This month, Harper's published a piece by Lewis Lapham entitled "The Case for Impeachment."

If you read Harper's and/or Lapham's writing, you know that he (and they) can go to extremes, but this is an important idea that is now taking root.

I'm doing my part by starting this thread (don't call me a hero). I'll be posting updates. Below is an excerpt from the article.


http://www.harpers.org/TheCaseForImpeachment.html


The Case for Impeachment
Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush
Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006. An excerpt from an essay in the March 2006 Harper's Magazine. By Lewis H. Lapham.
Sources

A country is not only what it does—it is also what it puts up with, what it tolerates. —Kurt Tucholsky

On December 18 of last year, Congressman John Conyers Jr. (D., Mich.) introduced into the House of Representatives a resolution inviting it to form “a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment.” Although buttressed two days previously by the news of the National Security Agency's illegal surveillance of the American citizenry, the request attracted little or no attention in the press—nothing on television or in the major papers, some scattered applause from the left-wing blogs, heavy sarcasm on the websites flying the flags of the militant right. The nearly complete silence raised the question as to what it was the congressman had in mind, and to whom did he think he was speaking? In time of war few propositions would seem as futile as the attempt to impeach a president whose political party controls the Congress; as the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee stationed on Capitol Hill for the last forty years, Representative Conyers presumably knew that to expect the Republican caucus in the House to take note of his invitation, much less arm it with the power of subpoena, was to expect a miracle of democratic transformation and rebirth not unlike the one looked for by President Bush under the prayer rugs in Baghdad. Unless the congressman intended some sort of symbolic gesture, self-serving and harmless, what did he hope to prove or to gain? He answered the question in early January, on the phone from Detroit during the congressional winter recess.

“To take away the excuse,” he said, “that we didn't know.” So that two or four or ten years from now, if somebody should ask, “Where were you, Conyers, and where was the United States Congress?” when the Bush Administration declared the Constitution inoperative and revoked the license of parliamentary government, none of the company now present can plead ignorance or temporary insanity, can say that “somehow it escaped our notice” that the President was setting himself up as a supreme leader exempt from the rule of law.

A reason with which it was hard to argue but one that didn't account for the congressman's impatience. Why not wait for a showing of supportive public opinion, delay the motion to impeach until after next November's elections? Assuming that further investigation of the President's addiction to the uses of domestic espionage finds him nullifying the Fourth Amendment rights of a large number of his fellow Americans, the Democrats possibly could come up with enough votes, their own and a quorum of disenchanted Republicans, to send the man home to Texas. Conyers said:

“I don't think enough people know how much damage this administration can do to their civil liberties in a very short time. What would you have me do? Grumble and complain? Make cynical jokes? Throw up my hands and say that under the circumstances nothing can be done? At least I can muster the facts, establish a record, tell the story that ought to be front-page news.”

Which turned out to be the purpose of his House Resolution 635—not a high-minded tilting at windmills but the production of a report, 182 pages, 1,022 footnotes, assembled by Conyers's staff during the six months prior to its presentation to Congress, that describes the Bush Administration's invasion of Iraq as the perpetration of a crime against the American people. It is a fair description. Drawing on evidence furnished over the last four years by a sizable crowd of credible witnesses—government officials both extant and former, journalists, military officers, politicians, diplomats domestic and foreign—the authors of the report find a conspiracy to commit fraud, the administration talking out of all sides of its lying mouth, secretly planning a frivolous and unnecessary war while at the same time pretending in its public statements that nothing was further from the truth.[1] The result has proved tragic, but on reading through the report's corroborating testimony I sometimes could counter its inducements to mute rage with the thought that if the would-be lords of the flies weren't in the business of killing people, they would be seen as a troupe of off-Broadway comedians in a third-rate theater of the absurd. Entitled “The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War,” the Conyers report examines the administration's chronic abuse of power from more angles than can be explored within the compass of a single essay. The nature of the administration's criminal DNA and modus operandi, however, shows up in a usefully robust specimen of its characteristic dishonesty.

* * *

That President George W. Bush comes to power with the intention of invading Iraq is a fact not open to dispute. Pleased with the image of himself as a military hero, and having spoken, more than once, about seeking revenge on Saddam Hussein for the tyrant's alleged attempt to “kill my Dad,” he appoints to high office in his administration a cadre of warrior intellectuals, chief among them Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, known to be eager for the glories of imperial conquest.[2] At the first meeting of the new National Security Council on January 30, 2001, most of the people in the room discuss the possibility of preemptive blitzkrieg against Baghdad.[3] In March the Pentagon circulates a document entitled “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oil Field Contracts”; the supporting maps indicate the properties of interest to various European governments and American corporations. Six months later, early in the afternoon of September 11, the smoke still rising from the Pentagon's western facade, Secretary Rumsfeld tells his staff to fetch intelligence briefings (the “best info fast...go massive; sweep it all up; things related and not”) that will justify an attack on Iraq. By chance the next day in the White House basement, Richard A. Clarke, national coordinator for security and counterterrorism, encounters President Bush, who tells him to “see if Saddam did this.” Nine days later, at a private dinner upstairs in the White House, the President informs his guest, the British prime minister, Tony Blair, that “when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.”

By November 13, 2001, the Taliban have been rousted out of Kabul in Afghanistan, but our intelligence agencies have yet to discover proofs of Saddam Hussein's acquaintance with Al Qaeda.[4] President Bush isn't convinced. On November 21, at the end of a National Security Council meeting, he says to Secretary Rumsfeld, “What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq?...I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.”

The Conyers report doesn't return to the President's focus on Iraq until March 2002, when it finds him peering into the office of Condoleezza Rice, the national security advisor, to say, “Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out.” At a Senate Republican Policy lunch that same month on Capitol Hill, Vice President Dick Cheney informs the assembled company that it is no longer a question of if the United States will attack Iraq, it's only a question of when. The vice president doesn't bring up the question of why, the answer to which is a work in progress. By now the administration knows, or at least has reason to know, that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, that Iraq doesn't possess weapons of mass destruction sufficiently ominous to warrant concern, that the regime destined to be changed poses no imminent threat, certainly not to the United States, probably not to any country defended by more than four batteries of light artillery. Such at least is the conclusion of the British intelligence agencies that can find no credible evidence to support the theory of Saddam's connection to Al Qaeda or international terrorism; “even the best survey of WMD programs will not show much advance in recent years on the nuclear, missile and CW/BW weapons fronts...” A series of notes and memoranda passing back and forth between the British Cabinet Office in London and its correspondents in Washington during the spring and summer of 2002 address the problem of inventing a pretext for a war so fondly desired by the Bush Administration that Sir Richard Dearlove, head of Britain's MI-6, finds the interested parties in Washington fixing “the intelligence and the facts...around the policy.” The American enthusiasm for regime change, “undimmed” in the mind of Condoleezza Rice, presents complications.

