There will be NO impeachment.

My logic on this:

1. Republicans will not impeach one of their own. (However, they may suggest (a) or (b) below to try to stay in power.)

2. If Dems win the mid-term elections,
a)Bush and Cheney will both step down, before a Dem congress is inaugurated, to make sure a Republican Speaker of the House ascends to the office.
- or -
b)Cheney will resign and a new VP will be chosen who is not impeachable but is still part of the neo-con package. Then Bush will step down.


=====================

Anybody want to add their own scenerio?

Consequently, he will never resign.

The more hubris that he shows and the more he digs his heels in, the angrier folks will get. Americans like it when a politician admits he/she was wrong, dontcha know. * will never admit that he's wrong and people don't tend to like that too much.

Impeachment isn't exactly easy, and getting a conviction out of the Senate is no sure thing.

it'd be like with Nixon. The GOP officials telling them they have to. I don't think this group will do that since they're more stubborn and aren't real republicans. They're only using the republicans for power.

maybe. But Cheney is nothing if not defiant...which is largely how this mess got started.

But they'd never resign before it looked like articles of impeachment would be passed by the house.

...so even if both Bush and Cheney resign, they'd still be subject to the wrath of an angry nation, to say nothing of possible attempts to call them and others before a war crimes tribunal after they leave office.

is not happy at all right now...

** to step down?? What about his (childish) ego??

(We ain't seen nothing yet???????????????????????) :scared:

rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.....

they will have to list all their crimes. And if the Democrats do get back in, I really hope they find a big backbone. They left Reagan and Bush 1 off the hook with Iran-Contra, which is why we are in this mess today. All the people that should have gone to jail for life in the 80's are back doing the same thing under shrub.

do the same thing this time. People are angry and will keep putting pressure on them. It's easy to do now days including Email and it only takes a few minutes. I think once the democrats have power again we'll see them hit hard. They've been pretty good lately so wait until than. Then things will heat up.

B* and Ch*n*y are too full of selfish pride to do any such thing as stepping down for any reason whatsoever. Instead, judging by the prevailing rethuglican behavior, I foresee a mighty legal battle with rethuglicans throwing in all the high-priced, top-tier lawyers (democrats and rethugs) they can muster with all the federal money at their disposal. I mean these rethugs will not be bashful in using the federal government purse in attempting to squash any impeachment.

My fears are whether the democrats will hold together and counter effectively whatever is thrown into the legal fight.

It still implies that impeachment may not happen, but for a different reason.

We need unity to end this madness. When I read someone saying the party is not left enough and they are going to jump on a third party band wagon, it scares me that they are diluting the power to remove this evil group who are now in power.

In my scenario, if they resign, they can get the Republican President to pardon them for their sins and never have to face prosecution. I think yours is more likely. The court battle would go on until the issue was moot in 2008. After that point, even though they were still guilty of high crimes, they wouldn't be in the office and congress wouldn't be their prosecutors.

Fine, Bush is gone. But the entire infrastructure for what this administration has been doing will still be there. Is the NSA going away? Is the MIC fading into history? Will DARPA be disbanded and no longer be able to dream up new technology?

Impeach the guy or not, it doesn't matter. It'll make people feel good, but who have we gotten after Nixon? Ford. Carter, who was run out eventually. Then we get Reagan, H.W, Republican light, and W.

Nixon went away. A few laws were passed. Yet here we are.

Their only hope is to change the Constitution before 2008 and steal that election, too. While in office, they are constitutionally protected from any criminal prosecution. Once they leave, the lawsuits will be pouring in like tax returns on April 15th.

Cheney and Bush stepping down.....These guys are making a point of grabbing power for themselves, not for Denny Hastert.

Stepping down is an admission that they shouldn't have been all-powerful in the first place.

Why would that be preferable to riding out an impeachment, win or lose?

It ain't going to happen--Bush and Cheney stepping down, I mean.

We better just hope they will leave after their term expires. I worry that they will refuse.

The '06 elections are still very vulnerable and I don't think we can trust that enough people are mad enough about the wiretapping and other abuses. There's just not enough illicit sex there to get folks properly pissed off.

Over the holidays and the following months the string of embarrasing leaks will continue. However, unlike the previous 5 years, they will continue to be fingers pointing directly at Bush, like the recent NSA leak. This will focus all ire at this administrations wrong doing on Bush, giving what I refer to as the real power brokers a chance to duck and run.

PNAC has made great gains in its plans. Rather than go down in flames right now, it will patiently wait for its next future opportunity.

Cheney will have a health setback and will resign for that reason and "to spend more time with his family." This is his way to get out of the spotlight. He will disappear into his new estate in Marylands eastern shore and will not be seen again, publicly, for years.

Rumsfeld will get highly involved in Iraq. His plan is to win the Iraq war and thus achieve hero status and float above all criticism. Delusional. This will result in higher body counts on both sides as well as worsening the political/strategic status quo in that country.

Condi Rice, now freed from the requirement of doing PNAC's bidding, will actually be able to apply herself. Will all the claims that she is super intelligent and that Secretary of State is a perfect role for her turn out to be right? We might find out. I've not been impressed up to this point. But then again, I doubt anyone could make PNACs game plan look good.

