It would be a bad idea to impeach Bush. Set aside the legal arguments. It would be very costly for the Dems. Dems have been out of power in the House since 94. That's more than a decade. Shall the first thing they do when they get power be to impeach the President?
I say no. Over the long haul it is better to hold this card. For the next 15 years we will be able to say: "They impeached Clinton for nothing and for the good of the country we put the progressive agenda first even though Bush did far worse." That is, we get a deeply engrained, long lasting meme that the Democrats have ideas and a plan and that they set aside partisanship to put that first.
When the Democrats get power they should start passing legislation. Let Bush finally take out his veto pen. Reps will either have to vote with the over-ride or stand behind Bush. It's win-win because if enough vote for the over-ride them you get the legislation, while those that stand with the unpopular President who likely should have been impeached will have that to run on in 08. Look at the bind this puts McCain in. Does he stand with the Dem agenda or with the Bush agenda? He's got to run in a primary and a general election if he wants to be President.
Impeachment is a strategy that could backfire. The agenda-first approach is an investment in future political capital. The Reps are failing because they have put shot-term political profiteering before investing in political capital. We should not make the same mistakes.
THANKS FOR ALL THE REPLIES.
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Here is a response to a point made in a number of your replies.
The most persuasive counter-argument to my post that I have seen has at its heart the idea that the only way to resolve the constitutional crisis that Bush has pushed the nation into is to impeach him.
This argument has been forwarded with varying degrees of passion. I appreciate everyone's strong feelings about President Bush. On the one hand, it may not have benefitted my standing and reputation with kossacks to have forwarded my argument. On the other hand, when a community never has anyone run afoul of its conventional wisdom it risks becoming a bubble.
Now, in response to the principle counter-argument. It is argued that the Bush theory of the unitary executive will gain legitimacy if Bush is not impeached. I do not think that this is the case. A congressional censure, explicitly rebuking this view, can also discredit the theory of the unitary executive if Bush is too weak to defy it. I think that this is the case.
Now, in response to that, it will likely be argued that if Bush is not impeached now for this then no President ever will be able to be impeached for similar offenses, even in such instances as may be necessary to avert fascism. But this argument is self-defeating. Other Presidents have assserted similar executive powers in the past and not been impeached. If the premise is true that not impeaching Bush takes away this option then not having impeached Polk for lying America into the Mexican-American War should imply that Bush will not be impeached. Do you all maintain that the Dems ought to impeach Bush when your own premise says that they cannot?
Censure is a good option. It provides a public rebuke of unconstitutional authority, laying bare Bush's corruption and malfeasence. Impeachment, on the other hand, leads to two years of a political discourse that questions Democrats motives and commitment to change.
Some of you havce lectured me on the harm that has been done by President Bush. Well, I think that greater harm is done by the dominance of the conservative political agenda. I fully understand the ideological case for impeachment and sympathise, but I also think that there's a place for some pragmatic reasoning on this. Those of you who say that pragmatic considerations simply have no standing in the discussion are comitted in principal to the view that no political price whatsoever is too high. In theory, you would have to agree that 50 years of conservative agenda is too high a price.
Maybe my political calculations are wrong, but I most strongly disagree that pragmatic considerations have no standing whatsoever.