Although Blair has told Bush, probably in the autumn of 2001, that Britain will join the American military putsch in Iraq, he needs “legal justification” for the maneuver—something noble and inspiring to say to Parliament and the British public. No justification “currently exists.” Neither Britain nor the United States is being attacked by Iraq, which eliminates the excuse of self-defense; nor is the Iraqi government currently sponsoring a program of genocide. Which leaves as the only option the “wrong-footing” of Saddam. If under the auspices of the United Nations he can be presented with an ultimatum requiring him to show that Iraq possesses weapons that don't exist, his refusal to comply can be taken as proof that he does, in fact, possess such weapons.[5]

Over the next few months, while the British government continues to look for ways to “wrong-foot” Saddam and suborn the U.N., various operatives loyal to Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld bend to the task of fixing the facts, distributing alms to dubious Iraqi informants in return for map coordinates of Saddam's monstrous weapons, proofs of stored poisons, of mobile chemical laboratories, of unmanned vehicles capable of bringing missiles to Jerusalem.[6]

By early August the Bush Administration has sufficient confidence in its doomsday story to sell it to the American public. Instructed to come up with awesome text and shocking images, the White House Iraq Group hits upon the phrase “mushroom cloud” and prepares a White Paper describing the “grave and gathering danger” posed by Iraq's nuclear arsenal.[7] The objective is three-fold—to magnify the fear of Saddam Hussein, to present President Bush as the Christian savior of the American people, a man of conscience who never in life would lead the country into an unjust war, and to provide a platform of star-spangled patriotism for Republican candidates in the November congressional elections.[8]

* * *

The Conyers report doesn't lack for further instances of the administration's misconduct, all of them noted in the press over the last three years—misuse of government funds, violation of the Geneva Conventions, holding without trial and subjecting to torture individuals arbitrarily designated as “enemy combatants,” etc.—but conspiracy to commit fraud would seem reason enough to warrant the President's impeachment. Before reading the report, I wouldn't have expected to find myself thinking that such a course of action was either likely or possible; after reading the report, I don't know why we would run the risk of not impeaching the man. We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal—known to be armed and shown to be dangerous. Under the three-strike rule available to the courts in California, judges sentence people to life in jail for having stolen from Wal-Mart a set of golf clubs or a child's tricycle. Who then calls strikes on President Bush, and how many more does he get before being sent down on waivers to one of the Texas Prison Leagues?

* * *

The above is a brief excerpt from the complete essay, available in the March 2006 issue of Harper's Magazine.

A bunch of people here (including me) would love that, but it's not gonna happen.

From today's news:


http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/...itics-headlines

Vermont Town Backs Bush Impeachment
By DAVID GRAM
Associated Press Writer

March 7, 2006, 3:34 PM EST

NEWFANE, Vt. -- In a white-clapboard town hall, circa 1832, voters gathered Tuesday to conduct their community's business and to call for the impeachment of President Bush.

"In the U.S. presently there are only a few places where citizens can act in this fashion and have a say in our nation," said select board member Dan DeWalt, who drafted the impeachment article that was placed on the warning -- or official agenda -- for the annual town meeting, a proud Yankee tradition in New England.

"It absolutely affects us locally," Dewalt said. "It's our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, who are dying" in the war in Iraq.

The article, approved 121-29 in balloting by paper, calls on Vermont's lone member of the House, independent Rep. Bernie Sanders, to file articles of impeachment against the president, alleging that Bush misled the nation into the Iraq war and engaged in illegal domestic spying.

The impeachment item came at the end of a roughly four-hour meeting that was devoted mostly to the local affairs of the town of 1,600. Among the other items discussed was whether the town should fix some of the 100-year-old sidewalks in the village.

The impeachment discussion took up almost half an hour, reflecting the intense interest in the topic and something of a division over whether the town meeting was the appropriate place to debate it.

Ann Landenberger argued that it was appropriate. "As a teacher I can't say to my kids that what happens on the national level doesn't affect us at the local level," she said. "Would that we could all be in a cocoon, but that is not the case."

Greg Record, a justice of the peace, said in an interview after the meeting that the town is made up of people from the "far-left," and he criticized the amount of time and attention such advisory votes get.

"We spend more time on these things than on a million-dollar budget item," he complained.

The president did have his supporters during the debate.

Lenore Salzbrun defended Bush, saying she had close friends who died in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "I am so grateful that our president didn't just put his head in the sand ... and did go out and fight," she said.

Sanders issued a statement saying that although the Bush administration "has been a disaster for our country, and a number of actions that he has taken may very well not have been legal," given the reality that the Republicans control the House and the Senate, "it would be impractical to talk about impeachment."

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.

lets all love us some vermonters, and make more of these people.

San Francisco did it too.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?.../01/IMPEACH.TMP

S.F. supervisors ask lawmakers to impeach Bush
- Edward Epstein and Charlie Goodyear, Chronicle Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 1, 2006

San Francisco's supervisors jumped into national politics Tuesday, passing a resolution asking the city's Democratic congressional delegation to seek the impeachment of President Bush for failing to perform his duties by leading the country into war in Iraq, eroding civil liberties and engaging in other activities the board sees as transgressions.

The supervisors, in voting 7-3 for the resolution, ensured that San Francisco again will become grist for radio and TV talk shows. The city has appeared in the national media spotlight recently for voters' passage in November of a nonbinding measure banning military recruiters from public high schools and for Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval's recent comment on a Fox News show that the United States doesn't need a military.

Supervisor Chris Daly, one of the most progressive members of the board, sponsored the resolution, which also calls for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. Daly said the measure is justified in light of the administration's case for and handling of the war in Iraq, the federal government's inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina and recent revelations about a domestic wiretapping program.

"I think the case is clear, and I think it's appropriate for us to weigh in," Daly said.

Speaking in opposition to the resolution, Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier said, "I don't think that we need to be calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, as much as may not like them ... and as much as we don't like the policies that they put forward."

Joining Alioto-Pier in voting against the resolution were Supervisors Sean Elsbernd and Sophie Maxwell. Supervisor Jake McGoldrick was absent.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom didn't want to pick up the impeachment drumbeat, but he offered a sarcastic response when asked his position on the nonbinding resolution.

"It's probably going to shatter the status quo in this country when it passes,'' he said with a smile. "I imagine, immediately, Congress will probably convene into session and begin impeachment proceedings.''

Still, Newsom said he hasn't decided whether he will sign the legislation.

"On the list of one to 3,000, it's not even on that list of priorities for me to sign a resolution -- that will have no force and effect -- talking about impeachment,'' said Newsom, a partisan Democrat and frequent critic of the president's policies.

In sending the resolution to Bay Area members of Congress, the supervisors addressed a frustrated group that is tired of being in the minority.

"Real change in the direction of our country will come about when the Republicans no longer control the executive and legislative branches,'' said Rep. Tom Lantos of San Mateo, whose district includes the southwestern corner of San Francisco. "We need to take control of the House, elect more Democratic senators and take control of the White House in 2008.''

