Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Now is the Time – Impeach Cheney

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Article 4 ABUSE OF POWER

The President misused and abused his office and impaired the administration of justice.

The President made false and misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States;

The President made false and misleading statements to members of the Cabinet and White House aides;

The President frivolously asserted executive privilege;

The President made perjurious, false and misleading statements to Congress (answers to 81 questions).

You could substitute Vice President for much of this particularly the “I am neither beast nor fowl” contention on the use of classified information.

If nothing else the impeachment of Cheney, which will have broad public support, will give Congress the capability to investigate many of the hazy issues such as Iraq, Classified Documents, Wiretaps, Contracts, etc…

Once these guys leave office in January 2009 it would be nice to have something of our Republic left.

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  3. since he’s been running interference from day one. Maybe they can do a 2 for 1 deal, save a few taxpayer dollars. What was it the GOP/Ken Starr spent on the Clinton Blowjob Investigation, $70+ Million? 
    Rule of Law!

    • …and the abuse of FBI files for political reasons, and other oddments of the Clinton years weren’t prosecuted doesn’t mean there wasn’t a case – just insufficient evidence for a grand jury.  So part of the Starr money went to other things.

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      I have ALWAYS thought the FBI files were the worst offense.

      • I can come up with pictures of you in compromising positions with animals. With sworn statements. Taxpayer money of course.  The “Starr” investigation was a joke.

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        The GOP had a nice 10 year run where they spent tens of millions for panty sniffing inquiries and smear campaigns, and you guys are still screaming about The Blue Dress.

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        Lying the United States into a war, illegal wiretapping, torture, all under Bush/Chneny/Rove, but the GOP was not very interested. The rest of us are though.

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        Pack a lunch PP, it’s going to be a slow, deliberate evisceration of the GOP over the next few years. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of folks.

        • First off I hope you apply the same taxpayer money can indict a ham sandwich logic to Fitzgerald v. Libby.

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          Second, I hope you intend to eviscerate the dems who also, by you logic, “lied us into war”:

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          http://youtube.com/w…

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          Never mind the war powers act btw

      • Politics via prosecution is a recipe for disaster.  There is a reason the Independent Counsel statute was not reauthorized, even by a Republican Congress.  If the Democrats start the same process in reverse now, they will learn the same message.

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        The Congress soes not need a grand jury or a special prosecutor to conduct oversight.

  4. …which just might become necessary.
    (*putch = a secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government)

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    But I’d rather use the magnificent tool the Founders gave us: impeachment. I’m a follower of the “if-we-don’t-impeach-for-THESE-kinds-of-offenses-the Constitution-means-nothing” school of thought.

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    Let’s screw up the courage and impeach. Let’s puch our Congressional representatives.

    • I have thought for awhile that both the President and Vice President should have been impeached. After Katrina I certainly thought the President might be impeached for incompetency, but unfortunately that is neither a high crime or misdemeanor. Guantanamo, Iraq, etc. all fall under a grey zone in the constitution that allows the President more leeway than he really deserves, but in my view the warrantless wiretapping, the AG firings, Plamegate, and this business with Cheney could all individually be grounds for an investigation but taken together are certainly grounds for impeachment.

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      At this point I’d say even Republican members of Congress might be willing to axe Gonzales maybe even Cheney. I am quite certain Bush will not be impeached  partly because the Democrats are far too cautious for that approach and partly because I believe that most insiders in Washington realize that Bush is really out of the loop regarding the real decision making within his office, kind of like Reagan was during Iran-Contra.

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      I am saying impeach Cheney even though it means giving the GOP a huge 08 advantage since essentially Bush can select the nominee of his party and avoid a costly primary fight, that said I still believe it is the right thing to do legally, morally, and constiutionally and thus for the country at large. On this Independence Day our Founding Fathers would only be proud if we put their ideas and dreams beyond petty politics and resorted to the higher principle of fair and free constitutional governance.

      • After Katrina I certainly thought the President might be impeached for incompetency, but unfortunately that is neither a high crime or misdemeanor.

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        …since impeachment and removal is a political act, what constitutes a “high crime (or) misdemeanor” is whatever the Senate and House determines it to be.

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        Given the current makeup of the Senate it is doubtful that they could muster the 2/3 required for removal, whether or not the House could muster the 1/2 required for impeachment.  Given that, I’d just be interested in the Democrats–particularly in the House, at least doing investigations to expose the sins of what will likely turn out to be the worst malAdministration in at least my lifetime.

      • I do not forsee any curcumstance under which the Congress approves a replacement to Cheney unless he resigns like five minutes ago. Too close to the election. Besides the investigation will take so long that there will not be much time left in the term to worry about a confirmation.

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        The point I was advocating was an investigation…if for no other reason than to return some of the balance to our government.

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        I like your points though.

