Favorable numbers for Impeachment

okie wrote:

First of all, impeachment of Bush is only a pipe dream.

Secondly, impeach him for what? Policy decisions? That would be quite a first, but admittedly the Democrats do not reside in reality.

Wouldn't be a first at all. Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing some cabinet members without consulting Congress first. The way the rules are written, a hostile Congress -- in theory, at least -- could impeach a sitting president for having been caught picking his nose in public.

You're the one who needs a dose of 'reality,' bub.

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Setanta wrote:

Also, please note that the American Research Group poll on Cheney has a sampling bias--it shows 38% of respondents self-identifying as Democrats, 33% as independent, and only 29% self-identifying as Republicans.

Cyclo is right, there is no striking sampling bias, the proportions between Dems and Reps here reflects the current levels of partisan self-identification fairly well.

For example, the 2006 Harris Poll measuring self-identification found 36% Democrats and 27% Republicans. A June 2007 Rasmussen poll found 36% Democrats and 31% Republicans. And a Pew survey in March found 33% Democrats and 25% Republicans - or 50% and 35% respectively when including those who said they were "leaning" either way.

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You've got sample differences of 9%, 5% and 8% respectively. That just points to how unreliable the results of polls are. You may say what you wish about whether or not there is a sampling bias, polls are (or should be) notoriously unreliable at accurately gauging public opinion. If we were to go by the most recent poll of party affiliations which you have quoted, then there is a sampling bias, since that was a difference of 5%, and the difference in the American Research Group poll was 9%.

However you want to cut it, though, Cyclo's claim to the effect that more than double the amount of Americans favor the impeachment of Cheney as ever favored the impeachment of Clinton was not supported by the polls he linked. Furthermore, the data he has linked does not realistically support a claim that the time is ripe to initiate impeachment proceedings against either the Shrub or Uncle Dick.

On the subject of polls in general, i would simply observe that statistics are the leading cause of cancer.

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By the way, i did not allege that there were a "striking" sampling bias--that's your strawman. If there were any sampling bias at all, whether or not one were justified in describing it as "striking," my point would be made.

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Mind you, I don't think impeachment would be politically sensible. The more impeachment proceedings proceeded against Clinton, the more impopular the Republicans became. And not just because it all started with a mere blow job.

Even should people respond to a pollster now that they'd approve of impeachment, you can be pretty sure that a backlash would follow very soon once they'd see just what would all be involved.

For many months, all you'd hear about from DC would be investigations, examinations and accusations, which would pit Congress and President against each other with each going over and back over all the decisions and machinations of the past few years. It would get very tired very quickly.

People's capacity for outrage is (or has become), for better or for worse, limited; and after ever briefer flare-ups over this or that revelation, the clamour would soon be for those "Washington politicians" to just "get on with things already" and start "getting things done".

Hell, the vox populi is now already impatient with the new Congress for not having stopped the war, improved the economy and, I dunno, bring more sunshine already - never mind that the power of Congress to push anything through if the President wont cooperate is extremely limited.

I think that Americans, perhaps even more so than folks here, in general have limited patience for reflecting and going over things that already happened, and always just want you to focus on acting, doing something, right now, push forward, talk about the future, etc etc.

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However you want to cut it, though, Cyclo's claim to the effect that more than double the amount of Americans favor the impeachment of Cheney as ever favored the impeachment of Clinton was not supported by the polls he linked. Furthermore, the data he has linked does not realistically support a claim that the time is ripe to initiate impeachment proceedings against either the Shrub or Uncle Dick.

I agree with the first sentence, as I've already pointed out through my 'fair enough' comment. I disagree with the second one, as it is mostly your opinion, and naturally I hold a different opinion.

The impeachment process is just that, a process. It takes investigation, then discussions and further investigation, then the impeachment in the House, then hopefully conviction in the Senate. Polling for Nixon's impeachment wasn't as high at the beginning of the process as it was at the end, for sure.

It's like my mother always says about children - 'you'll never have enough money or time to have kids, ever. You just have to go ahead and do it sooner or later.' There never will be high enough numbers initially to support Impeachment hearings for some. The hearings themselves, and whether they are successful in convincing Americans that Bush and Cheney should be outed, should not be seen as the endgame but as the middle game.

