
Episodes 3, A Throbbing Surge is up, Episode 4 coming soon. Keep up the good work Brad!!
Check out Glenn Greenwald’s blog. We’ve got corrupt Democratic leaders doing CYA and defending Bush instead of defending the Constitution and the rights of all Americans. Absolutely disgusting!
The motivation for blocking investigations into Bush lawbreaking
– Tom
Bush lied…impeachment…criminals in the White House…
Honestly, after going on like this for eight years now, one would think you fine folks to the left of the political spectrum would find something new on which to focus your attention.
Seems to me that if there was even a scrap of evidence on which to bring impeachment charges against our President, Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Reid would have done so.
Lacking nothing, they’ve done exactly that…nothing.
StyroPhome
Have you been sleeping in a cave since 2001? You REALLY need to inform yourself. That’s the most hopelessly out-of-touch comment I’ve read in a long time.
OMG, I actually had a bit of vomit come up in my throat after reading that spew from Styrophome.
How pathetically out of touch with reality can one get I wonder?