Centerfield

Calls for impeachment really won't get us anywhere except deeper into the quagmire of irreconcilable partisanship. You're right, Rich, to point to the "overpoliticization" of "high crimes and misdemeanors". Your "misdemeanor" is my act of brave patriotism and my "crime" is your necessary defense of homeland security in the face of global terrorism. Impeachment, or the threat thereof, only works where there is broad-based bipartisanship, as developed in response to Watergate, not where it is merely a weapon for self-interested partisanship.

I'm not sure that I'm willing to give Bush a mulligan here. I agree with Marc Schneider that Bush deserves credit, not least from liberals, for promoting democracy throughout the world (even if Iraq has been a mess), but a formal investigation into what was known when in terms of Iraqi WMDs. If Bush misled the country, and sent thousands of men and women to their deaths in false pretenses... well, it might not amount to a high crime or misdemeanor, but it should at least be out there for the American people to judge. That being said, I think Bush's opponents, of which I am one, would do well to focus more on the issues (and on alternatives) and less on name-calling and threats of impeachment, both of which ratchet up the partisan rhetoric and entrench both sides behind their respective barricades.

Well, it looks like Furman beat me to it; if Ralph had endorsed Gore in 2000, then there would be no call for impeaching W today. Knowing Ralph, he'd probably be calling for Gore's impeachment on the grounds of broken campaign promises or something like that.

Seriously, there's good evidence that W was planning to invade Iraq long before 9/11. The Downing Street memo, the testimony of various W appointees, etc. But all that is just whistling in the wind because a GOP Congress would never even consider bringing up the I word on W. It's sort of debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It's a waste of time, and it annoys the angels.

Sorry, Brian. I called you Rich, a friend of mine who shares your view...

More silliness from an increasingly silly man. It’s a shame. He wasn’t always a nut. Impeachment is a political process and it won’t happen without a significant change in the make up of congress.

The first poster in this thread is 100% correct. Focus on winning in 2006 and 2008. Whining helps nobody.

I'm willing to bet you won't hear one mention of the "I" word, as Ralph Nader referred to it, in Congress unless the Democrats have a major victory in the midterms. If they don't... any thought of it will go away, if they do...

Well, the GOP did set the bar awfully low with Bill Clinton, didn't they? Having said that, I would still want more of a "smoking gun" before I could 100% support the process, and also only if President Bush showed any sort of remorse or regret. I don't really believed he's learned anything from his actions, unfortunately.

Not sure if he should be impeached, but he should most certainly resign...

There isn't any real evidence that would justify an impeachment. All Ralph has is suspissions and a belief that Bush is crooked. I've noticed this a lot from the far left recently. It's like leftist activists have built their own world full of their own half-truths that they repeat endlessly to each other (and to me when I piss them off). It's odd how so many people on the left criticize the religious right for their so-called blind faith in certain "truths"--but the far left has fallen into its own zealotry, a secular fundamentalism that believes as hard fact that Bush is evil. They pump up all the bad and ignore all the good. Ralph, it seems, has fallen into this. He's always been nutty, but their often was some truth to his words. I'm not sure there is anymore.

I am not a particularly a Bush supporter. I'm just trying to acknowledge that, while I don't think he's done a great job, I also think the left's gone crazy with anger.

I've always thought that the Bush admin was pufffing the evidence because they'd already made the judgement that they had to make an example of Iraq, to use it as the disproportional response that woulkd signal loudly that the post 9/11 foreign policy really was different. If you just SAY the policy will be different, nations will reqds that as you saying what you need to say, and laves the question of an actual policy shift open, pending actual actions.

If that's what they did, I am OK with the judgement on the merits of such actions as being left to history. The threshold on impeachment has to be really high for the President to be able to make difficult decisions. Transparency and honesty, while gnerally admirable, and not always the highest virtue.

Re:Clinton's impeachment, it's not my view that the fault in the GOP lies in setting the bar low. Clinton lied under oath, and that deserves to be acknowledged. What I fault the GOP for is its relentless investigations under the questionable rationale of reviewing Whitewater. I don't think that the fact of finally finding a fire is justification for virtually endless smoke-sniffing.

Ralph's going to have to produce the blue dress before he'll get a serious hearing.

Nader talks just to listen to himself because he is the only one that does. He has no credibility even on the left. The fact is impeachment is a political, not a legal, process. There is no hard and fast definition of high crimes and misdemeanor. After all, at the time the Constitution was enacted, I believe adultury was a felony in at least some states. So, arguably Clinton did commit an impeachable offense (aside from perjury). But the point is, Congress decides what is an impeachable offense and that will obviously depend on the political climate at the time. If enough people thought Bush should be impeached for lying about the war, he would be. But if Nader thinks there is any kind of significant support in this country for impeaching Bush, I'd like to know what he is smoking.

Having said that, I agree with Michael. This stuff should be out in the open. Of course there is no chance of that any more than there was a chance that LBJ was going to open up about Viet Nam. (Yes, I did dare mention Iraq in the same vein as Viet Nam.) In some ways, it would be good to have a parliamentary system like England (even though I have never generally been a big fan of that) where Bush would actually have to answer questions from Congress. Of course, the Republicans would accuse anyone that asked him a tough question of being unpatriotic and undermining our president in a time of war.

It seems to me the question of whether he lied is splitting hairs. Whether Bush KNEW there was WMD in Iraq is impossible to know. But I think it's pretty clear that the Administration ignored evidence or interpretations that called into question their conclusion that Iraq had such weapons.