Cycloptichorn

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nimh wrote:

Mind you, I don't think impeachment would be politically sensible. The more impeachment proceedings proceeded against Clinton, the more impopular the Republicans became. And not just because it all started with a mere blow job.

Even should people respond to a pollster now that they'd approve of impeachment, you can be pretty sure that a backlash would follow very soon once they'd see just what would all be involved.

For many months, all you'd hear about from DC would be investigations, examinations and accusations, which would pit Congress and President against each other with each going over and back over all the decisions and machinations of the past few years. It would get very tired very quickly.

People's capacity for outrage is (or has become), for better or for worse, limited; and after ever briefer flare-ups over this or that revelation, the clamour would soon be for those "Washington politicians" to just "get on with things already" and start "getting things done".

Hell, the vox populi is now already impatient with the new Congress for not having stopped the war, improved the economy and, I dunno, bring more sunshine already - never mind that the power of Congress to push anything through if the President wont cooperate is extremely limited.

I think that Americans, perhaps even more so than folks here, in general have limited patience for reflecting and going over things that already happened, and always just want you to focus on acting, doing something, right now, push forward, talk about the future, etc etc.

the situation you posit is substantially different then the one we currently face.

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The more impeachment proceedings proceeded against Clinton, the more impopular the Republicans became. And not just because it all started with a mere blow job.

Maybe this is because, I don't know, Clinton was in large part popular, the impeachment hearings were unpopular (they never polled as high as current questions of impeachment) and the country was in peacetime with a booming economy?

Things are different today. Bush and his crew are intensely unpopular. There is the Iraq issue which he seems to be completely out in left field over. There's the economy which is flat for most with the housing market going down. There is outrageous law-breaking on the part of the admin. in several different areas.

I think there's every evidence that, at least amongst Dems and independents, the Dems popularity would go up if they were to initiate impeachment hearings. It could be framed from a populist angle which would be very easy to understand.

As I said earlier, the deciding factor will in large part be the media. If the media get on board with impeachment, it will happen. If they don't, it won't. People underestimate their power to both create and perpetuate memes.

Cycloptichorn

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Setanta wrote:

You've got sample differences of 9%, 5% and 8% respectively. That just points to how unreliable the results of polls are.

Huh? Those differences are even all well within the margin of error, so how does that "point to" anything?

No poll claims that it has the result precise to the individual percentage; they tell you that each of the (candidate's, party's, etc) numbers is submissive [<not the right word] to the margin of error, and that even then the results are reliable just 95% or 90% (etc) of the time.

Ive never quite gotten the bipolar response to opinion polls... Either people take each individual number for gospel truth and gloat because their candidate is shown 1% or 2% up over the other, or, if things turn out to be nothing quite that exact, bounce to the other extreme and say that polls are just good for nothing.

Whereas they're pretty good in doing what they only ever claim to do: pointing out general trends and getting reliable numbers within the range of error margins and the potential for outliers.

If you dont expect more of them than is realistic; focus on the average or trend across several different polls or pollsters, keep in mind that they have margins of error, house effects, and the occasional outlier, and cant predict future developments, they're pretty useful - they're still the best way we have available to gauge collective/public opinion, which is why both politicians and businesses make such use of them.

Setanta wrote:

You may say what you wish about whether or not there is a sampling bias, polls are (or should be) notoriously unreliable at accurately gauging public opinion.

Well, thats your opinion.. though I dont know what it is based on exactly.

I disagree, obviously. Take, for example, the opinion polls for the 2004 Presidential elections. The average of all the last polls out, in the very last days before the election, had Bush winning with 48,7%, Kerry trailing with 47,9%, and Nader at 0,9%. Not bad, compared to the actual result.

Setanta wrote:

However you want to cut it, though, Cyclo's claim to the effect that more than double the amount of Americans favor the impeachment of Cheney as ever favored the impeachment of Clinton was not supported by the polls he linked.

