Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?

Great results, thanks for voting.

Here's something interesting...

What Did They Say When Clinton Was Being Impeached?

Tom Delay (R-TX):
"This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man is above the law. Now, the other road is the path of least resistance. This is where we start making exceptions to our laws based on poll numbers and spin control. This is when we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us, when we ignore the facts in order to cover up the truth.

No man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That’s the principle that we all hold very dear in this country."


Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.):
"I suggest impeachment is like beauty: apparently in the eye of the beholder. But I hold a different view. And it's not a vengeful one, it's not vindictive, and it's not craven. It's just a concern for the Constitution and a high respect for the rule of law. ... as a lawyer and a legislator for most of my very long life, I have a particular reverence for our legal system. It protects the innocent, it punishes the guilty, it defends the powerless, it guards freedom, it summons the noblest instincts of the human spirit.

The rule of law protects you and it protects me from the midnight fire on our roof or the 3 a.m. knock on our door."


James Sensenbrenner: (R-WI):
"What is on trial here is the truth and the rule of law. Our failure to bring President Clinton to account for his lying under oath and preventing the courts from administering equal justice under law, will cause a cancer to be present in our society for generations. I want those parents who ask me the questions, to be able to tell their children that even if you are president of the United States, if you lie when sworn "to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," you will face the consequences of that action, even when you don't accept the responsibility for them."


Chuck Hagel (R-NB):
"There can be no shading of right and wrong. The complicated currents that have coursed through this impeachment process are many. But after stripping away the underbrush of legal technicalities and nuance, I find that the President abused his sacred power by lying and obstructing justice. How can parents instill values and morality in their children? How can educators teach our children? How can the rule of law for every American be applied equally if we have two standards of justice in America--one for the powerful and the other for the rest of us?"


Bill Frist (R-TN):
"I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the President. He is not above the law. If an ordinary citizen committed these crimes, he would go to jail."


Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas):
"When someone is elected president, they receive the greatest gift possible from the American people, their trust. To violate that trust is to raise questions about fitness for office. My constituents often remind me that if anyone else in a position of authority -- for example, a business executive, a military officer of a professional educator -- had acted as the evidence indicates the president did, their career would be over. The rules under which President Nixon would have been tried for impeachment had he not resigned contain this statement: "The office of the president is such that it calls for a higher level of conduct than the average citizen in the United States."

By The Bulldog Manifesto

f4f, Nothing like a little hypocrisy by the right; but what else can we expect from a bunch of unethical crooks (too many repubs to list) that takes money for votes?

If you want a list of all the Repubs that are crooks go to

http://forums.therandirhodesshow.com/index.php?showtopic=70194

f4f, With Abramoff and DeLay listed in most of them, I wonder what's taking so long to prosecute these crooks?

Time to impeach a President

f4f, From the same article that I think needs to be shown and read.

Richard Nixon resigned from office after the joint Congressional committee investigating Watergate voted to recommend impeachment and avoided, in all likelihood, becoming the first President to be both impeached and convicted. Resignation was a rare, honorable moment in Nixon's tattered political career.

But we cannot expect such honor from George W. Bush. Honor is not part of his modus operandi, as absent as honesty in a career marked by lies, corruption and abuse of the public trust.

Bush's arrogance by continuing his illegal spying on Americans by the federal government is just his latest high crime against the Constitution, a document which he blithely dismisses as "just a goddamned piece of paper."

At the very least, Bush is a reckless, irresponsible leader, one who led this nation to invade another country in a war based on fabricated reasons, a man who has sent more than 2,000 Americans and countless Iraqi civilians to their deaths while hiding behind a rationale based on a lie.

At worst, he is a war criminal, a power-crazed despot who could go down in history as a mass murderer. History will determine the final legacy of George W. Bush and I doubt seriously that history will be kind to a political figure of his ilk.

So intercepting a phone call from OBL to somebody in the U.S. is an abuse of power. You guys would be funny if you weren't so pathetic. And paranoid I would add. Getting your bags searched at the airport every time you take a flight strikes me as much more intrusive. So go ahead and impeach Bush, I dare you to try it. Based on what, hatred for Bush? I would suggest you need something more than spying on potential terrorist communications.

okie, Get with the program; the president is allowed wiretaps on American citizens with court approval. Is that so difficult to understand?
Since you don't seem to understand what the Consitution is all about or the checks and balances of power, it'd be wise for you to go back to school.

It has nothing to do with hatred for Bush; it's about protecting our Constitutional rights as American citizens. It doesn't matter if it's Bush or any other president; they must also follow the laws of this country. Simple enough?

Except for 2 things Okie. 1. OBL wasn't a party in the phone calls. 2. The phone calls were not TO the US but from it.(And some were completely within the US.)
The only one pathetic seems to be you okie in building a straw man.

