Impeach Bush?

[Darth Rotor]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/12/20061212-5.html

PB, what does that reply have to do with my request for something substantial?

I gather that you have nothing of substance to say.

DR

 

[President Bush]

PB, what does that reply have to do with my request for something substantial?

Nothing substantial can be asked until a Senate Committee or special prosecutor/independent counsel does so...




... which has nothing to do with my first post, though I hope Tony Snow is still White House Press Secretary should/when events take us down that road.

 

[joe1347]

I'd like to ask anyone in this thread to spell out, in a suitable format and in language that could be used to argue before the House, the high crimes and misdemeanors, which includes specificity of crimes and misdemeanors, that will fill the charge sheet presented to the House upon which the impeachment proceeding will be founded.

Having preferred charges on persons in the past, I'd like to see if anyone contributing to this discussion can present something coherent enough to follow up on.

Go for it, seriously. I am very interested in what you think is the correct set of charges to prefer.

DR

Ask and you shall receive (more than you asked for).

Bringing Bush to Court
by Elizabeth de la Vega and Tom Engelhardt

De la Vega has drawn up that indictment – a "hypothetical" one, she hastens to add – convened that grand jury, and held seven days of testimony. Yes, it's a grand jury directly out of her fertile brain and the federal agents who testify are fictional, but all the facts are true. She understands the case against the Bush administration down to the last detail; and she's produced, to my mind, the book of the post-election, investigative season: United States v. George W. Bush et al.


http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=10068

Elizabeth de la Vega is a former federal prosecutor with more than 20 years of experience. During her tenure, she was a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and chief of the San Jose Branch of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California

 

[Dr Adequate]

I'd like to ask anyone in this thread to spell out, in a suitable format and in language that could be used to argue before the House, the high crimes and misdemeanors, which includes specificity of crimes and misdemeanors, that will fill the charge sheet presented to the House upon which the impeachment proceeding will be founded.

Being sucked off by a woman not his wife. Oh, wait ... that was the last one.

Er ... OK then ... war crimes. The same war crimes that people were hanged for at Nuremberg.

Oh wait ... there seems to be a law against fellatio but not against conspiracy to start a war. Unless you're German, in which case you can be hanged for it. Damn.

Oh, but wait ... where is the law against blow jobs?

Oh ... there isn't one.

So what I suggest is that Bush should be accused of something he probably hasn't done; then this should be used as a pitiful excuse for a "fishing expedition" to ask him questions which have no relevance to the accusation against him; and finally he should be impeached for perjury the moment he lies about this irrelevant questioning in order to protect his private life from an intrusion you have no right to make on any citizen.

'Cos that upholds the dignity of your great and free republic.

 

[Huntster]

.......I might go for the crony no-bid contracts for Iraq or the drug company pay offs for the medicare drug bill as other reasonable bases for an impeachment trial.....

I'm a Bush fan, and I'd like some full investigations of those situations, too.

Full investigations. As far as defense contracting goes, I do mean FULL.

* Senate and House votes on "no-bids."

* Which corporations "qualify" for such contracts (I already know)

* The legal extent of contracting, especially when it applies to deadly force (I already know)

* Who are on the operating boards of those corporations (I already know)

But in this system, at this time the idea of impeaching Bush looks like a non-starter to me. First, for it to make any sense you'd have to go after Cheney too and that sounds like a real stretch of the constitutional process for impeachment.

Why do you "have to go after Cheney too"?

Just because he was CEO of Halliburton for a short time?

Is your sense of focus so short?

Do you know who else are/were board members/exec officers of such corporations?

Secondly if you did this it would look like such a completely partisan play by the Democrats that I can't imagine the Democrats wanting to touch it with a ten foot pole.

That's because it would be a blatent partisan play, and because if a FULL investigation was conducted, your beloved Dems would be sucking for air along with the hated Dick Cheney.

And you still probably wouldn't get the picture.

But I continue to hear this idea advanced by apparently rational people. Why? Do they really think it is a good idea? Do they just talk about it because it focuses their general discust with Bush? Do they really think there is any chance that it is going to happen?

They're not "rational". They're not even sane.

They're partisan.

 

[The Painter]

There is something I don’t fully understand. Why do so many people call this “Bush’s war”. It seems like a media label. The war resolution was voted on and passed by both houses of Congress. Bush didn’t do this by himself, the whole government did it.

Introduced as H.J.Res. 114, it passed the House on October 10 by a vote of 296-133, and by the Senate on October 11 by a vote of 77-23. It was signed into law by President Bush on October 16, 2002.

If Bush lied, then wouldn’t it follow that 296 congressmen and 77 senators lied? Do we impeach all of them too? Didn’t they act on the same information that Bush acted on?

 

[Lurker]

Why did Bush do it? Did he really believe that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction?

Yes, most nations believed it. Hussein said he had them. How easy it is to just simply re-write history.