      • What good would impeachment do?  Mr. Cheney would be replaced by some other slug.  I’m sure Mr. Cheney’s influence over the Administration would not be impaired.

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        Certainly, the event would collapse into petty politics as the other politicians would vie for the limelight of the media circus.  Such things bring out the worst, not the best of our elected.  We’ve seen what nonesense developed in the last impeachment proceeding.

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        Sadly, we vote for not the best of candidates, but the lesser of the evils. 

      • Luckily for the Congress that just requires that they do their job as a legislature, ond oversee the executive.

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        I agree that there is grounds for the use of the impeachment power, on the Padilla issue alone, and perhaps for the bypassing of the courts in the wiretapping cases.  This is the first time I have acknowledged that.  But they have a lot of work to do to lay it out for that part of the country that are not progressive true believers.  The time remaining before November 2008 is probably insufficient.

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        So oversee.

        • In any move toward impeachment, the most outspoken in favor will be the “He lied to start a war” crowd, whom have always been clearly wrong, and will spiral the whole thing off into a GOP recovery in 2008.

  5. Deep breaths everyone … in, out. In, out.

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    Incompetence is not an impeachable offense.  Neither is getting matters of intelligence wrong … that’s called a mistake.

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    Neither is making misleading statements, or “frivolously asserting executive privilege.”

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    Guantanamo, “wiretaps” (by which you mean foreign SIGINTEL, not listening in on Whitey Bulger’s phone line,) and other national intelligence and executive privilege issues are structural disagreements between branches of our government and will be decided through the courts, among Congress, and, ultimately, at the polls.  As it should be.

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    Most Americas understand this if only intuitively.  They trust  our system to resolve these conflicts.  Often what you perceive as a miscarriage of justice or an impeachable offense is seen by the majority of American’s as a serious policy dispute.  I think impeachment proceedings against the president or vice president, contrary to what you think, would NOT have “broad public support.” 

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    Besides your own imagination and talking exclusively with like-minded progressives (“How did Reagan win?  No one I know voted for him?”) where does this notion come from?  It’s a big 50/50, red/blue country out there with a broad, independent-minded purple middle.  Impeachment is not in the cards.

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    Tantrum-like foot-stamping by progressives is going to little. Please, try to relax a bit; the Republic will be standing in January 2009 so work hard for the candidate of your choice.

    • pardon my progressive foot-stamping, bostonshepherd – I just don’t like seeing thousands of people die in a fraudulent war. I guess you’re able to tolerate it better than I.

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      Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the greedy neocons did far worse than “getting matters of intelligence wrong.” They lied us into a war. Doesn’t that make you want to stamp your foot just a little?

    • Yes, lets just leave all these things Bush has done in place.  That way when President Hillary Clinton take office in 2009, she’ll be free to tap your phone, search your house and put you in a nice dark cell somewhere just because she feels like it.

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      Then she can fire everyone in the Justice Department, fill it with lackeys and use the DOJ as a personal poltical weapon againt anyone who speaks out against her.

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      While that’s going on, she can set up her own personal jails in various countries throughout the world and use them as a palce where she can waterboard all her enemies, real or imagined.

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      She will be thrilled to find a compliant CIA, ready to invent any intelligence she needs in order to pursue the foreign policy that she prefers, which may or may not be grounded in reality.

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      WOOHOO!!!

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      And when all the little Bushbots realize that they created the conditions for Hillary to be the most powerful President ever, answerable to no one but herself, they will stamp their tiny feet, and cry their tiny brains out.

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      And I will be tempted to laugh at them, but of course I won’t, because these things, whether they are done by a Democratic President or a Republican President are still crimes against the people of this nation.  If only the little Bushbots would put their partisanship aside for a moment, they might see the nightmare they are creating for themselves.  But they won’t. Not until they are the victims.

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      Of course, by then it will be too late.

    • His entire argument is based on the appeals court having a political agenda by forcing the President’s hand. Where is the evidence for this outside of Dershowitz’ brain? Remember that the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, was appointed by this administration, the judge, Reggie Walton, was a Bush nominee — this was clearly no partisan witch hunt for you Bill Clinton obsessed — and the evidence for obstruction of justice, i.e. lying before the grand jury was overwhelming and led to a jury conviction. There is no indication that the appeal would have done anything but buy Libby more time.
      Dershowitz, with his own well-known agenda, has lost all credibility as a voice of reason.

    • If one man could be a counterweight to all the insipid, craven MSM, Olberman would be the one. Actually, count Bill Moyers in there too.

  8. Maybe we can swing an impeachment…then what?  The current Republicans in the Senate don’t have the honesty or the stones to remove Cheney or Bush from office.  Calling for impeachment is turning into the left’s version of threatening not to pay taxes ‘cuz of the UN — satisfying to say, but knowing that such an attempt can only end badly.

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