Having the call from the U.S. does not bother me, either way. I would also remind you that the constitutionality of it has not been determined. Both your side and mine feel differently. Also, common sense tells me that interceptions of countless communications in this high tech world will from time to time intercept calls that may be marginally within the bounds or slightly beyond the bounds of the built in criteria built into the program. Let me assure you that Bush is not unilaterally set about to spy on Americans just for the pure enjoyment of it or whatever some whackos may imagine. The threat is real and the threats are multiple. You simply have to face reality here. There are bad people in the world, fact, whether you want to believe it or not.

Let me remind you that during the Clinton Administration, Aldrich Ames house was searched without a warrant. The press did not mention it, nobody cared, liberals did not care, and I didn't care. The man was guilty as sin and that was the way it was done to catch him.

http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200512200946.asp

This is nothing new here. FDR rounded up hundreds of thousands, well at least tens of thousands for no reason and placed them in camps. Good grief, let us keep things in proper perspective here. In cases of national security of this day and age, the president has said he has the power under the Constitution to do it. I believe him. I believe the Constitution says he does. He is not abusing the power. The program is reasonable and proper at the present time. It could be abused if it got out of hand, and perhaps allowances or clarifications need to be enacted into the law to make you guys feel better. Democrats will whine and moan and threaten and waste everybody's time for the next I don't know how long, meanwhile the truly important things go unnoticed. Personally, I am resting a little easier knowing somebody, including Bush, is at least trying to do their job in protecting our national security.

okie, You are confusing physical warrants with wiretaps.

Just because it doesn't bother you for this president to break the law does not become acceptable by other citizens of this country. Your "approval" has nothing to do with Constitutional law.

Searching my house without a warrant is alot more intrusive than searching my overseas communication for key words or whatever they do. At least that seems logical to me.

A warrant or court approval is required in both instances.

I just pointed out the lack of warrant in the Ames case. We should have impeached Clinton for that then?

You see, just because the government suspects somebody to have bombs in any house, the law requires the law enforcement agency to get a warrant. The police just can't break into every house to look for bombs just because they suspect bombs in the area.

McGentric:

How do you like the conservative Barron's Weekly editorial saying that inpeachment may be appropriate??????

From barrons.com

[...] Surely the "strict constructionists" on the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary eventually will point out what a stretch this is. The most important presidential responsibility under Article II is that he must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." That includes following the requirements of laws that limit executive power. There's not much fidelity in an executive who debates and lobbies Congress to shape a law to his liking and then goes beyond its writ.

Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

It is important to be clear that an impeachment case, if it comes to that, would not be about wiretapping, or about a possible Constitutional right not to be wiretapped. It would be about the power of Congress to set wiretapping rules by law, and it is about the obligation of the president to follow the rules in the Acts that he and his predecessors signed into law. ...

Bush is simply trying to catch terrorists. No abuse of power here. Contrary to what you are arguing, many, including those in the Justice Dept. think it is within the Constitutional power of the administration to intercept terrorist related communications without a court order. It will be tested and debated. You don't agree. I agree with them. Using the program to target people other than terrorist linked figures, no I would not agree, but I don't think thats the case. Incidental interception of innocent people is probably inevitable, but is not the intent in any way shape or form.

As far as abuse of power, Clinton using the IRS to intimidate people with selective audits requested by the administration was a serious abuse of power. Sorry to bring up Clinton, but I am only telling you what I think is an example of a serious abuse of power. The intent there was plainly malicious and wrongful use of power. Impeachment for that alone would have been appropriate.

Quote, "... Constitutional power of the administration to intercept terrorist related communications without a court order."

Once again, we're not talking about "terrorist related communications." We ARE talking about unauthorized wiretaps on American citizens.

Some people must have sawdust in their brains. No matter how many times it's repeated, they keep coming back with the same argument about "terrorist related communications."

Talk about sawdust, you are the one that fails to get it. The wiretaps were authorized by the president, who has lots of authority vested by the Constitution to do such things, according to the legal opinion of many people, including legal scholars, just not the ones you choose to side with due to your bias against Bush. As I've said, people like yourself disagree. Go ahead and disagree. Others agree. Both sides have their legal reasons. It will probably be further tested in the courts. So to get something straight here, the wiretaps were authorized. Not by some obscure judge somewhere, but by the president, thats who authorized them, and the Constitution gives him lots of power in cases of foreign threats to take action.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0512210142dec21,1,2062394.story?coll=chi-techtopheds-hed

It is being done to protect you and me both. Do you get that? We're talking about the potential of suit case sized nuclear devices. Do you get it? Put this into historical perspective. Your assertion that this is illegal is in no way established as a fact in reality. Only in your mind. I would advise some backing away from your hatred of Bush and take a deep breath.