The House Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who represents much of San Francisco, was asked about impeaching Bush during a January town meeting at Marina Middle School.

Pelosi, poised to become the first female House speaker should the Democrats win control in November's election, repeated Tuesday what she told her constituents: "Win the election. Then you can change the policy of our country.''

Asked if San Francisco was setting itself up again as the target of talk-show barbs, she said, "It's a democratic society. The Board of Supervisors does what it does.''

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a former San Francisco mayor, wouldn't comment directly on the idea of impeaching Bush. But she noted that as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, she has been frustrated trying to get information about the secret National Security Agency eavesdropping program.

"We're in the minority. We press and press, and all we get is stonewalled,'' said Feinstein, who is running for re-election in November.

The supervisors' vote might not generate the ridicule one would expect from conservative talk radio, said Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine.

"I don't think the vote will be a joke because George Bush is in more trouble with his conservative backers than ever, particularly talk radio hosts,'' said Harrison, whose magazine covers the talk radio business.

Many conservatives are angry at the president over such issues as the planned takeover of operations at six major U.S. ports by a company controlled by the government of Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates, the secret spying and the bungled handling of Cheney's shooting of a hunting companion.

And Newsom wasn't worried the board's action would hurt San Francisco's reputation.

"I don't think it damages the city in any significant ways," he said. "I think the things we're ridiculed about ... are some of the proudest moments in the city in terms of advancing our values -- and they tend to transcend our borders.''

Check this out:




http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114...ys_free_feature


Impeachment Proves
Risky Political Issue
Some Democratic Activists Push
Removing Bush From Office,
But Mainstream Steers Clear
By JEANNE CUMMINGS
March 6, 2006; Page A4

If Democratic candidate Tony Trupiano wins a Michigan House seat this fall, he pledges that one of his first acts will be to introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush.

That has earned Mr. Trupiano the endorsement of ImpeachPAC, a group of Democratic activists seeking to remove Mr. Bush from office. ImpeachPAC's Web site lists 14 candidates offering similar commitments, which are reminiscent of the Republican drive to oust former President Bill Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

But Mr. Trupiano's pledge hasn't much impressed Democratic Party leaders, who are keeping their distance from impeachment talk. They remember how the effort boomeranged on Republicans in the 1998 midterm elections, when Mr. Clinton's adversaries expected to gain House seats but lost ground instead.

"If you are looking for a message to take back the House and the Senate or the White House, there are better ways to go about it," says Democratic communications ace Joe Lockhart, a media aide to Mr. Clinton during the Republican impeachment effort.

That puts mainstream Democrats, on this issue at least, echoing the Republican National Committee. "Voters elect candidates because they understand the issues rather than engage in leftwing fantasies," says RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. It also guarantees tension between some of the party's most fervent members and its electoral strategists, who are directing efforts to recapture Capitol Hill.

Impeachment advocates are undaunted. "Just because you can't win a political battle doesn't mean certain battles shouldn't be fought," says Bob Fertik, a founder of the ImpeachPAC effort. "If we don't hold a president accountable for lying to start a war, we might as well throw out the Constitution of the United States."

Mr. Fertik, 48 years old, founded a group called Democrats.com in 2000 and began organizing protests from his home computer in New York before the first U.S. bombers hit Baghdad. When the so-called Downing Street Memo emerged in Britain last year, he discerned evidence that the Bush administration had manipulated prewar intelligence.

An organization he helped found, AfterDowningStreet.org, soon assembled an electronic coalition containing 300,000 email addresses. The group hired independent pollster John Zogby to test support for impeachment in June and found that 42% of likely voters supported that step if it were proved that the president lied about prewar intelligence.

By November, the proportion reached 51% -- prompting an impeachment drumbeat from Mr. Fertik and like-minded activists. He cofounded ImpeachPAC, a political action committee dedicated to recruiting and backing candidates who support an impeachment inquiry.

The $60,000 that ImpeachPAC has raised so far isn't much, but has kept the Internet-based organization afloat. David Swanson, the 36-year-old director, works from his home in Virginia.

The movement can point to some small successes. Radio celebrity Garrison Keillor posted an article for the online magazine Salon calling for Mr. Bush's impeachment. Three California cities -- San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Arcata -- have passed resolutions backing impeachment, and municipalities in North Carolina and Vermont are considering such steps.

But the Democratic National Committee, chaired by 2004 campaign firebrand Howard Dean has declined to chime in. A House resolution offered by Rep. John Conyers of Michigan seeking an initial impeachment inquiry has attracted support from just 26 of 201 House Democrats. Even Mr. Conyers, the ranking Judiciary Committee Democrat, allows, "This isn't something we have to do right away."

Democratic strategists remember the fallout Republicans suffered among swing voters in 1998 amid their bid to oust Mr. Clinton. The National Republican Congressional Committee sank $10 million into a last-minute advertising blitz focused on Mr. Clinton's character, only to lose five seats and see House Speaker Newt Gingrich pressured to resign.
[Graphic]

A Bush impeachment drive could only move forward if Democrats regained control of the House from the president's party. But even then it would be an uphill fight.

"At most, they could show a mistake in judgment, it seems to me," says the Rev. Robert F. Drinan of the Georgetown University Law Center, a former Democratic House member who backed seeking the impeachment of Richard Nixon in 1974 over Watergate. Michael Gerhardt, an impeachment expert at the University of North Carolina law school, says there could be a "credible basis for an inquiry," but additional facts would have to be established before anyone could "demonstrate an impeachable offense occurred."

Mr. Trupiano, a 45-year-old radio talk-show host, doesn't need convincing. Members of both parties must "exercise oversight," he says, "and once and for all, let's settle some of these discrepancies" about prewar intelligence.

He is seeking the Detroit-area House seat held by Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, a two-term Republican incumbent who hasn't decided if he will seek re-election. He predicts his impeachment stance will become an issue, since Republicans "are going to try to define me as something of a radical."

"From our side of the fence, people are very supportive of the president," says Mr. McCotter's spokesman Bob Jackson. He adds that Mr. McCotter, who won re-election in 2004 with 57% of the vote, hasn't heard complaints about inadequate congressional oversight of the Bush administration.

Mr. Trupiano acknowledges that the economy is the No. 1 concern of the suburban electorate he is courting. And on the stump, he usually avoids using the word "impeachment," opting instead to call for holding the administration "accountable" for its handling of prewar intelligence and its warrantless wiretaps of some Americans' telephone calls as part of the war against terrorism.

"I'm not afraid of the word," says Mr. Trupiano. "But some people are uncomfortable with it."

Clinton got impeached due to the Republicans having the numbers to do it despite what little they had to go on.

Bush, despite having a lot more of an impeachable case has his own party in power, unless this years elections turn the tide, we won't see impeachment, let alone the fact that a successful impeachment would put Cheney in charge...well officially then.

yes, yes....but, just so people know, this group, impeachPAC (www.impeachPAC.org) is calling for the joint impeachment of Bush AND Cheney

from their site:

"ImpeachPAC supports Democratic candidates for Congress who support the immediate and simultaneous impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney for their Iraq War lies."

