I've bounced back and forth between whether impeaching Cheney and Bush (and remember folks, for impeachment and removal to work, we have to do Cheney first) would be a good idea.
On the one hand, there is the burning desire to Make Them Pay, Period. On the other hand, there is the danger that impeaching Bush may do for the GOP what it did for the Democrats in 1998.
Up until Election Night that year, all the pundits predicted that Clinton's troubles and the impeachment drumbeat -- a drumbeat accelerated in September by Joe Lieberman's leading a handful of "Blue Dogs" to join the GOP in attacking Clinton -- would give the GOP 60 House seats and at least ten Senate seats. Instead, the Senate was a wash -- the Dems lost a couple, but the Republicans lost impeachment backers Al D'Amato and Lauch Faircloth -- and the Dems gained five House seats.
Al Giordano of The Field has similar thoughts. (More after the jump.)
From The Field today:
Al Giordano, on June 11th, 2008 at 5:31 am Said:
Grandma - I have been asked here for my view on Dennis Kucinich’s impeachment articles. Folk can probably tell by the fact that I haven’t said anything about it that it’s not a priority for me.
We have spent most of this year cleaning up after the unintended consequences and sympathy generated, in the 1990s, toward Bill Clinton by the right’s effort to impeach him more than a decade ago.
Morally and legally, yes, George W. Bush (and his sidekick Cheney) should have been impeached. But I don’t want to create unintended sympathy for them or prolong the national dysfunction any longer than the natural death of their tenure on January 20, 2009.
But that’s what would happen. They’d get the same wave of sympathy and blind support that Clinton got from his base simply because he was brought up on impeachment hearings and charges. There would be no better way to fire up the GOP base for the November election than to impeach Bush this year.
On the merits, yes, those guys ought to be removed from power and also in prison. But as a matter of strategy, I think it’s too late, and I know it distracts from a process toward a much more profound change than removing two individuals.
That’s why I haven’t been, nor do I plan to be, devoting my time and energy to the matter.
So what do you all think? Questions, comments?
UPDATE: One thing that's been pointed out already is that the GOP didn't get a "sympathy boost" in 1974; instead, they got slaughtered. Another thing is that the first thing Gerry Ford did upon taking Nixon's place was pardon the man. So while he resigned, that was all the punishment he ever got. (Just as Bush Sr.'s pardon of Cap Weinberger ensured that Bush Sr. would never go to jail over Iran-Contra.)