True. But the general point he was making - that there was significant public support for impeachment, a greater support than you'd think or pundits make out, with even an actual majority sympathetic to an impeachment of Cheney - is well taken even if the "double than" specification was incorrect.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

I think there's every evidence that, at least amongst Dems and independents, the Dems popularity would go up if they were to initiate impeachment hearings.

What evidence is that, exactly?

Support for the Republicans went down in the course of the impeachment procedures against Clinton. Sure, impeachment was less popular to start with - but there was no sign that once it started going with all the publicity it brought out about Bill;'s foibles, it would at least become more popular.

So would it now really be different? Bush and Cheney are very impopular, yes, that we have the evidence for. But is there any evidence that the voters would be enthused about the new Democratic Congress spending its time on examinations and investigations? Rather than on, say, drafting new policies?

(Yes, of course you can do both; but media and public attention would be largely sucked into the drama of impeachment, so visibility of impeachment procedures would go at the cost of the impression that the Dems were doing little else.)

You already now have pretty dismal approval ratings for Congress. The Dems in Congress are appreciated significantly better than the Reps, but ratings for both are very low. Congress is now almost down to the numbers it was at before the Dems took over. That should be a clear warning sign. And at least in my impression, the grumbling is all about a "do-nothing" Congress that's stuck in Beltway contestations instead of "getting things done" that immediately benefit "everyday people".

Raising the minimum wage, that would have been a sure vote-getter, but it was stuck invisibly in the sidelines of an Iraq bill that proved anything but popular. Otherwise, there hasnt really been all that much going through that people will immediately feel in their day to day life.

Of course I know, and you know, that the Dems cant, say, stop the war - not with the bare majority they have in the Senate and a Republican President. Their hands are largely tied, for now. But reasonable or not, if anything impatience seems to already be about the Dem Congress not getting enough done.

I'd bet my bottom dollar that, in such circumstances, then focusing on a big inter-party brawl over misdeeds from the past will prove really impopular.

Thats just my hunch, of course. You say that "there's every evidence" that the opposite is true - like what?

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nimh wrote:

Huh? Those differences are even all well within the margin of error, so how does that "point to" anything?

With sampling errors of three to five percentage points, those differences could vary widely, or not vary at all. In fact, the last poll conducted among those which you cited and linked, in June, could have been completely meaningless based on the margin of error. Which is why i say it points to the unreliability of polls. If the possible sampling error is factored in, either your point or mine could be supported (the 5% difference in "self-identification" of partisan affiliation could in fact be a lot wider, making your point, or it could vanish altogether, making my point). All of which shows how unreliable such polls can be. It is useful to keep in mind, as well, that polls rarely ask people exactly the same questions, from one poll to another, or from one sample to another over time.

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No poll claims that it has the result precise to the individual percentage; they tell you that each of the (candidate's, party's, etc) numbers is submissive [<not the right word] to the margin of error, and that even then the results are reliable just 95% or 90% (etc) of the time.

Which is a fancy statistical way of admitting that the methodology is sufficiently imprecise for the margin of error to be meaningless.

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Ive never quite gotten the bipolar response to opinion polls... Either people take each individual number for gospel truth and gloat because their candidate is shown 1% or 2% up over the other, or, if things turn out to be nothing quite that exact, bounce to the other extreme and say that polls are just good for nothing.

That would not be me, however, among those "people" to whom you refer. I have consistently been skeptical of poll results, and have said as much in threads by people from either side of the partisan divide. Most recently i took on the poll results which Zippo referred to when he alleged that the Shrub had lower approval ratings than Nixon. He compared the Shrub's approval rating on the handling of the war to Nixon's overall approval rating in the early summer of 1974, just before he resigned. I pointed that out, and he got predictably huffy with me about it. A comparison of the overall approval ratings of the Shrub and Nixon actually showed the Shrub slightly ahead of Tricky Dick, and i cited and linked the relevant polls.

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Whereas they're pretty good in doing what they only ever claim to do: pointing out general trends and getting reliable numbers within the range of error margins and the potential for outliers.

