"Two words: Dick Cheney."
-- Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), quoted by U.S. News and World Report, explaining why Democrats won't push to impeach President Bush when they take control of Congress next year.
See
Political Wire. I thought touche and chuckled when I read that quote shortly after the election.
Last November, there also was a conference at the National Constitutional Center in Philly, which discussed impeachment. See
Impeachment Now and
Employee Misconduct. Although I truly believe that Bush deserves to be impeached, I have to admit that I have been reluctant to support the movement, because I'm afraid that it would further divide and disrupt the country. The resulting turmoil would be beyond anything that could be accomplished before Bush departs in 2008. I figured, his days are (thankfully) numbered, so why bother? And to do it again so soon after the impeachment of Clinton would devalue the point of impeachment, making it akin to yet another salvo in the arsenal that the political parties use to attack each other.
That is not to say that I don't think that it would be justified. I agree with former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman's position, as described in
Impeachment: The Case in Favor,"that President George W. Bush had committed high crimes and misdemeanors and should be impeached and removed from office. His impeachable offenses include using lies and deceptions to drive the country into war in Iraq, deliberately and repeatedly violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on wiretapping in the United States, and facilitating the mistreatment of US detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the War Crimes Act of 1996."
However, as usual, I also agree with sometimes Daily News op-ed contributor Deborah Leavy, who took the idea a step further, writing:
But then what? Consider the consequences. Vice President Dick Cheney would succeed him. Talk about going from the frying pan into the fire! From the moment Cheney selected himself as vice president, he has been directing Bush's presidency. It was Cheney's idea to expand the powers of the president, and that is what started this whole sorry mess. Cheney, too, violated his oath to uphold the Constitution, so he should probably be impeached as well.
Next in line is the speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. Dennis Hastert? What kind of presidential material is that? Then comes the president pro tem of the Senate . . . .
See
Attytood, quoting Leavy.
Then, while visiting at Kiko's House, I read
Can Cheney Be Agnewed?. Shaun Mullen researched the resignation of Nixon's VP, Spiro Agnew, which departure was precipitated by the specter of a criminal indictment for tax evasion. This led Shaun to ponder:
Lying about sex is an impeachable offense in America, but not being detached from reality. Nevertheless, I want to revisit the idea of giving the vice president -- who really does seem to have gone through the looking glass -- the old heave-ho.
I argued . . . that trying to impeach George Bush would be an enormous distraction and for that reason I’m against doing so. But there is always the specter of the president not being able to serve out his second term, which would put Dick Cheney, one of the most disputatious politicians of any era, in the catbird seat at a time when the U.S. needs to move ahead and not be bogged down in the veep's alternate universe.
See also his earlier post on the issue,
Fuggedabout Bush; Impeach Cheney.
There has been speculation for some time that Cheney may "give up the ghost" (only figuratively, of course) and step down. At the Huffington Post,
Dumping Dick Cheney, Al Eisele posits on this possibility one more time. As the revelations from the Scooter Libby trial have come out, Will Bunch, in
Dick Cheney is in up to his..., recently pondered:
With this news, we would have to speculate that the impeachment of Dick Cheney in the new Democratic House is a very, very real possibility. There are significant pros and cons, politically, but it may prove an effective way to keep the White House in check without tearing the nation apart. Perhaps this explains the Negroponte/Condoleezza Rice manuevers, to clear the decks for a new VP.
And best of all -- if we impeach Cheney, we get rid of the real power behind the throne, as Robert Kuttner noted in this Boston Globe piece,
The Cheney presidency.
(Poster via
Culture Kitchen)