Cases for impeachment of a Republican President made in San Francisco and Vermont - what a surprise.

That's right--from sea to shining sea, Americans agree on one thing: his ass needs the boot.

If only.

No, rather than sea to sea more like 2 of the most ultra-left parts of the country in which it doesn't surprise me that they'd like to see a Republican President go.

I think the Democrats would need a commanding majority in the House to make this happen. That, Colin Powell hosting a luncheon at the National Press Club to make the walls shake with some wild accusation, and/or new evidence that shows a sinister expansion of the NSA eavesdropping program to target political enemies (ala Nixon).

There are over two thousand dead Americans, and tens of thousands more who are horribly maimed or crippled because this coked-out punk Texas aristocrat thought it would be fun to have a war, and his back-seat driver veep saw that there was billions more to be made on not only killing GI's, but over-charging them for lunch.

It's pointless to impeach Bush, and leave the rest of his TooJive Crew intact. It's fairly obvious that "Twelve Gauge" Cheney is the real power, and, thanks to bionics, he will probably live to be about 170. Bush is a schmuck, but he is too stoopid to be evil. He is surrounded by people, however, who are both evil and brilliant. The illusion of choice via the " two-party system" will continue, and the Dems will probably make some headway, but the dirty deals have all been made, and all these motherfuckers get to go home and count the money while you go home and explain to your children about how the once-proud American people had their balls and brains seared off by a couple of planes crashing into the Twin Towers.

In one day, four more Vermont towns have joined the movement:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...ll=chi-news-hed



Vermont Towns Endorse Move to Impeach Bush
Advertisement

By DAVID GRAM
Associated Press Writer

March 8, 2006, 4:05 AM CST

NEWFANE, Vt. -- In five Vermont communities, a centuries-old tradition of residents gathering in town halls to conduct local business became a vehicle to send a message to Washington: Impeach the president.

An impeachment article, approved by a paper ballot 121-29 in Newfane Tuesday, calls on Vermont's lone member of the U.S. House, independent Rep. Bernie Sanders, to file articles of impeachment against President Bush, alleging he misled the nation into the Iraq war and engaged in illegal domestic spying.

"It absolutely affects us locally," said Newfane select board member Dan DeWalt, who drafted the impeachment article. "It's our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, who are dying" in the war in Iraq.

At least four other Vermont towns, spurred by publicity about Newfane's resolution, endorsed similar resolutions during Tuesday's meetings: Brookfield, Dummerston, Marlboro and Putney.

In Newfane, the impeachment item came at the end of a roughly four-hour meeting that was devoted mostly to the local affairs of the town of 1,600 located in southeastern Vermont. Among the other items discussed was whether the town should fix some of its 100-year-old sidewalks.

The impeachment discussion took up more than half an hour, reflecting the intense interest in the topic and something of a division over whether the town meeting was the appropriate place to debate it.

"As a teacher I can't say to my kids that what happens on the national level doesn't affect us at the local level," Ann Landenberger told the Newfane meeting. "Would that we could all be in a cocoon, but that is not the case."

Greg Record, a local justice of the peace, criticized the amount of time and attention such advisory votes get.

"We spend more time on these things than on a million dollar budget item," said Record, who said the town is made up of people from the "far left."

Lenore Salzbrun defended Bush, saying she had close friends who died in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"I am so grateful that our president didn't just put his head in the sand ... and did go out and fight," she said.

"How many attacks have we had on the U.S. since September 11?" asked another resident, Carlton Brown. "Maybe some of the terrorists around the world are sitting up and taking notice that we're not going to be patsies."

The Bush vote is not the first time Newfane has used its town meeting forum to take a state or national stand. Last year, for example, the town went on record against the Iraq war.

Sanders issued a statement after the Newfane vote saying that although the Bush administration "has been a disaster for our country, and a number of actions that he has taken may very well not have been legal," given the reality that the Republicans control the House and the Senate, "it would be impractical to talk about impeachment."

Jim Barnett, chairman of the Vermont Republican Party, said Sanders should reject the resolution: "We should not be impeaching presidents just because we disagree with them."

Washington Post Op-Ed columnist, Meyerson, weighs in against impeachment


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6030701200.html

Impeachment Imprudence

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; A19

This may be my mother's doing. About 20 months ago, in a column I wrote at the time of her 90th birthday, I noted that Estelle had been peppering me with questions about why we weren't impeaching the president. I gave her what I thought were sufficient reasons: He could be ousted in the coming election; grotesque misconduct in office was not necessarily a high crime or misdemeanor; the Republicans controlled Congress; Dick Cheney was the guy on deck -- that sort of thing. None of it took. At her house one afternoon, talking on the phone, I reached for a pad of paper to jot down some notes and found her handwritten agenda for the day. There was a list of vegetables. Then it said, "Coca-Cola." Then it said, "Impeach Bush." Underlined.

Nearly 92 now, Estelle hasn't really slowed down very much, and she must still be preaching the gospel of impeachment to her friends in her Democratic club and, I can only conclude, her Improv group as well. Because, damn -- this impeachment stuff is really getting around.

It's all over the blogosphere. It's the cover story in the current Harper's. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has passed an impeachment resolution. Antiwar activists, civil libertarians, all the usual-suspect constituencies have growing impeachment tendencies. But it's reaching beyond the usual suspects, as I discovered last month when I appeared on a media panel before the national legislative conference of a major union. Local activists from across the nation spent an hour asking us questions, and one out of every three queries, it seemed to me, boiled down to, "How can we impeach this guy?"

Now, I bow to no one in my conviction that George W. Bush's is a malevolent presidency. The leading figures of his administration manipulated facts and fabricated fictions to justify going to war in Iraq. They ignored the intelligence reports that predicted the strife that would follow Saddam Hussein's ouster, and sent our troops in harm's way with no plausible strategy for how to handle the violence and with insufficient armor to shield themselves from it. They were missing in action when a great American city and thousands of American citizens needed rescue. This administration has authorized torture, though the United States has signed conventions that forbid it. It has authorized warrantless wiretapping and surveillance, though it is plainly against the law.

History, I'll wager, will find Bush as inept as James Buchanan, on whose watch the Union broke up. It will find him as divisive, as eager to polarize the nation to his political advantage, no matter the costs, as Richard Nixon. (Indeed, if the administration does seek to prosecute the reporters who followed up leaks to break the news of its scandals, I suspect the genesis of this campaign will be less the intelligence community's concern for secrets and more Karl Rove's desperate need for an enemy within as midterm elections loom.) But does any or all of this rise to the level of an impeachable offense, or is it merely the kind of thing that lands a president on eternal sizzle in one of Dante's lower loops?