It is precisely because they are indicative of general trends rather than being able to infallibly pinpoint public opinion that i objected to Cyclo's claim about the relative poll results with regard to Cheney and Clinton. Quite apart from his linked sources not supporting his claim, taking into consideration the margins of error, and that fact that it were possible that the error made Clinton look more popular than he was and Cheney less popular than he is, it were entirely possible that in the poll which found a 45% approval for Clinton's impeachment, and this which finds a 54% approval for Cheney's impeachment could actually be as little as 3 percentage points apart, or even less, depending upon the size of the samples. Therefore, i consider it a suspect basis upon which to make allegations about the popularity of an "impeach Cheney" movement.

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If you dont expect more of them than is realistic; focus on the average or trend across several different polls or pollsters, keep in mind that they have margins of error, house effects, and the occasional outlier, and cant predict future developments, they're pretty useful - they're still the best way we have available to gauge collective/public opinion, which is why both politicians and businesses make such use of them.

They don't use them to the extent that polling organization would like the public to think. When either commercial operations or politicians want to make crucial decisions about their respective advertising campaigns, they don't rely on a survey by telephone with a handful of questions, the biases of which could skew the results--they use focus groups which spend hours refining just how people see the product (and with politicians the product is the man or woman herself) in order to fine-tune their marketing strategies. And, they continually go back to the focus groups to eliminate errors and mistaken impressions. Polls are most useful to news media who want to find a hook to hang a story on.

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Well, thats your opinion.. though I dont know what it is based on exactly.

I disagree, obviously. Take, for example, the opinion polls for the 2004 Presidential elections. The average of all the last polls out, in the very last days before the election, had Bush winning with 48,7%, Kerry trailing with 47,9%, and Nader at 0,9%. Not bad, compared to the actual result.

Compare those results to the same types of polls conducted many months before an election. In the last days before an election, a large proportion of the voters will have made their minds up--even if all potential voters have not done so, far more will have made up their minds than would have been the case during the primary season. Look at the "impeach Clinton" numbers in the poll summary which Cyclo linked. They fluctuate between about 25% and 38%, until it reached the point that the House was actually considering the indictment, the impeachment. At that point, approval of the process shot up. It might, of course, have plummeted, too--but the point is that people in the days just before an election are more likely to have made up their minds, and similarly, people who know the Judiciary Committee is writing a bill of impeachment will also be moved to make up their minds. Right now, the Cheney data is unlikely to be as conclusive as it would be if the Judiciary Committee actually began to write a bill of impeachment.

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True. But the general point he was making - that there was significant public support for impeachment, a greater support than you'd think or pundits make out, with even an actual majority sympathetic to an impeachment of Cheney - is well taken even if the "double than" specification was incorrect.

Of course, you don't know what i'd think of the matter, because you can't read my mind, and i've not stated my opinion on the matter. My remarks were only concerned with the issue of the comparison of support for the impeachment of Cheney and the support for the impeachment of Clinton. What the "pundits" think on this, or any other issue, is a matter of indifference to me.

I don't consider comparisons in such complex matters to be valid. Nixon was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and despite having high poll ratings in January, 1974, because the public were convinced that he was getting us out of Vietnam, the relentless work of the Senate Watergate Committee torpedoed his political career in the course of the later winter and spring of that year. By contrast, the Shrub's low approval ratings depend on dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war, and it is by no means certain that a significant number of the electorate consider him corrupt and criminal. So i don't put much credence in comparisons of Nixon and the Shrub, or Cheney for that matter. Similarly, the situation which Clinton faced in 1998 and the one which the Shrub and Cheney face today are sufficiently dissimilar that i don't consider comparisons in those two cases to be valid either. Even the impeachment of Andrew Johnson doesn't compare realistically with this situation, as a Republican controlled Congress was out to get him, and specifically passed the Tenure of Office Act to prohibit him from firing Stanton, which was the action he took which precipitated the bill of impeachment against him.