Be careful you don't omit important parts of history. There were elements within the CIA that were questioning the claim. There was a weapons inspector on the ground in IRaq that had found no WMDs and had access. The DoE also repudiated some claims by Bush about WMD programs.

No, Bush had the chance to question his own intel but he chose not to. The warning signs of them being wrong were there, Bush and his cohorts just chose to ignore and not investigate more fully.

Lurker

 

[Darth Rotor]

Ask and you shall receive (more than you asked for).

Great link, thank you!

DR

 

[hgc]

There is something I don’t fully understand. Why do so many people call this “Bush’s war”. It seems like a media label. The war resolution was voted on and passed by both houses of Congress. Bush didn’t do this by himself, the whole government did it.

The go/no-go decision was Bush's, was it not? Every single decision about the conduct of the war was Bush's personally or devolved from Bush's authority as head of the executive branch and as commander-in-chief. The executive branch of government did this.

If Bush lied, then wouldn’t it follow that 296 congressmen and 77 senators lied? Do we impeach all of them too? Didn’t they act on the same information that Bush acted on?

No doubt some lied, as they are wont to do. But to say they had access to the same information is disingenuous. They had access to the information that Bush and his intelligence agencies chose to provide them. They didn't vote to declare war; they voted to give Bush to the authority to use his discretion about launching the war. As it turns out, that was a huge mistake, since Bush never had any other intention but to launch the war - no discretion was in play. I know of no process by which members of Congress are impeached. Do you? They may be expelled by the body, which usually occurs if they are convicted of a crime, or they may be recalled by the voters of their district or state, in some cases.

 

[Darth Rotor]

The executive branch of government did this.

With the complicity of Congressional authorization.

As it turns out, that was a huge {Congressional} mistake, since Bush never had any other intention but to launch the war - no discretion was in play.

Dereliction of duty, or politics as usual? I vote the latter, and a "no profiles in courage for you!" for the Congress of 2002.

Consider the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Who were the majority party in House and Senate then? What party was in the White House?

Checks and balances, for some reason, seem to be influenced by partisan politics.

DR

 

[Crossbow]

There is something I don’t fully understand. Why do so many people call this “Bush’s war”. It seems like a media label. The war resolution was voted on and passed by both houses of Congress. Bush didn’t do this by himself, the whole government did it.



If Bush lied, then wouldn’t it follow that 296 congressmen and 77 senators lied? Do we impeach all of them too? Didn’t they act on the same information that Bush acted on?

I seriously doubt that members of Congress could be impeached for supporting the Iraq War resolution.

While it is true that members of the House and Senate had access the same data that Bush had.

However, the people in Congress were

Not allowed to make copies of the data,
Not allowed to make notes of the data,
Not allowed to show the data to their staff, and
Not allowed to discuss the data with anyone.

Bush, on the other hand, had no such restrictions.

It would be very difficult for any one person to fully digest the understand volumes and volumes of data that comprised all of the data the USA had on Iraq given the limitations listed above.

Instead, what was done is that the members of Congress believed Bush when he said that Iraq was a grave and growing threat and that the only way to deal with the threat was through war with Iraq. Therefore, if anyone is to be impeached over the Iraq War, it should be Bush and Cheney.

 

[Ziggurat]

No doubt some lied, as they are wont to do. But to say they had access to the same information is disingenuous. They had access to the information that Bush and his intelligence agencies chose to provide them.

This is correct. But the data which Bush had which was not shown to Congress was, as it turns out, data which pointed even more strongly towards weapons programs and stockpiles than the data which was shared. It was, in short, the worst available data which was not shared.

 

[davefoc]

This is correct. But the data which Bush had which was not shown to Congress was, as it turns out, data which pointed even more strongly towards weapons programs and stockpiles than the data which was shared. It was, in short, the worst available data which was not shared.

I don't know the source of this and I doubt that it is true.

If it were true, it would certainly be a mitigating factor against the charge that Bush intentionally mislead congress about the WMD data.

Personally, I have no doubt that Bush intentionally mislead congress about the WMD evidence. The aluminum tube lie is probably the most straight forward, but the lies were not restricted to this single issue.

One of the things that I noticed during the Nixon watergate hearings is that the impeachment of the president is almost certainly going to be a highly political activity and short of unequivocal, unambiguous evidence the party of the president will ferociously resist the impeachment of their guy. I think your posts here are an indication that this is true.

A more honest defense of Bush in this situation might be something like, yes he lied, but lying is not an impeachable offense when the lie is made as part of a legitimate effort to do what is best for the country. I think part of this defense might include listing the legitimate reasons besides WMD that Bush based his decision to go to war on. Many of these other legitimate justifications have been obscured by Bushco's lies about the WMD.

A problem with this defense might be that it could be argued that lying to congress to initiate a war that might not otherwise have been authorized is an impeachable offense even if the intent of the president was to do what was best. I wonder though, if FDR couldn't have been impeached based on this theory for some of the actions that he took prior to WWII. The difference there, of course, is that most of those actions, with the benefit of hindsight, seem like they were the right thing to do.