Dereliction of duty and lying us into a war may be mortal sins, but that doesn't make them provable high crimes. Domestic surveillance without a court order, by contrast, does look to be a flat-out violation of the law of the land. But it's hard to believe that Arlen Specter's Judiciary Committee will recommend any punitive action even if it concludes the policy was against the law. For that you'd need a different Judiciary Committee -- one controlled by Democrats.

And for that, of course, the Democrats need to win in November -- a goal that looks increasingly within reach, and the goal on which the growing legions of Bush haters should focus their attentions. To dwell on impeachment now would be to drain energy from the election efforts that need to succeed if impeachment is ever truly to be on the agenda. To insist on support for impeachment as a litmus test for Democratic candidates would be to impede those efforts altogether.

Which doesn't necessarily mean that impeachment would become a good idea even if the Democrats had the votes to push it through. That's an empirical and political judgment that would have to be made at the time. As a general rule, though, bad faith and worse policy should be subject to political remedy, not criminal prosecution, unless there have been crimes so unambiguous and momentous that no political remedy is suitable. The combination of administration misdeeds and the absence of congressional oversight may rightly enrage Americans who still expect a functioning government, but that doesn't make the angriest possible response the best one. Not yet, certainly. Not now, Mom. Not now.

meyersonh@washpost.com

Clinton lied about cheating on his wife
W lied about the reasons for war in Iraq

which offense is greater?

It's not the offence, it's the context. And by 'context' I mean, "Who's got the most votes".

FWIW, It's likely that Democrats will win back the House of Representatives this year. 26 current Democratic members support impeachment at this point.

And more than a dozen Democratic Congressional candidates support it as well.

I am no GWB lover, but that is not how it went down...

Yeah about the time the dust has settled, George will have about four months in office.

Republican Congressman Predicts Bush Impeachment
Says US close to dictatorship

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | March 3 2006

Republican Congressman Ron Paul has gone on record with his prediction that the impeachment of George W. Bush is right around the corner but warned that in the meantime the US was slipping perilously close to a dictatorship.

Appearing on the Alex Jones Show and addressing the port sell-out, Paul stated that, "it probably will contribute to the Republican's failure in the next election."

Asked if the Democrats would use gains in the mid-term elections to set in motion impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush, Paul responded,

"I predict that would happen."

"I think he (Bush) has numerous things that the Democrats if they get a chance, not only will they be after him for that but it will be payback for the Clinton impeachment."

Paul was inclined to believe that the port sales would go ahead anyway but took a positive perspective in pointing out that it again highlighted George W. Bush's complete abandonment of conservative principles.

"At least this has awakened a lot of people and I think this is going to serve as a benefit," said Paul. "They're likely to pull this deal off but the American people are awakening now and I think there's going to be a payback period in the election."

The Congressman expressed his resignation at the passage of the Patriot Act and how it again underscores Bush's unchecked powers

"They had a few token changes which mean nothing and under the present system he (President Bush) just ignores what he doesn't like anyway."

Asked if the US was heading into a dictatorship, Paul responded,

"It's getting close to it, it's called usurpation of power and it's done in many ways with Congress just going along because they're sound asleep and this certainly is an attack on our Constitution and on our freedoms."

Thanks for sharing this, guys.

sarcasm?

Conservatives turn on Bush:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0701403_pf.html



At Conservative Forum on Bush, Everybody's a Critic

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; A02

If the ancient political wisdom is correct that a charge unanswered is a charge agreed to, the Bush White House pleaded guilty yesterday at the Cato Institute to some extraordinary allegations.

"We did ask a few members of the Bush economic team to come," explained David Boaz, the think tank's executive vice president, as he moderated a discussion between two prominent conservatives about President Bush. "We didn't get that."

Now why would the administration pass up such an invitation?

Well, it could have been because of the first speaker, former Reagan aide Bruce Bartlett. Author of the new book "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," Bartlett called the administration "unconscionable," "irresponsible," "vindictive" and "inept."

It might also have had something to do with speaker No. 2, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan. Author of the forthcoming "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It; How to Get It Back," Sullivan called Bush "reckless" and "a socialist," and accused him of betraying "almost every principle conservatism has ever stood for."

Nor was moderator Boaz a voice of moderation. He blamed Bush for "a 48 percent increase in spending in just six years," a "federalization of public schools" and "the biggest entitlement since LBJ."

True, the small-government libertarians represented by Cato have always been the odd men out of the Bush coalition. But the standing-room-only forum yesterday, where just a single questioner offered even a tepid defense of the president, underscored some deep disillusionment among conservatives over Bush's big-spending answer to Medicare and Hurricane Katrina, his vast claims of executive power, and his handling of postwar Iraq.

Bartlett, who lost his job at the free-market National Center for Policy Analysis because of his book, said that if conservatives were honest, more would join his complaint. "They're reticent to address the issues that I've raised for fear that they might have to agree with them," he told the group. "And a lot of Washington think tanks and groups of that sort, they know that this White House is very vindictive."

Waiting for the talk to start, some in the audience expressed their ambivalence.

"It's gonna hit the [bestseller] lists, I'm sure," said Cato's legal expert, Roger Pilon.

"Typical Bruce," replied John Taylor of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy.

Admitted Pilon: "He's got a lot of material to work with."

Bartlett certainly thought so. He began by predicting a big tax increase "to finance the inevitable growth of government that is in the pipeline that President Bush is largely responsible for." He also said many fellow conservatives don't know about the "quite dreadful" traits of the administration, such as the absence of "anybody who does any serious analysis" on policy issues.

Boaz assured the audience that he told the White House that "if there's a rebuttal to what Bruce has said, please come and provide it."

Instead, Sullivan was on hand to second the critique. "This is a big-government agenda," he said. "It is fueled by a new ideology, the ideology of Christian fundamentalism." The bearded pundit offered his own indictment of Bush: "complete contempt" for democratic processes, torture of detainees, ignoring habeas corpus and a "vast expansion of the federal government." The notion, he said, that the "Thatcher-Reagan legacy that many of us grew up to love and support would end this way is an astonishing paradox and a great tragedy."

The question period gave the two a chance to come up with new insults.

"If Bush were running today against Bill Clinton, I'd vote for Clinton," Bartlett served.

"You have to understand the people in this administration have no principles," Sullivan volleyed. "Any principles that get in the way of the electoral map have to be dispensed with."

Boaz renewed his plea. "Any Bush economists hiding in the audience?"

There was, in fact, one Bush Treasury official on the attendance roster, but he did not surface. The only man who came close to defending Bush, environmental conservative Fred Singer, said he was "willing to overlook" the faults because of the president's Supreme Court nominations. Even Richard Walker, representing the think tank that fired Bartlett, declined to argue. "I agree with most of it," he said later.

Unchallenged, the Bartlett-Sullivan tag team continued. "The entire intellectual game has been given away by the Republican president," said Sullivan. "He's a socialist in so many respects, a Christian socialist."

Bartlett argued that Richard Nixon "is the model for everything Bush is doing."

Sullivan said Karl Rove's political strategy is "pathetic."

