Bush Lies

[Buddy]

"but yes, bush should be impeached. i'm not entirely sure what impeachment entails, but he and his cronies should be turned out of office in disgrace and punished according to the law."

I hate the guy and his ilk. But he has committed no crime according actual law. Otherwise he would have been impeached. The Dems control Congress, I'm puzzled why this escapes you all who call for his impeachment. You don't think the liberal Congress would do it if they could? Please use a little common sense.

[I-mon]

well i admit that i have zero understanding of the law. i mean i'm down with them getting punished outside the law as well, but one would hope that the law had some sort of fancy bits and pieces around for times when heads of state lie through their teeth and get rich off enourmous wars.

i guess they just can't prove that they've been lying?

[Snow]

i find it truly amazing that americans, coming from ireland, england, and scotland, somehow lost their ancestors natural afinity for sarcasm.

Heh, because on this topic, a lot of us know at least one person who says things like that seriously. I myself am related to one.

[klonk]

i find it truly amazing that americans, coming from ireland, england, and scotland, somehow lost their ancestors natural afinity for sarcasm.

but yes, bush should be impeached. i'm not entirely sure what impeachment entails, but he and his cronies should be turned out of office in disgrace and punished according to the law.

Och, aye, (The etymological ancestor of Americanese "okay.") But neither have we lost our hatred of false accusation, and this thread is rank with it.

[I-mon]

i find it truly amazing that americans, coming from ireland, england, and scotland, somehow lost their ancestors natural afinity for sarcasm.

Heh, because on this topic, a lot of us know at least one person who says things like that seriously. I myself am related to one.

yeah but that's the point of the sarcasm, that's what makes it funny.

[Walter Joyce]

But he has committed no crime according actual law. Otherwise he would have been impeached. The Dems control Congress, I'm puzzled why this escapes you all who call for his impeachment. You don't think the liberal Congress would do it if they could? Please use a little common sense.

I don't think it is nearly as simple as there is an opposing party in control of congress so of course they would impeach if they could. Given that there have only two actual impeachment proceedings in the history of the nation, I believe members of congress take the process very seriously. I doubt that there would ever be an impeachment during a time of war, especially where there has been an impeachment proceeding so close in time as the last. Impeachment proceedings are viewed as a type of political crisis by outside observers and the democratic congress is highly unlikely to try and impeach Bush under the current circumstances.

Remember that the standard for impeachment has been described as "whatever Congress decides is an impeachable offense at the time." That explains why the last impeachment was brought, a truly partisan maneuver. It also suggests that if the Dems wanted to impeach Bush, they would. They tried to impeach Andrew Johnson for violating the Tenure of Office Act, similar legislation was later found to be unconstitutional, and we all know that the last impeachment was nothing but the culmination of a partisan witch hunt.

If you apply common sense the similarity between the last impeachment and the grounds for the proposed impeachment are both based on lying, so common sense applied at the first level of analysis would lead to the conclusion that impeachment proceedings are appropriate given recent history.

But a second level of analysis begs the question, if we started impeaching presidents for lying in office, would ANY president be safe?

The problem with common sense is it ain't so common, and it is basically a stand in for saying, "well if you saw things my way, which is of course the only view that makes sense...."

[Bär]

i find it truly amazing that americans, coming from ireland, england, and scotland, somehow lost their ancestors natural afinity for sarcasm.

no kidding! man, that last post i typed took me like 3 minutes because i was laughing till tears came from my eyes.

but ya'll can still go back to your own country. LOL!

Like Snow pointed out, we really understand sarcasm (although that is conveyed by tone, a bit difficult to render into text or emoticon) (just ask Gen X) it's just that on the other hand we have so many bleeding idiots who believe all manners of nonsense... like that a country can function without a government or taxes, that the holocaust didn't happen, or that there were WMD's and that Saddam, hollering like Slim Pickens riding a nuke in Dr. Strangelove, rode the airplanes into the World Trade towers, that it is often difficult to determine who's sarcastic when you can hear the tone of voice or don't know the source.