The situation as it now stands is very much like that which Nixon faced before the Watergate committee sat--no evidence against the Shrub or Cheney for any form of malfeasance, just a general suspicion. It would require pretty solid evidence that one or both knowingly and willfully lied about the justifications for this war, or that one or both knowingly and willingly conspired to "out" Miss Plame in order to punish Mr. Wilson, to establish a realistic basis for an impeachment. As it stands right now, there is no historical precedent solid enough to justify a prediction about whether either Uncle Dick or the Shrub will be impeached.

As i remarked to Cyclo, we all have to wait to see how this falls out--i think any predictions about impeachment are premature, and i don't see the poll data Cyclo provided as being good evidence to make the case he would so dearly like to make.

This is definitely not a case of me complaining about polls who don't say what i would like to hear, and praising polls which do. I could think of nothing i would like better than to see Uncle Dick go the same way as Spiro Agnew--i just don't see any convincing evidence that it is likely based on the poll data to which Cyclo referred.

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But is there any evidence that the voters would be enthused about the new Democratic Congress spending its time on examinations and investigations? Rather than on, say, drafting new policies?

Well, the Dems have zero ability to actually pass anything at all. What policies are they going to draft? What bills are they going to pass, that Bush won't just veto?

I think that the numbers - amongst Dems and Independents - for Congressional approval are so low primarily due to two factors:

1, they haven't been effective in stopping the war, and

2, they haven't started impeachment hearings.

For Democrats, nationally, there literally are no other major issues that anyone expects them to be able to solve. There's little stuff, like lobbyist reform or the minimum wage; great. But the big guns are Iraq and Bush, and without movement on those you don't see approval from the left or center.

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Their hands are largely tied, for now. But reasonable or not, if anything impatience seems to already be about the Dem Congress not getting enough done.

Yeah, but not getting enough done on which issues? I don't think there's a lot of dissatisfaction amongst Dem constituents with the job they've been doing, with the exception of the two mentioned above. And there's a recognition that the Republicans are going to do everything they possibly can to obstruct each and every bill which comes up. The Reps. in the house have used procedural gimmicks to delay every bill that has come forward. Each and every one, to a far greater extent then the Dems did over the last several years.

I think that you are seriously underestimating just how unpopluar Bush is. I frankly think that the impeachment numbers cited are the highest 'pre-beginning of impeachment hearings' numbers on that topic that we've ever had historically. But somehow, that doesn't translate to what people want to see happen?

If we saw numbers lke this supporting any other issue, we would say 'yes, close majorities of the public want to see XX happen, so there may be some utility in making XX happen for the Dems.' But not this issue?

Bull. I guarantee that the Dem base (30-35%) of the country will react positively to this and at least half of independents will. The Dem candidates will love it, as it forces the Rep. candidates to either defend and ally themselves with bush, or repudiate him and add fuel to the fire.

Protestations that impeachment hearings will hurt the Dem party are based, I believe, in too much of a belief that the ideological and self-selecting party identification of the country is where it was in 1998 - it simply isn't. Impeachment would be a downright popular move for a significant portion of the country.

And if the media gets their hands in it - the way they did with Clinton? Expect another 10-15% of support to materialize overnight.

Cycloptichorn

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The situation as it now stands is very much like that which Nixon faced before the Watergate committee sat--no evidence against the Shrub or Cheney for any form of malfeasance, just a general suspicion. It would require pretty solid evidence that one or both knowingly and willfully lied about the justifications for this war, or that one or both knowingly and willingly conspired to "out" Miss Plame in order to punish Mr. Wilson, to establish a realistic basis for an impeachment. As it stands right now, there is no historical precedent solid enough to justify a prediction about whether either Uncle Dick or the Shrub will be impeached.

Those are good points, Set, though I think two events may help this:

1, the WH is refusing to comply with subpoenas on several different issues. Regardless of the constitutional arguments which say that they might have some reason to do so, the clear implication to the casual viewer is that they have something to hide. The Dems have the opportunity to use this to link scandals, such as abramoff and cunningham, the NSA FISA law-breaking (this is actually a huge one) and the politicization of the DoJ, with the casual disregard for the law displayed by Cheney and Bush. The pardoning of Libby really cements this home, as it is indefensible and can be circled back to. The 'admin as lawbreakers' meme will skyrocket in the upcoming months.