Bartlett said that "the administration lies about budget numbers."

"He is not a responsible human being; he is a phenomenally reckless human being," Sullivan proclaimed. "There is a level of recklessness involved that is beyond any ideology."

"Gosh," Boaz interjected. "I wish we had a senior White House aide up here."

No emoticons here, Jimmy. That was a sincere thanks.

cool.

and now you can bet on the odds of impeachment at http://www.sportsbook.com

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories....04316261&EDATE=


As President's approval ratings plummet, Sportsbook.com offers odds on how low Bush can go


WASHINGTON, DC, March 8 /PRNewswire/ - This year is already shaping up as
a difficult one for President Bush. The ongoing violence in Iraq, reports of
possibly illegal wiretapping of US citizens, more questions about the status
of prisoners at Guantamano - and now, the news that the government was
prepared to allow a Dubai owned company manage major East coast ports. All
this has caused Americans to lose patience with their President. Various
public opinion polls recently put his approval rating anywhere from 34 to 38
per cent, down from 42 per cent last month.
Sportsbook.com is now offering customers the chance to wager on the
President's job approval rating on May 1, 2006. Bettors can choose over or
under 39 per cent drawn from the polling average at RealClearPolitics.com - a
company which publishes a daily poll average of Bush's approval rating based
on the leading American public opinion polls.
"Public sentiment opposing the deal remains high and is having an impact
on President Bush's approval ratings," according to Jennifer Duffy, Editor and
Political Analyst for non-partisan The Cook Political Report. "When Bush's
approval ratings slip under 40 per cent, it's because he is losing support
among his Republican base. The ports deal is clearly causing the erosion we
are seeing in his numbers today."
"This could prove to be a hugely transitional year in American politics
and the whole world is watching," says Alex Czajkowski, Marketing Director,
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-----------------------------------------

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--------------------------

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About.com acknowledges the growing movement.

http://usliberals.about.com/b/a/2006_03_09.htm

March 09, 2006
Liberal Politics: U.S. Blog Archives

Media Joins the Massive Call for Bush Impeachment

Calls for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and cohort Vice-President Dick Cheney grow louder and stronger with each passing week. This past week, members of the mainstream media and others joined the swelling chorus of voices pushing for Congressional impeachment hearings.

The March 2006 issue of Harpers magazine features an essay entitled The Case of Impeachment, in which author Lewis Lapham concludes, "Before reading the report, I wouldn't have expected to find myself thinking that such a course of action was either likely or possible; after reading the report, I don't know why we would run the risk of not impeaching the man.

We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal—known to be armed and shown to be dangerous. "

And in The Nation, Elizabeth Holzman, who served four terms in the US House of Representatives, writes, "Like many others, I have been deeply troubled by Bush's breathtaking scorn for our international treaty obligations under the United Nations Charter and the Geneva Conventions. I have also been disturbed by the torture scandals and the violations of US criminal laws at the highest levels of our government ....

As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment of President Bush. A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law--and repeatedly violates the law--thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office."

And one of my favorite best-selling authors, the genial and brilliant Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion, wrote in Salon last week, "According to the leaders of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, our country is practically as vulnerable today as it was on 9/10. Our seaports are wide open, our airspace is not secure except for the nation's capital, and little has been done about securing the nuclear bomb materials lying around in the world. They give the administration D's and F's in most categories of defending against terrorist attack.

Our adventure in Iraq, at a cost of trillions, has brought that country to the verge of civil war while earning us more enemies than ever before. And tax money earmarked for security is being dumped into pork barrel projects anywhere somebody wants their own SWAT team. Detonation of a nuclear bomb within our borders -- pick any big city -- is a real possibility, as much so now as five years ago.....

The U.S. Constitution provides a simple ultimate way to hold him to account for war crimes and the failure to attend to the country's defense. Impeach him and let the Senate hear the evidence.
--------------------
Cities from California and Vermont have passed legislation urging impeachment hearings for Bush and usually Cheney, and liberal-leaning groups from Minnesota, North Carolina, Virginia Wisconsin, California, Oregon, Nevada and beyond have called for impeachment proceedings.

Impeachment momentum has been building since June 2005 when Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and 12 other members of Congress hand-delivered to the White House a petition signed by 560,000 Americans demanding that President Bush address smoking-gun (via the Downing Street Memos) evidence that the Bush Administration lied to Congress and the American people in order to start the Iraq War.

As far back as November 2005, a Zogby poll showed that 51% of Americans favored impeachment for President Bush if he “did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq."

In December 2005, Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), a pastor and 40-year civil rights leader, became the first member of Congress to call for impeachment proceedings against President Bush "if he broke the law in authorizing spying on Americans."

And also in late 2005, liberal activist Bob Fertik founded ImpeachPac to "support Democratic candidates for Congress who support the immediate and simultaneous impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney for their Iraq War lies." The PAC has already attracted tens of thousands in online contributions and serves as the informal "go to" website for impeachment news and info.

Many believe, however, that Bush impeachment garnered great momentum on January 16, 2006, when Al Gore delivered his brilliant Martin Luther King, Jr, Day speech, in which he firmly proclaimed, "...the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently. A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. "

In late January 2006, Insight magazine, owned by the Bush-friendly conservative-insider newspaper The Washington Times, reported that "The Bush administration is bracing for impeachment hearings in Congress."

In late February 2006, CBS News reported that "President Bush's approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, while pessimism about the Iraq war has risen to a new high. Americans are also overwhelmingly opposed to the Bush-backed deal giving a Dubai-owned company operational control over six major U.S. ports. Seven in 10 Americans, including 58 percent of Republicans, say they're opposed to the agreement. "

And on March 7, 2006, Matthew Rothschild, editor of the respected The Progressive, eloquently wrote, "At the Constitutional Convention, the drafters had originally restricted impeachment to 'treason' and 'bribery.'....After some wrangling over wording, the founders agreed to James Madison’s phrase 'high crimes and misdemeanors.'

And that is exactly what George W. Bush has been committing: He’s been subverting our Constitution, and he has repeatedly violated his oath of office to 'faithfully execute' his duties and to 'preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.'

He has done so in four key areas: in the Iraq War, in detentions here at home and abroad, in the torture scandal, and in the NSA warrantless spying program."
--------------------
Now, in mid-March of 2006, the Impeach Bush & Cheney movement grows louder and stronger each week.

Chances are slim that in this Republican-dominated 109th Congress, impeachment hearings will commence. But given current overwhelming public opinion against all major Bush administration initiatives, the November 2006 Congressional elections could significantly change the balance of partisan power in Washington DC.

And then Congressional impeachment hearings woud be a major possibility.
------------------------------
Technorati Profile

Sincere thanks for posting these -- it's a ray of hope during what would be almost a hilariously keystone-cop-like time in the political history of the US were it not true.

27-year CIA veteran calls for impeachment

http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view....09-050008-8703r

The U.S. has run amok; former CIA analyst


By AMBIKA BEHAL
UPI Correspondent

WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) -- Corruption has run amok in intelligence circles and the president should be impeached, a former CIA analyst says.