 

[Lurker]

Just wanted to add:

1. I am against any impeachment of Bush because I don't think impeachments should be used for such non-serious charges. So the intel was wrong and Bush cherry-picked his data. There was still ample evidence that pointed to Saddam having WMDs or trying to get them.

2. Politically it would kill the Democrats to do this as it would only be perceived as payback. Without some sort of criminal charge, impeachment looks petty IMO.

3. It is only two short years til Bush is gone. I think the country will survive.

Also, I share Ziggurat's consternation of why did Bush give Tenet the Congressional Medal of Honor if the Intel was so flawed? It just defies simple logic.

Lurker

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't know the source of this and I doubt that it is true.

If it were true, it would certainly be a mitigating factor against the charge that Bush intentionally mislead congress about the WMD data.

Well, let's look at the most authoritative source on the topic:
http://www.wmd.gov/report/index.html

It is true that Bush did not share certain "intelligence" with Congress. But what was not shared consists mainly of the Presidential Daily Briefings. Chapter 1 of the Silverman-Robb commission report (available at the above link) notes:
"Our study also revealed deficiencies in particular intelligence products that are used to convey intelligence information to senior policymakers. As noted above, during the course of its investigation the Commission reviewed a number of articles from the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) relating to Iraq’s WMD programs. Not surprisingly, many of the flaws in other intelligence products can also be found in the PDBs. But we found some flaws that were inherent in the format of the PDBs—a series of short “articles” often based on current intelligence reporting that are presented to the President each morning. Their brevity leaves little room for doubts or nuance—and their “headlines” designed to grab the reader’s attention leave no room at all. Also, a daily drumbeat of reports on the same topic gives an impression of confirming evidence, even when the reports all come from the same source."

In other words, had Congress been reading the PDB's, they likely would have gotten an even stronger impression that Saddam had WMD's than they did in fact get.

I want to end with another quote from that chapter:
"These are errors—serious errors. But these errors stem from poor tradecraft and poor management. The Commission found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community’s pre-war assessments of Iraq’s weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments."

 

[The Painter]

However, the people in Congress were

Not allowed to make copies of the data,
Not allowed to make notes of the data,
Not allowed to show the data to their staff, and
Not allowed to discuss the data with anyone.

Bush, on the other hand, had no such restrictions.

None of those things really seem to matter. They should be able to make up their own minds without making copies or showing it to their staff.

 

[President Bush]

I have no doubt that Bush intentionally mislead congress about the WMD evidence.

It's not a lie if you believe it.
- George Costanza

 

[Crossbow]

None of those things really seem to matter. They should be able to make up their own minds without making copies or showing it to their staff.

Well, if that is actually the case, then I sure hope that you get elected to Congress!

Then you may one day have the job of reading through thousands of pages of data and having hundreds of hours of breifings, without any help from anyone to or any record whatsoever of what you have learned to help keep all of these facts straight so that you can make a properly informed decision.

Oh yes, while you are busy doing all of this work, you will still have to do all of your regular Congressional work, help you constituents with their various problems, and keep raising funds for your next election.

Well, good luck with that! All that you will have to do is somehow make every day last 48 hours for a few months (either that or just stop eating, sleeping, and work every second of every regular 24 hour day for a several months), and you just might be able fully complete all of these tasks.

 

[Tricky]

Just wanted to add:

1. I am against any impeachment of Bush because I don't think impeachments should be used for such non-serious charges. So the intel was wrong and Bush cherry-picked his data. There was still ample evidence that pointed to Saddam having WMDs or trying to get them.

2. Politically it would kill the Democrats to do this as it would only be perceived as payback. Without some sort of criminal charge, impeachment looks petty IMO.

3. It is only two short years til Bush is gone. I think the country will survive.

Agreed on all counts, and I might add that it is to the Democrats' advantage to keep Bush in office. He draws all the flies away from them.

 

[davefoc]

In other words, had Congress been reading the PDB's, they likely would have gotten an even stronger impression that Saddam had WMD's than they did in fact get.

This comment is more spin than substantive I think.

Your original claim:

This is correct. But the data which Bush had which was not shown to Congress was, as it turns out, data which pointed even more strongly towards weapons programs and stockpiles than the data which was shared. It was, in short, the worst available data which was not shared.

The claim here is that Bush had data that more strongly pointed to weapons programs and stockpiles that wasn't shown to congress.

Your new claim is that the format of the data presentation to Bush made the case for WMD better than the format of the data that was presented to congress not that there was actually any data that Bush had that congress didn't with regard to the WMD question.

If Bush did have data more compelling than the musings of a wacked out guy living in Germany about Iraqi chemical weapons programs and the largely disbelieved theories about the aluminum tubes why didn't he go with those? My theory is that he didn't because this stuff was the best he had. I think there is a question here as to how much critical thinking Bush actually engaged in and how much he was being manipulated by the Cheney crowd. But it seems really unlikely that Bushco was suppressing the compelling data and instead going with the stuff they did.