2, if Sep. comes around and the Iraq war isn't any better - which it ain't going to be - then Bush will either have to retreat or face repudiation from scared members of his own party. His actions at this point will largely determine whether or not he survives as a president.

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I don't know for sure if all of this will come to pass. I hope that it will. But if you asked me to create a situation in my mind that was ripe for impeachment? I'd have a difficult time coming up with a better one then this.

Cycloptichorn

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I don't know if you recall it, but Nixon's taping system in the WH had some pretty damning evidence against him, despite 18 minutes of missing recordings. The 18 minutes covered crucial conversations between Nixon and Haldeman. They went so far as to set up cameras to show how Rose Mary Wood (poor Miss Wood) might have accidently erased the dictabelt tapes while sitting facing her typewriter and reaching for the telephone. When it came to low comedy, you couldn't do better than the Nixon WH.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/76/Rosemary_woods.jpg

"Re-enactment" of how Miss Wood might have accidentally erased the most crucial 18 minutes of WH recordings.

All the bullshit, even when combined with the "Saturday Night Massacre" were not sufficient to get a bill of impeachment against Nixon, and there were so many smoking guns scattered over the WH grounds it's a wonder there wasn't a brush fire. Uncle Dick is pretty slick--he and his fair haired boy are not even close to being in as much sh*t as Nixon was in 1974.

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Setanta wrote:

I don't know if you recall it, but Nixon's taping system in the WH had some pretty damning evidence against him, despite 18 minutes of missing recordings. The 18 minutes covered crucial conversations between Nixon and Haldeman. They went so far as to set up cameras to show how Rose Mary Wood (poor Miss Wood) might have accidently erased the dictabelt tapes while sitting facing her typewriter and reaching for the telephone. When it came to low comedy, you couldn't do better than the Nixon WH.

"Re-enactment" of how Miss Wood might have accidentally erased the most crucial 18 minutes of WH recordings.

All the bullshit, even when combined with the "Saturday Night Massacre" were not sufficient to get a bill of impeachment against Nixon, and there were so many smoking guns scattered over the WH grounds it's a wonder there wasn't a brush fire. Uncle Dick is pretty slick--he and his fair haired boy are not even close to being in as much sh*t as Nixon was in 1974.

I can't find any factual fault with what you've written here. But my gut still tells me: impressions matter as much as facts when it comes to politics.

As I quoted someone a few pages ago... despite warnings that it will reflect badly upon Dems if they go after impeachment, I firmly believe the opposite is true. Even if they don't secure it, the proceess it self stands to gain them a lot politically.

We'll see how it shakes out - but I expect that things are going to get a lot worse for Bushco. before they get better.

Cycloptichorn

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By the way, Cyclo, i don't know how much you know of the detail of the Watergate brouhaha, so don't take it amiss if i rehearse it on the assumption that you, or someone else here might not know.

Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor, had asked for the White House tapes when the investigation revealed that Nixon had been recording oval office meetings since 1971. Nixon danced around with allegations of "executive privilege" until Cox, in frustration, simply subpoenaed them. So, in October, 1973, Nixon told Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. (John Mitchell was the first major casualty of the whole affair, and his successor, Richard Kleindienst, had to resign after John Dean was fired, and Haldeman and Erlichman resigned.) Richardson had been appointed precisely because he was seen as a man of principle. So when Nixon told Richardson to fire Cox, Richardson resigned. So Nixon told the Assistant AG to fire Cox, and he resigned (sorry, i don't recall his name). He resigned, and it finally fell to the Solicitor General to fire Cox, being the highest ranking Justice Department official still on the books. This was known as the Saturday Night Massacre because Cox, Richardson and Richardson's deputy all left on that one Saturday evening.

In the end, Nixon was forced to cave in on the WH tapes, after Leon Jaworski was appointed to replace Cox, and he turned right around and issued a subpoena for the tapes. That was when they came up with the Rose Mary Wood story to explain why they couldn't provide the crucial 18 minutes of tape of Nixon's conversation with Haldeman (what was turned over was bad enough, such as Erlichman referring to the appointee for the FBI, L. Patrick Gray, being the fall guy for Watergate, and that he should be left " . . . twisting, slowly, slowly in the wind"). All in all, the Nixon WH efforts had a surreal, "Keystone Kop-ish" character which don't stack up well beside the efforts of Uncle Dick and his Too Live Crew.