Both Rove and Libby will see the writing on the wall with this NSA leak. They'll see blaming Bush as their potential get out of jail free card. Expect more shots of them driving into confessionals with Fitzgerald following the holidays, and a rush of reports as the investigation closes in on Bush.

The thing to pay attention to, in the following months, is whether the investigation narrows its focus to only Bush, or if it keeps its net wide. Will Fitz be too tempted by the big fish, or will he try to net the whole stinking mess? I dunno.

But, by Spring, it will be obvious that Bush is thoroughly toast. His whole mental picture is that people love him, that they are loyal and support him. They are his friends. The sudden, repeated, and targetted political backstabbing he is just starting to recieve will shatter that picture. ANd he is not equipped to handle that. The strain will devour him, and he will lose touch with reality. If his aides cannot convince him to resign, which I can't imagine him doing, he will become an obvious danger in the White House.

All this just before the '06 election season starts its swing? Bush will be a huge albatross around every single Republican Congressman and Senator in DC. Iraq will be aflame due to Rumsfelds meddling, and the various money laundering investigations will have numerous RW'ers in their sights. The Republicans are looking at a major distaster in '06. And if they fight against Impeaching a clearly unstable President who also, personally, ordered unconstitutional invasions of Americans? Dead meat, and another seat delivered to the Democrats.

Instead, they will portray themselves as heroes, who were willing to set aside political bickering and reach across the isle and invite even Democrats to do the right thing for the nation and all Americans and, regretably, remove this President from Office. They'll view it as a tragic necessity, and write ballads about the 2001 Dubya and how he martyred himself in the course of his White House duties, yadayada.

Impeached by Spring. That's my scenario.

If you are the accurate predictor of the future, who gets to ascend to the office of President? Is he just more of the same?

I think Cheney will step down before the impeachment. Whoever they appoint as VP at that time will become POTUS, rather than the Speaker of the House, I think? (Or does the Speaker have priority over an appointed VP?)

I don't know who that appointee will be. Whoever it is will be stepping into a sh**storm. As crazy as it sounds, this thought keeps me from totally ignoring those rumours of Lieberman getting the spot. He's proven he's willing to prostrate himself before the RW agenda. And it would give them ample opportunity to blame all the failures that will spill out of the current mess on Democrats.

For this reason I think only a fool would accept that nomination. But the allure of being President attracts no end of those. Whoever it is certainly can't be a worse President than Bush. However I find it hard to believe history will look kindly on the events of the next few years, or whoever sits in the WH during them.

That ranks equivalent to Bush/Cheney on the scary scale.

but as the American public gets more and more disgusted, they will be forced to hold hearings, not only about snooping, but about the deregulation of natural gas and other stuff that is making folks madder and madder.

we will see just what sort of stuff The Cabal is made of. This will be their moment of truth, the analogy is Julius Ceasar's crossing of the Rubicon. Either they will accept the rule of law and the authority of the constitution, and our republic will survive, or they will, using national security as their excuse, take the gloves off of their crypto-fascist regime and put an end to our 230 year old experiment.

If anything demonstrates the bankruptcy of the 'greatest happiness' consequentialists, it's the flaws in their crystal balls (and brass balls, too). Two weeks ago, anyone who uttered the "I-word" was relegated to the delusional extreme left - and not a single newspaper or magazine of significant circulation gave space to such utterances. Two weeks.

If there's anything the left can take to the bank it's that the atrocity-a-week regime will continue to display the hubris and arrogance that's marked them for the last five years. That attitude is wearing thin. They've painted themselves into a corner. Only some bloody event within the continental U.S. is likely to toss all the coins in the air and offer a thin majority of tails.

In the immortal words of Spike Lee, "Do the right thing." The "right thing" is 'right' by virtue of meeting the Categorical Imperative. It has nothing to do with prognostication. It has to do with the question of whether we would wish that everyone behaved according to the same value proposition. We give to the poor, not because it'll eradicate poverty but because everyone should do so. We tell the truth not because it'll benefit us in the short term but because we want to live in a world where everyone tells the truth. We say "Impeach" not because we think everyone will say "Impeach!" but because we think everyone should say "Impeach!"

The funny thing about acting according to the Categorical Imperative is that it's a model of behavior that persuades others. But it would be consequentialist thinking to expect it.

And make it the issue in 2006.....when we have a criminal in the White House ..... we can't afford a rubberstamp congress.

and odds are he won't be.

they probably won't unless there is so much evidence against them which is what I think will happen. I think we can get them if the Abramoff case gets a lot of other republicans and threatens the party with loss of power and than they can blame the democrats as usual. Can only the House/Senate impeach or if there is proof Bush broke the oath can other authorties get him? :shrug:

Never.

what if rove AND cheney are indicted?
He'll become comletely mad, and sure to be impeached.

OR.. his cabinet will replace him as per section 4 of the the 25th amendment (with Mccain or some such. Lieberman even? naah.)

The options are wwiiiiidee open, people. Who knows how this will play out.

The media has just made me crazy and feeling helpless this week. He acted like a lunatic in that Press Conference, and they said he was strong and fighting. I just get so tired of him getting a free pass...and if one more person compares him to Churchill, I am going to break my television!!!!