Also, he said, the United States is undergoing a constitutional crisis.

"I do not wish to be associated, however remotely, with an agency engaged in torture," wrote Ray McGovern in a recent letter as he returned his Intelligence Commendation Award medallion to Congressman Pete Hoekstra, R-MI, and Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

At the time, McGovern was wearing an orange jump suit, similar to those worn at Guantanamo Bay, with a gag over his mouth on which was written the word, "torture." Along with 15 other individuals, dressed alike, he wandered the halls of Congress.

"It was simply a slow, dead man walking kind of thing," said McGovern, who said the reaction he received was interesting. "I had expected turbulence, the worst I experienced was people averting their eyes and the most common reaction was people looking at me, silence," he said.

He described the experience as having "a certain somberness and reverence."

There were more volunteers wanting to take part, he said, but "not enough jump suits."

A 27-year veteran of the CIA, spanning administrations from John F. Kennedy to George Herbert Walker Bush, the current president's father, McGovern has taken, in recent years, a vocal stand on several aspects of the current Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq and ensuing events.

Returning his medal for "especially commendable service" took a lot of thought. "I had been thinking of ways I could disassociate myself from torture," he said, describing it as a response for his grandchildren who, he said, would ask him what role he played in current events.

"Pete Hoekstra was one of the few people in our government who would be able to stop this," said McGovern. But neither has he seen any action from Hoekstra in attempt to stop torture of prisoners at American hands, nor has he received any response from the return of his medal yet, he said.

"In my view, this is an order of magnitude different from my experiences in the past -- there has been torture before, but never before has it been ordered and openly 'justified'," he said.

Recent months have seen CIA Director Porter Goss and Vice President Dick Cheney unsuccessfully try to prevent Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. from his successful initiative to ensure there were legal restraints on torture.

Attorney General "Alberto Gonzalez in London was unwilling to say whether dogs were used in torture," said McGovern. "Even thought torture has always been conducted separosa, there should be a debate in this city," he said.

During his time at the CIA, McGovern at one point was responsible for daily briefings to the first President Bush. After retiring in 1990; he said he received a "wonderful letter from Bush, Sr. We do stay in touch periodically," but would not comment on the former president's opinions on McGovern's current activities.

Today, he spends his time writing and speaking around the world and abroad, mostly about the Iraq war, "trying to spread a little truth around," he said.

The alleged corruption of intelligence strikes a heavy chord with McGovern. The war in Iraq started, he said, because former CIA director George Tenet, was given no choice but to state the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"Back in my day, I like to think we would have got up and walked out," if asked to force intelligence, he said. "Cooking intelligence is a cardinal sin in the intelligence world."

In a chapter in the new book, "Neo-Conned Again!" -- a compilation of condemnations of the war in Iraq -- McGovern referred to the New Testament passage carved into the marble entrance at CIA headquarters. "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

"This was the ethos of the intelligence analysis directorate during most of the 27 years I spent there," McGovern wrote.

"As outraged as we are by the politicization, some say prostitution, of intelligence procedures, we are upset by the undermining of the Constitution," he said, speaking for the anti-war group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, of which he is a founder.

Currently the group has 54 members who are former and some current intelligence professionals from all branches of the government. VIPS started in 2003 with five members -- all former agency analysts.

"If you're going to have an intelligence apparatus that tells the president what he wants to hear, you might as well just abolish the whole thing," and let the State Department run intelligence operations, said McGovern. The point of the CIA was to be accountable, he said. "We're supposed to tell the truth."

VIPS focuses on putting out memos to critique and comment official actions regarding controversial subjects related to the War on Terror. "People can and do come to us for the straight answers," McGovern said.

"When I speak frankly about the real reasons why we went into Iraq," he said, "I use the acronym OIL - Oil, Israel, Logistical bases." In recent months, the debate has turned to Iran.

McGovern refers to a former colleague at the CIA -- Paul Pillar, recently retired and now able to voice his perspectives on current situations.

McGovern quoted Pillar's words from a talk given at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington Tuesday, "It is important to bear in mind that we don't know if Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon."

His point, he said, was that one must not only analyze the historical facts that would lead to such a conclusion, but also provide hard evidence -- not corrupted evidence. He said he believed that, if not prevented now, another war will start in the next month or two.

"The American people need to wake up now, the evidence is all there," he said. "Our president and vice president have started a war of aggression defined by Nuremberg as a supreme international crime."

Describing members of Congress as tools of the White House, McGovern expressed a need for the people to take a different way. "Together with torture and clearly illegal wiretapping, we need to look for ways to stop all these crimes and indignities," he said.

McGovern also discussed the constitutional provision of impeachment. "I think impeachment proceedings should begin" against President Bush, he said.

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6032402248.html

Democrats Are Split As Impeachment Whispers Get Louder

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 25, 2006; A01

HOLYOKE, Mass. -- To drive through the mill towns and curling country roads here is to journey into New England's impeachment belt. Three of this state's 10 House members have called for the investigation and possible impeachment of President Bush.

Thirty miles north, residents in four Vermont villages voted earlier this month at annual town meetings to buy more rock salt, approve school budgets and impeach the president for lying about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and for sanctioning torture.

Window cleaner Ira Clemons put down his squeegee in the lobby of a city mall and stroked his goatee as he considered the question: Would you support your congressman's call to impeach Bush? His smile grew until it looked like a three-quarters moon.

"Why not? The man's been lying from Jump Street on the war in Iraq," Clemons said. "Bush says there were weapons of mass destruction, but there wasn't. Says we had enough soldiers, but we didn't. Says it's not a civil war -- but it is." He added: "I was really upset about 9/11 -- so don't lie to me."

It would be a considerable overstatement to say the fledgling impeachment movement threatens to topple a presidency -- there are just 33 House co-sponsors of a motion by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) to investigate and perhaps impeach Bush, and a large majority of elected Democrats think it is a bad idea. But talk bubbles up in many corners of the nation, and on the Internet, where several Web sites have led the charge, giving liberals an outlet for anger that has been years in the making.

"The value of a powerful idea, like impeachment of the president for criminal acts, is that it has a long shelf life and opens a debate," said Bill Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents Guantanamo Bay detainees.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted last month to urge Congress to impeach Bush, as have state Democratic parties, including those of New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin. A Zogby International poll showed that 51 percent of respondents agreed that Bush should be impeached if he lied about Iraq, a far greater percentage than believed President Bill Clinton should be impeached during the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal.

And Harper's Magazine this month ran a cover piece titled "The Case for Impeachment: Why We Can No Longer Afford George W. Bush."

"If the president says 'We made mistakes,' fine, let's move on," said Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.). "But if he lied to get America into a war, I can't imagine anything more impeachable."

