Road to Impeachment --- Are we there yet?

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.

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.

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

article | posted January 11, 2006 (January 30, 2006 issue)

The Impeachment of George W. Bush

Elizabeth Holtzman

Finally, it has started. People have begun to speak of impeaching President George W. Bush--not in hushed whispers but openly, in newspapers, on the Internet, in ordinary conversations and even in Congress. As a former member of Congress who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon, I believe they are right to do so.

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http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060130/holtzman

July 22, 1973
A Louis Harris poll shows 44 percent of participants agreeing that Nixon should resign if it can be proven he ordered a cover-up, with 70 percent rating his handling of the matter as “only fair or poor.” An even 50 percent believe Dean’s charges against the president but split 38 percent to 37 percent over whom they would believe if Nixon denied those charges.


April 20, 1974
Given what the public knows about Watergate, a Louis Harris poll reveals that 49% believe Nixon should not resign, yet 51% believe he “will be found to have violated the law….” Most believe the president is using executive privilege as an excuse to keep incriminating evidence from Congress.


August 8, 1974
President Nixon announces to the nation in a televised address that he will “resign the Presidency, effective at noon tomorrow.”


August 19, 1974
A Gallup poll shows 56% of those surveyed believe Nixon “should be tried for possible criminal charges arising from Watergate.”


http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/museum/exhibits/watergate_files/content.php?section=3&page=d