If you don’t have the time or inclination to read the whole story, here’s everything in a nutshell:
Put simply, if y’all want it, BraveNewFilms, in conjunction with Democrats.com, will do a real, honest-to-goodness impeachment poll. It’s not free: it’ll cost $10-30,000 dollars for a full field poll. And nothing’s guaranteed – Bush may come back with 95% approval ratings...
Alright, hell... I’ll guarantee that won’t happen. But no other guarantees, except that we will release the full results. This will be, after all, your poll.
If you want it.
Donate HERE.
If you’re still reading, well, here’s more:
Last night I took a look at the recommended diary list and quickly realized that six out of eight diaries called for IMPEACHMENT. One of the diaries even called for Congress to IMPEACH NOW!!!
The truth is, for the longest time, I kept my own counsel. But now I confess... As much as I wanted to be an all-caps kinda guy, I checked myself because I was afraid of not being invited to certain parties; unfortunately, I’ve definitely got a thing for those cool little cocktail weenies.
You know... I’m only half-joking... the truth is, I enjoyed the feeling I got when I first got an email saying that I was invited to a conference call with Nancy Pelosi... I was tickled to be able to ask the Harry Reid and his pal Chuck Schumer about their 2006 election strategy and then make my own suggestions... Access, as much as I am embarrassed to admit it, is a powerfully seductive tool, at least for me.
Don’t get me wrong... I know I never compromised any of my principles. I know I never traded my soul for those cocktail weenies... I asked the tough questions and I spoke to them forthrightly... But...
There’s always been that nagging concern about my future prospects in politics if I pissed off "my friends".
Well, I’m not so concerned about that today. This nation is changing and our Congressmembers are going to change with it, or find themselves out of a job, caught up in the change they futilely resisted.
We will have impeachment inquiries.
God help us, if we have anything whatsoever to do with it, we will see impeachment.
Friends in politics are nice to have. But if the choice is having "friends" in politics vs. having a decent country with a respected Constitution...
Well, that’s really no choice at all, is it?
So fuck the cocktail weenies.
Ugh. Now that my confessional is out of the way, let me give you the skinny.
After my weekend diary - the one in which I told you that Pelosi was maintaining a death-grip on her anti-impeachment policy - I’ve decided that I can no longer play the fiddle while Rome burns. I’m going to do everything I can to light a fire under the Donkey’s ass... Our mule’s gonna hafta to learn how to bray and kick again.
One of the great things about joining a new organization is the fresh wind it puts in your sails; the feeling of wide-open opportunity that change brings. In joining BraveNewFilms.org, I’ve got that feeling...
Except that right now, it’s more than just a feeling.
Last night I emailed my new boss. I told him that there have been spotty little impeachment polls done here and there, but for the most part, they have been granular, lacking in context, and have been ignored by the traditional media.
Hell, they’ve even been ignored by the blogosphere...
I told my boss that I know we can change that.
I know that if we commission a poll, and do it the right way, we can move the conversation along. We can put the issue on the table. We can give the "serious" press something to talk about.
So this is my idea: we do a real, honest to goodness, full blown poll on impeachment. We poll Bush. Cheney. Gonzalez. Congress... Yes – you read correctly; we poll whether or not Congressional inaction regarding impeachment is viewed favorably or unfavorably.
After the raw data is collected, we educate. We ask a series of yes or no questions. Do you know Alberto Gonzalez claimed to "not recall" answers to specific questions 92 times in a 3 hour period? Do you know that Dick Cheney had maps of Iraq’s oil fields on his desk when he was telling the country, falsely, that there was incontrovertible proof that Saddam Hussein was pursuing a nuclear weapon? Do you know that George W. Bush was directly implicated in the outing of a CIA agent whose job it was to work on weapons of mass destruction intelligence having to do with Iraq and Iran? Do you know that Bush’s pardon of Scooter Libby effectively ended the investigation of the Bush/Cheney White House regarding that scandal?
Then we poll impeachment again: Gonzalez; Cheney; Bush, respectively.
I suggest we hire a Broderesque "centrist" – maybe Larry Sabato - that all the media loves to help us develop the polling questions. This will inoculate us against any attacks citing "bias". Finally, we field the poll through Pew, Quinnipiac, Ipsos or some other widely respected polling firm.
In the end, we’ll have a real product to release that the media simply will not be able to ignore. Once the media finally realizes that 27% approval ratings actually mean that America thinks this administration sucks... well, maybe a few more Democrats in Congress will decide to represent the people that voted for them.
This isn’t going to be easy to pull off, and it doesn’t come without risk. What if 55% of the people polled say impeachment would be bad for the country? What if 37% said Congress should begin impeachment proceedings, but only against Dick Cheney? The truth is, this could backfire...
This could validate Pelosi and Schumer and Reid...
But hold on a second...
What if a majority said that all three should be impeached?
Let that sink in for a second.
Seriously.
Isn’t that the equivalent of a nation-wide vote of no-confidence in the entire executive branch?
That kind of statement would be unprecedented.
You know... even if the Congress continued sitting on their hands... even if the press ignored the story altogether...
Wouldn’t it be worth it to know that the American public, your friends and neighbors and co-workers and parishioners... wouldn’t it be worth it to know that all of America isn’t bat-shit complacent? That we really are embarrassed by our executive leadership?
I think so.
So I need you to help us out.
Give what you can.
Make this poll happen.