Democrats remain far from unified. Prominent party leaders -- and a large majority of those in Congress -- distance themselves from the effort. They say the very word is a distraction, that talk of impeachment and censure reflect the polarization of politics. Activists spend too many hours dialing Democratic politicians and angrily demanding impeachment votes, they say.

In California, poet Kevin Hearle, an impeachment supporter, is challenging liberal Rep. Tom Lantos -- who opposes impeachment -- in the Democratic primary in June.

"Impeachment is an outlet for anger and frustration, which I share, but politics ain't therapy," said Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts liberal who declined to sign the Conyers resolution. "Bush would much rather debate impeachment than the disastrous war in Iraq."

The GOP establishment has welcomed the threat. It has been a rough patch for the party -- Bush's approval ratings in polls are lower than for any president in recent history. With midterm elections in the offing, Republican leaders view impeachment as kerosene poured on the bonfires of their party base.

"The Democrats' plan for 2006?" Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman wrote in a fundraising e-mail Thursday. "Take the House and Senate and impeach the president. With our nation at war, is this the kind of Congress you want?"

The argument for an impeachment inquiry -- which draws support from prominent constitutional scholars such as Harvard's Laurence H. Tribe and former Reagan deputy attorney general Bruce Fein -- centers on Bush's conduct before and after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

It is argued that Bush and his officials conspired to manufacture evidence of weapons of mass destruction to persuade Congress to approve the invasion. Former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill told CBS News's "60 Minutes" that "from the very beginning there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go . . . it was all about finding a way to do it." And a senior British intelligence official wrote in what is now known as the "Downing Street memo" that Bush officials were intent on fixing "the intelligence and the facts . . . around the policy."

Critics point to Bush's approval of harsh interrogations of prisoners captured Iraq and Afghanistan, tactics that human rights groups such as Amnesty International say amount to torture. Bush also authorized warrantless electronic surveillance of telephone calls and e-mails, subjecting possibly thousands of Americans each year to eavesdropping since 2001.

"Bush is saying 'I'm the president' and, on a range of issues -- from war to torture to illegal surveillance -- 'I can do as I like,' " said Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "This administration needs to be slapped down and held accountable for actions that could change the shape of our democracy."

Tribe wrote Conyers, dismissing Bush's defense of warrantless surveillance as "poppycock." It constituted, Tribe concluded, "as grave an abuse of executive authority as I can recall ever having studied."

But posed against this bill of aggrievement are legal and practical realities. Not all scholars, even of a liberal bent, agree that Bush has committed "high crimes and misdemeanors." Bush's legal advice may be wrong, they say, but still reside within the bounds of reason.

"The Clinton impeachment was plainly unconstitutional, and a Bush impeachment would be nearly as bad," said Cass R. Sunstein, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago. "There is a very good argument that the president had it wrong on WMD in Iraq but that he was acting in complete good faith."

Sunstein argues that Bush's decision to conduct surveillance of Americans without court approval flowed from Congress's vote to allow an armed struggle against al-Qaeda. "If you can kill them, why can't you spy on them?" Sunstein said, adding that this is a minority view.

Here in Massachusetts and Vermont, though, in the back roads and on the streets of Holyoke and Springfield, the discontent with Bush is palpable. These are states that, per capita, have sent disproportionate numbers of soldiers to Iraq. Many in these middle- and working-class towns are not pleased that so many friends and cousins are coming back wounded or dead.

"He picks and chooses his information and can't admit it's erroneous, and he annoys me," said Colleen Kucinski, walking Aleks, 5, and Gregory, 2, home.

Would she support impeachment? Kucinski wags her head "yes" before the question is finished. "Without a doubt. This is far more serious than Clinton and Monica. This is about life and death. We're fighting a war on his say-so and it was all wrong."

On Bill Maher last night, he talked about the NASA scientist who said we have ten years to essentially flatline CO2 emissions, else we pass an irreversible point in global warming. He also said the White House called this report "speculative," and the head of the Environmental Policies (don't know what it's called exactly) was busy crossing off much of the report before it was released to the news. Coincidentally, this head of the EP was a former lobbyist for Haliburton.

So if you consider global warming to be real, logically you'd have to consider it to be a weapon of mass destruction. And if Bush is more loyal to his oil buddies instead of really doing something about the problem, then to me, that is an act of treason.

I wish there was a youtube link of this up. He said it better than I am.

Anyhow, here's a link to the story.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/17/...in1415985.shtml

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne...t_id=1002344436

Neil Young, Son of Famed Reporter, Records "Impeach the President" Song

By E&P Staff

Published: April 14, 2006 11:40 AM ET

NEW YORK As an E&P "Pressing Issues" column recently noted, rock star Neil Young is the son of a famed Canadian journalist, so it should not surprise many that he recently recorded a song in California with a very reportorial -- or at least pundit -- feel to it.

It’s called “Impeach the President,” so there can be little question what it is about.

Apparently it was recorded with a 100-voice choir. Rumors have circulated the past few days on the Web, but E&P has tracked down the strongest confirmation in a blog kept by Sherman Oaks, Ca. musician/singer Alicia Morgan.

Previous reports quoted hints by Young and Jonathan Demme (who directed the new documentary “Heart of Gold”) that Neil was working on a hard-rocking political or “anti-Bush” CD.

Last Friday, Morgan wrote on her LastLeftB4Hooterville blog that she had been “summoned” to a local studio to sing on the new record with 99 others. “I'm not going to give the whole thing away, but the first line of one of the songs was ‘Let's impeach the President for lyin'!’ Turns out the whole thing is a classic beautiful protest record. The session was like being at a 12-hour peace rally. Every time new lyrics would come up on the screen, there were cheers, tears and applause. It was a spiritual experience. I can't believe my good fortune at being a part of this.

“We finished the session by singing an a capella version of 'America the Beautiful' and there was not a dry eye in the house.

“Neil said it should be out in 6 to 8 weeks."

Harp magazine reported on its Web site Thursday that Demme had confirmed in an e-mail, “Neil just finished writing and recording -- with no warning -- a new album called 'Living With War.' It all happened in three days… It is a brilliant electric assault, accompanied by a 100-voice choir, on Bush and the war in Iraq… Truly mind blowing. Will be in stores soon.”

The magazine continued: “Details are pretty scarce, but the featured track, titled ‘Impeach the President,’ features a rap with Bush’s voice set to the choir chanting ‘flip/flop’ and the like.”

Young has always been a maverick politically as well as musically. Although he has recorded a few songs that drew cheers from liberals, such as "Ohio" and "Southern Man," he also drew criticism from the left for pro-Reagan comments many years ago.

ITMFA.

I can't wait to hear this!

Note that there's also a thread about this on the music side of the board.

Dubya isn't getting impeached. You can forget it.
I'd love to see it happen, but let's get real here.

I really hope the Democrats don't push for impeaching him once they get seats. Rather, instead of striking up a controversy, keep their reputation strong so they can keep their seats and perhaps gain more for 2008. If they try to impeach Bush the plan will fall flat on its face, and Democrats will feel the backlash. That's the last thing they need.