Uncle Dick is much slicker than the Nixon boys were. Even with something as ridiculous as claiming that he is not a part of the executive branch, while still claiming executive privilege, he has pulled it off, because he's throwing curve balls no one has ever seen. It has also helped that they've had a Republican-controlled Congress for most of their terms. Hillary Clinton was forced to turn over her Health Care task force notes and minutes, but Cheney has been able to stonewall every attempt to hand over his Energy task force materials.

If you look at it from the administration's point of view, commuting Libby's sentence was a stroke of genius. So long as he is convicted, and making an appeal, he can exercise his fifth amendment rights, and the investigation is stalled for a lack of evidence. Uncle Dick and his boys are much, much more slick than Tricky Dick and his band of buffoons were.

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Setanta wrote:

By the way, Cyclo, i don't know how much you know of the detail of the Watergate brouhaha, so don't take it amiss if i rehearse it on the assumption that you, or someone else here might not know.

Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor, had asked for the White House tapes when the investigation revealed that Nixon had been recording oval office meeting since 1971. Nixon danced around with allegations of "executive privilege" until Cox, in frustration, simply subpoenaed them. So, in October, 1973, Nixon told Elliot Richardson to fire Cox. (John Mitchell was the first major casualty of the whole affair, and his successor, Richard Kleindienst, had to resign after John Dean was fired, and Haldeman and Erlichman resigned.) Richardson had been appointed precisely because he was seen as a man of principle. So when Nixon told Richardson to fire Cox, Richardson resigned. So Nixon told the Assistant AG to fire Cox, and he resigned (sorry, i don't recall his name). He resigned, and it finally fell to the Solicitor General to fire Cox, being the highest ranking Justice Department official still on the books. This was known as the Saturday Night Massacre because Cox, Richardson and Richardson's deputy all left on that one Saturday evening.

In the end, Nixon was forced to cave in on the WH tapes, after Leon Jaworski was appointed to replace Cox, and he turned right around and issued a subpoena for the tapes. That was when they came up with the Rose Mary Wood story to explain why they couldn't provide the crucial 18 minutes of tape of Nixon's conversation with Haldeman (what was turned over was bad enough, such as Erlichman referring to the appointee for the FBI, L. Patrick Gray, being the fall guy for Watergate, and that he should be left " . . . twisting, slowly, slowly in the wind"). All in all, the Nixon WH efforts had a surreal, "Keystone Kop-ish" character which doesn't stack up well beside the efforts of Uncle Dick and his Too Live Crew.

Uncle Dick is much slicker than the Nixon boys were. Even with something as ridiculous as claiming that he is not a part of the executive branch, while still claiming executive privilege, he has pulled it off, because he's throwing curve balls no one has ever seen. It has also helped that they've had a Republican-controlled Congress for most of their terms. Hillary Clinton was forced to turn over her Health Care task force notes and minutes, but Cheney has been able to stonewall every attempt to hand over his Energy task force materials.

If you look at it from the administrations point of view, commuting Libby's sentence was a stroke of genius. So long as he is convicted, and making an appeal, he can exercise his fifth amendment rights, and the investigation is stalled for a lack of evidence. Uncle Dick and his boys are much, much more slick than Tricky Dick and his band of buffoons were.

Thanks for the info, I didn't know all that.

To me, the biggest problem hasn't been the Republican-controlled congress, but the heavily politicized DoJ. There is no 'man of principle' over there who will stand up to Bush; he installed his personal lawyer as the AG. In retrospect, that never should have happened. It allows them to play a level of defense that is removed from the WH even though they are running the show.

Getting through the DoJ problem will be half of the climb for the Dems. I think that starting with impeaching Gonzales for lying in front of Congress is the first step.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

There is no 'man of principle' over there who will stand up to Bush; he installed his personal lawyer as the AG. In retrospect, that never should have happened.

