Impeach Cheney First
With much buzz being generated about the increasing house co-sponsors of Articles of Impeachment against Bush or the possibility of Rhode Island's Legislature calling on Congress to investigate claims that could warrant Bush's impeachment, I feel I have to remind everyone of something.
Do we want to make Dick Cheney (officially) President of the United States?
Now, I am aware that many of the impeachment proposals include Cheney in them. But we must remain cognizant that there is no "law" so-to-speak on impeachable crimes. Essentially, it is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives will vote on. Congress in its current composition will not impeach Bush. They just won't. Can anyone name a single republican representative who would vote for that? Of course not. But, is it possible to pick up 8 republicans who would vote to impeach Dick Cheney? PROBABLY not, but there is an outside chance. The reasons and potential benefits are as follows:
1) Dick Cheney currently has approval ratings that consistently rank about 10 points lower than Bush. While no republican in a blue/competitive district would contemplate impeaching Bush, a coordinated anti-Cheney campaign could hold their feet to the fire and maybe produce some interesting results- either in impeachment proceedings or the midterm elections.
2) Cheney is currently reeling in the public's consciousness after the events of last week.
3) It is Cheney, not Bush who is principally behind Plamegate. Not to mention just about everything else in many proposed articles of impeachment, including Iraq intelligence doctoring, the secret energy meetings, ect... It seems every time something happens, Bush is out vacationing or taking a bike ride while Cheney is classifying information or exerting executive authority in Washington. Let's be real- Bush hasn't done many (not all) of the things impeachers accuse him of doing- rather he has allowed Cheney to do them.
4) Putting Cheney in the spotlight would undermine Bush's image much more than attacking Bush himself because it would reinforce the perception that Cheney is the one really running the show. Also, it would corrode any efforts at damage control following the Whittington shooting, and allow a real investigation as to if Cheney was drunk when it happened which is very palpable in the media currently. And since only die-hard republicans like Cheney, it would be less likely to offend moderates.
5) It might actually work, and then it would create a hugely divisive fight in the GOP over whom to nominate as his replacement and sew division right at before an open presidential race. It might even create an irreperable cleft between the moderates and right-wingers in the GOP.
6) Whatever Cheney impeachment proceedings could uncover will only make a potential impeachment of Bush that much more credible.
7) It would avoid all of this undermining-the-commander-in-chief-in-a-time-of-war BS.
8) If the heat really gets turned up, he could feign health problems and resign before impeachment is actually voted on.
I'd love to hear y'all's opinions on this.
Do we want to make Dick Cheney (officially) President of the United States?
Now, I am aware that many of the impeachment proposals include Cheney in them. But we must remain cognizant that there is no "law" so-to-speak on impeachable crimes. Essentially, it is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives will vote on. Congress in its current composition will not impeach Bush. They just won't. Can anyone name a single republican representative who would vote for that? Of course not. But, is it possible to pick up 8 republicans who would vote to impeach Dick Cheney? PROBABLY not, but there is an outside chance. The reasons and potential benefits are as follows:
1) Dick Cheney currently has approval ratings that consistently rank about 10 points lower than Bush. While no republican in a blue/competitive district would contemplate impeaching Bush, a coordinated anti-Cheney campaign could hold their feet to the fire and maybe produce some interesting results- either in impeachment proceedings or the midterm elections.
2) Cheney is currently reeling in the public's consciousness after the events of last week.
3) It is Cheney, not Bush who is principally behind Plamegate. Not to mention just about everything else in many proposed articles of impeachment, including Iraq intelligence doctoring, the secret energy meetings, ect... It seems every time something happens, Bush is out vacationing or taking a bike ride while Cheney is classifying information or exerting executive authority in Washington. Let's be real- Bush hasn't done many (not all) of the things impeachers accuse him of doing- rather he has allowed Cheney to do them.
4) Putting Cheney in the spotlight would undermine Bush's image much more than attacking Bush himself because it would reinforce the perception that Cheney is the one really running the show. Also, it would corrode any efforts at damage control following the Whittington shooting, and allow a real investigation as to if Cheney was drunk when it happened which is very palpable in the media currently. And since only die-hard republicans like Cheney, it would be less likely to offend moderates.
5) It might actually work, and then it would create a hugely divisive fight in the GOP over whom to nominate as his replacement and sew division right at before an open presidential race. It might even create an irreperable cleft between the moderates and right-wingers in the GOP.
6) Whatever Cheney impeachment proceedings could uncover will only make a potential impeachment of Bush that much more credible.
7) It would avoid all of this undermining-the-commander-in-chief-in-a-time-of-war BS.
8) If the heat really gets turned up, he could feign health problems and resign before impeachment is actually voted on.
I'd love to hear y'all's opinions on this.
posted by Rich at 10:38 PM
12 Comments:
Do it! Save Darrell Hammond's job as the best Cheney impersonator on TV. =)
a plan so ingeniously devious that only Karl Rove could successfully execute it...
or Rich Boatti.
I think this would be a brilliant tactic on the part of the Dems if they could avoid it seeming like a cheap publicity stunt... which is hard because of the conservative media bias in this country. which is to say: if they try it, they'll look like quixotic fools, if they don't try it they won't look like anything at all. I say: windmills, look out.
haha- awesome. ANyone want to draft the articles of impeachment?
Rich -
the real problem here is that Bush maintains executive authority in nearly all of these situations (L'affair Plame aside). and so we come back to the necessity of a Bush impeachment. Vice-president as an office is full of plausible deniability. his suggestions may architect the nefarious plans of Bush+Co, but it's not his poison pen doing the signing. as far as the Plame affair, he's so far done a good job of staying formally unimplicated... this is a fun though exercise but a difficult case to make while exluding the President.
True- but I didn't say we shouldn't try to impech Bush- I'm just saying we should do Cheney first ebcause that is more likely and will make the Bush impeachment case stronger. And remember, Cheney is exerting executive authority in violation of the constitution- a VP can't legally act as commander-in-cheif, like Cheney did with that Sept 11 shoot-down order.
OR...now, I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out...you guys could convince the majority of the American people to vote for a Democrat in the next election.
lol- well, impeaching Clinton didn't really hurt the Republicans too much, did it?
Brian:
your solution to criminal violations of the US Constitution is... to ignore it and hope it goes away in 2008?
I wouldn't want that if Clinton or Kerry or Gore was in charge, and I certainly don't want that now. Elections do not keep criminals out of office.
No, Dave, I don't think it's OK to just ignore "criminal violations of the US Constitution". It's just that...wait for it...I don't think the President committed "criminal violations of the US Constitution".
You dig?
Testy, testy!
Question for Brian: if a jury and a court found that Dick Cheney violated the law by conspiring in or authorizing the Valerie Plame leak to extract revenge on administration critic Joe Wilson, would you then believe that Mr. Cheney committed "criminal violations of the US Constitution?"
Uh...maybe, although I must say, to my mind the Plame thing is the very definition of a tempest in a teapot. And of course, I'll point out that I'd like to see Cheney impeached if he was convicted of eating babies, too. That doesn't mean that he actually eats babies, does it?
I dunno- I think outing a CIA agent is tantamount to treason. Especially if it's done for political reasons. And I think there's a higher likelyhood of that being the case than Dick Cheney eating babies... actually, on second thought, this IS Cheney we're talking about...
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