[Michael]

Don't have the details at the moment, but Bush was put on trial, in absentia, after the USA invaded Afghanistan. The trial was in Japan from 2001-2002.

Bush has passed legislation to indemnify himself, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales, and others from prosecution for the various kidnapping and torture policies that have been carried out in the name of the "war on terror". You have to ask yourself why people in power would make laws excusing things they claim to have never done.

[Buddy]

"The problem with common sense is it ain't so common, and it is basically a stand in for saying, "well if you saw things my way, which is of course the only view that makes sense...."

Poppycock, councilor. My view makes sense, not because it is my view, but because it makes sense. No laws provably broken, no impeachment. Seems simple to me.

[Walter Joyce]

"The problem with common sense is it ain't so common, and it is basically a stand in for saying, "well if you saw things my way, which is of course the only view that makes sense...."

Poppycock, councilor. My view makes sense, not because it is my view, but because it makes sense. No laws provably broken, no impeachment. Seems simple to me.

You need to first reread my post, then check it for veracity. If you think an actual law needs to be broken you need to recheck the history of impeachment.

Oh that's right, you may actually believe that Clinton lying about a blow job was material to an investigation about the Whitewater land deals, which was the grounds for begining the Ken Starr witch hunt, err investigation.

To re-quote Gerald Ford, an impeachable offense is whatever the Congress decides it to be when they bring the articles of impeachment, i.e how will congress define a high crime or misdemeanor. Like some many other Constitutional provisions, the language is intentionally vague.

[Buddy]

Well to be fair, while I hate the Clintons, I thought the Starr thing was bullshit from the get go. That doesn't mean Clinton shouldn't have been impeached for lying to Congress, but he may never have got there without Starr. And clearly to my mind, a criminal act. But no laws proven proven broken...

[Steve James]

Fwiw, McClellan --Bush's former press secretary-- will now be asked to testify before the House Judiciary Committee (i.e., Congress) about the administration's deception regarding the Plame affair and the run up to the Iraq War. Plamegate is, to many, 4000x worse that Watergate --because no one died because of W-gate.

It would be ironic if Obama would be expected to pardon the exiting President. (He would, imo). Let's see if Bush is asked to testify. If I were into playing partisan politics, a la most of the past administrations, I would say that attacking Bush would be a great way to keep a party on the defensive. They would try to force Bush to implicate as many in his administration --by forcing them to admit wrongdoing as possible. Now, otoh, if we're looking for unity, then it would be better to forget it. But, that's asking one party to operate at a higher standard.

[Steve James]

"WASHINGTON - President Bush's former spokesman Scott McClellan will testify before a House of Representatives committee next week about whether Vice President Dick Cheney ordered him to make misleading public statements about the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

McClellan will testify publicly and under oath before the House Judiciary Committee on June 20 about the White House's role in the leak and its response, his attorneys, Michael and Jane Tigar, said Monday.

In his new book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," McClellan said he was misled by others, possibly including Cheney, about the role of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby in the leak. McClellan has said publicly that Bush and Cheney "directed me to go out there and exonerate Scooter Libby."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25067467

[Buddy]

And while I think Obama should be held fully accountable for his associations (Wright et al), and if there was a criminal trail for this president (which there will not be, and I think that the McBush gambit will fail), if Obama issued a pardon....ah never mind it totally moot.


But it would show a certain amount of class that I suspect (perchance hope) Mr. Obama actually possesses.

It's not going to happen anyway, nor if it does, does Bush deserve it.

Barr/Root 2008!

BTW I was against Bob Dull in his match up w/ Clinton. I wasn't for Clinton, I voted LP. I had hopes for Bill but he disappointed. BIG TIME. And now we can forget him. He's nothing but a carnival barker as it turns out, a prurient snake oil salesman. Look at me, look at me....sad.

[Steve James]

http://video.google.com/videosearch?cli ... sion&cd=2#