Well said Brian, it's like everything they said in the case to go to war turned out to be true. What bothers me is that they clearly lowered the standard that President's must meet before engaging the United States Military in a conflict on foreign soil. Nader is an egotistical moron, but his passion on this issue is understandable even if his solution is laughable. I to would feel a helluva lot better about our current situation if someone had the balls to at least admit that things weren't what they originally said. What is to stop them from doing it again in Iran, North Korea, etc.?

The President's constant need to appear that he is riding the bull whiile wooping and waving his cowboy hat in the air is especially annoying since it is the lives of American soldiers that we are talking about. Humility is a good quality, even in our leaders. It shouldn't be treated as a sign of weakness.

Personally I think it's way too soon to discuss IMPEACHMENT.

However, it's pretty clear there's enough evidence for an investigation into whether or not Bush misled the country and the world into war. If it's found that he did..that would constitute high crimes and misdemeanors and would be grounds for impeachment and removal.

I agree with Ralph on this one. Leaving aside folks taking issue with his comments regarding Dems vs. GOP, I think given the gravity of the situation, and what we now know about the lies (you can be a centrist and still know a lie when you see it) and deceit in the buildup to the invasion of Iraq . . . if we are going to have any kind of moral honesty, we have to take the call for impeachment and war crimes seriously. If Cuba did to another country, say Haiti, what we've done in Iraq, we'd probably nuke them.

Carla,

I really am not convinced that lying to the country would constitute a "high crime or misdemeanor" (although as I said, this is primarily a political issue). Assuming that he knew what he said was untrue, it's not perjury since Bush was not under oath. What you are really say is his policy is a failure, so let's get him out. Frankly, if you impeached every president that misled the country, we would be like Italy,having a new government every few months.

I don't think impeachment is the appropriate approach. I believe impeachment should be (as it has been) an extremely rare process used only in extraordinary circumstances. It's a political, not legal,issue--the solution should be political, ie, vote him (or the party since he can't run again) out of office. Let's face it, if the war in Iraq had gone smoothly and our troops were out of there, no one would be even thinking about impeachment. I certainly think there should be congressional hearings (fat chance), but it was pretty clear at the time of the election that there was no WMD in Iraq and that Bush had pretty much misled the country. Yet he won. Certainly that doesn't give him a pass on any kind of behavior, but let's fact it, a majority (albeit narrow) did not find his Bush's statements or the war to be worthy of being tossed from office. Impeaching him at this point would be no less of a coup detat than what liberals called Clinton's impeachment.

Yep. "Couldn't beat, must impeach!"

Sure does sound familiar.

Here's a simple syllogism, with a snarky P.S.:

For an impeachment of Bush to have any chance, Democrats must control both houses of Congress.

Nader has done nothing to help Democrats win control of Congress, in fact, he has campaigned against the last three Democratic presidential candidates, hurting Democratic Congressional candidates down ballot. And he has freely and often criticized many Democratic Congressional incumbents.

Therefore, Nader does not care about impeaching Bush.

Snark part -- All Nader cares about is getting published in the Globe, trying to pretend he is an important part of the national debate, and cashing the Globe's check.

The thing that people seem to keep missing in all of this is: *why* was there a preordained conclusion to attack Iraq? We helped to arm Saddam in the '80s. The left's mantra "we went for the oil" makes no sense ... $300 billion (and counting) so that we could ... um, continue to buy oil on the world market? I don't buy that argument, nor do I buy the explanation that we had to "make an example", nor do I buy the explanation that Bush was trying to finish what his father started.

What is much more likely is that the Pentagon planners saw an opportunity to establish a network of permanent bases (Central Asia, Middle East) along and near major oil supply routes. As post-peak production starts to decline, guaranteed access to oil will become more and more of a national security issue. I'm sure the US government wants us (and the military) to be the last country with the lights on ...

Nader: may he be run over by a Corvair with a driver that is having a heart attack from eating too many transfatty acids.

If it wasn't for him we'd have pretty much finished the job in Afghanistan without being distracted by Iraq.

Probably would have gotten binLaden too.

"What is much more likely is that the Pentagon planners saw an opportunity to establish a network of permanent bases (Central Asia, Middle East) along and near major oil supply routes. As post-peak production starts to decline, guaranteed access to oil will become more and more of a national security issue. I'm sure the US government wants us (and the military) to be the last country with the lights on ..."

We didn't really need to invade Iraq to protect the oil routes. We certainly don't need army troops to guard the supply routes and our carriers can pretty much guard against any kind of conventional threat to the supply routes.

I have never bought the idea that the war was about oil directly, although obviously, the existence of the oil makes the Middle East a strategic area. If it didn't have oil, our attitude toward the ME would be like it is in Africa--who cares? The fact is, if all we wanted was oil, we should have dropped the sanctions and worked with Saddam. Dealing with Saddam would have been a hell of a lot easier than dealing with an unstable government. I suspect the oil companies would have been quite happy to deal with Saddam, as they deal with the Saudis. Even if you think the Iraqi government will be a US puppet, what we have seen is that puppets usually are not as manipulable as you think and they will be accountable to some extent to popular opinion.

I don't think there is any one simple answer as to why the Administration was so set on invading Iraq. Clearly, strategic interests played a role, but I think the left is unwilling to accept the notion that they really want to spread democracy, because if you accept the idea that the war was not just about oil, you have to address the arguments rather than just dismiss them.