Well, this is exactly why the control of the Congress matters. Neither party likes to play hard ball too much with executive branch appointments, because of the appearance of obstruction, and so as not to create a grudge that the opposing party will pay back when the roles are reversed. So, with a bare majority of the Senate, and control of the Judiciary Committee, the Shrub could count on this appointment going through. The Democrats were not in a position to stop it without major Republican defections, which were unlikely at that time.

Nixon, however, had to dance. The Democrats controlled both houses of the Congress, and by the time Elliot Richardson was appointed, Nixon could no longer rely on painting the Democrats as obstructionist--he had to come up with someone palatable to the Democrats, and that was why Richardson was chosen. The Shrub could get Gonzales appointed in 2005--he'd play hell pulling that off today.

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By the way, when the Watergate hearings were going on, they eclipsed even the afternoon soap operas in ratings. We were glued to the television most days (those of us whose jobs permitted it, and those who were not otherwise employed) and the broadcast news had fresh summaries for every news show. We lived and breathed that stuff, which is how i remember so much of it. It used to kill me when i had to get ready for work (second shift), and i'd end up running down the street so as not to be late, because i'd stayed to the last possible minute.

I don't think the Shrub's troubles have reached that level yet. Also, no Senate Committee and no Sam Ervin. Guys like old Sam Ervin only come along once in a while, and he played his spotlight role as few others could. It is said that Sam Ervin once stood up in the Senate and began his remarks with: "Now, i'm just an old country lawyer . . . "--at which point, Senator Lyndon Johnson from Texas loudly remarked that whenever he heard anyone say he was just an old country lawyer, he got a firm grip on his wallet.

Maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems we don't have Senators so flamboyant before the cameras these days.

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Setanta wrote:

By the way, when the Watergate hearings were going on, they eclipsed even the afternoon soap operas in ratings. We were glued to the television most days (those of us whose jobs permitted it, and those who were not otherwise employed) and the broadcast news had fresh summaries for every news show. We lived and breathed that stuff, which is how i remember so much of it. It used to kill me when i had to get ready for work (second shift), and i'd end up running down the street so as not to be late, because i'd stayed to the last possible minute.

I don't think the Shrub's troubles have reached that level yet. Also, no Senate Committee and no Sam Ervin. Guys like old Sam Ervin only come along once in a while, and he played his spotlight role as few others could. It is said that Sam Ervin once stood up in the Senate and began his remarks with: "Now, i'm just an old country lawyer . . . "--at which point, Senator Lyndon Johnson from Texas loudly remarked that whenever he heard anyone say he was just an old country lawyer, he got a firm grip on his wallet.

Maybe it's just my imagination, but it seems we don't have Senators so flamboyant before the cameras these days.

There have to be opportunities for people to show what they can do. I look to Sheldon Whitehouse as someone who (being a former USAtty) knows exactly what to say and do when the spotlight is on him.

Things will have to proceed apace for impeachment to actually happen. But how different would things be now, if that were already a part of the conversation? If the meme was begun that the bums were possibly going to get thrown out? It not only provides the opportunity to get rid of Bushco., it also acts as an effective curb on some of the more outrageous actions he might seek to undertake.

I expect thing to take months to grow to a head. I don't know if it will end in impeachment, but I suspect that it will. There has been a meme, a backlash to the over-reach of the Bushies, growing for years now, and it's coming to a head.

Bush may have to pull OBL out of that CIA freezer in order to save his ass, it may have gone that far Smile

But who can say?

Cycloptichorn

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It can happen pretty fast, although i agree that there is little time left. When i was laughing at Zippo in that other thread, i went out to find approval ratings for Nixon. In January, 1973, when he was inaugurated for his second term, thanks to the Paris Peace conference with the Vietnamese, his approval was over 60%. By November, after the Saturday Night Massacre, his approval ratings had dropped to less than 30%.

The crucial part of the equation is getting real dirt on Uncle Dick and his boy the Shrub. Without, no amount of fulminating about the appearance of venality is going to matter.

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Favorable numbers for Impeachment

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