Armando/BTD lays out his argument against impeachment thusly:
- It will NEVER happen and, ironically, yesterday's event reinforces this. Bush's approval ratings are likely to increase slightly as a result of his actions yesterday - as his wingnut base will rally to support him. This makes the chances of garnering GOP support an even longer shot than it was before - when it was impossible.
Remember, to remove Bush from office requires a 2/3 vote from the Senate, which means 17 Republicans (I count Lieberman as a Republican) must vote to remove from office. It simply will never happen. No realistic person can think it will. So let's be clear, impeachment here is nothing but a symbolic gesture.
(2) It is likely to have negative political ramifications for Democrats in 2008. I care less about this than most. If Bush and Cheney could be removed, the political cost could be worth it. But since they can not be removed, then it simply is not.
(3) Impeachment would preclude discussion of of all other issues, most notably Iraq. Indeed, impeachment would be the worst possible development for ending the war in Iraq. It supplants getting out of Iraq as the centerpiece issue for progressive activism.
Last, and probably least, the progressive base and the Netroots would be utterly defanged and treated as completely irrelevant if it chooses to waste its time on pushing for impeachment. No more than a handful of Democrats will vote for it. The Media will portray as on par with 9/11 conspiracies. It is to throw away the progressive base and Netroots' power as a Left flank in the political discourse. It relegates it to crazy Larouche status.
In short, I can not imagine a more harmful cause for the progressive base and the Netroots to embrace. It will make the day of Republicans across the country IF Democrats followed such a lead.
Fortunately, Democrats will not. But they will nonetheless suffer because the progressive base and the Netroots will feel betrayed that Democrats will choose to not follow them over the cliff. Thus, there will be negative ramification for Democrats anyway.
But my ultimate bottom line is that the essential role the progressive base and the Netroots can and should play on ending the war in Iraq will be completely squandered.
Meteor Blades responds:
What irony, Armando. It's quite amazing ...
...to see you take this approach after your long - and quite correct - effort to push "defunding" as the only possible way for Dems to force Mister Bush to change directions in Iraq. A point of view for which you were called irresponsible and wrong-headed about a zillion times because it would never happen and would gravely harm the Democrats who would be challenged for not supporting the troops.
In case you hadn't noticed, a great wide swath of the netroots already supports impeachment. But so far it's been almost exclusively a keyboard exercise, much of it counterproductive name-calling of Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats.
Instead of promoting more of this, I think it's time that those who do believe that impeachment proceedings are a necessary remedy should try to make our case to those who must decide whether or not to initiate those proceedings. In other words, instead of all talk, some action.
I think there is a very good chance that fewer than five or six of the Judiciary Committee members can be persuaded to support impeachment. And when it becomes apparent that no more than that will do so, and that Pelosi isn't going to budge, impeachment fever will die down. If a majority on the committee does change their minds, then we'll see how the proceedings/hearings go.
As for diverting attention of progressive activists and Democrats away from ending the occupation of Iraq, this is a bogus argument typical of those who believe that neither activists nor elected Dems can walk and chew gum at the same time.
There is more back and forth, but I'll use these two statements to launch my own thoughts on the tension between Impeachment and withdrawal from Iraq.
- The numerical relationship between Impeachment and Iraq.
As it so happens, the number of votes to override a presidential veto in the Senate is also the number necessary to remove an impeached president from office--67.
Armando raises a very valid point--that in order to remove an impeached Bush, one would need 17 Republican votes (LIEberman counts as a Republican). Which will never happen.
As it happens, we also need 17 Republican votes to override a Bush veto of binding withdrawal legislation. And many have argued that getting 17 Republican votes for withdrawal is similarly a fairy tale.
But are the prospects for getting Republicans to vote for withdrawal from Iraq really as remote as getting them to vote to remove Cheney and Bush and install Nancy Pelosi as President?
Of course not. Consider:
a) There have already been two Republican defections on the issue of Iraq in terms of formal votes--Hagel and Smith.
b) Voinovich, Lugar, Warner have also made prominent public declarations that they see the wisdom of the Democrats' position (in so many words). Now, obviously words aren't votes, and their weaselish timing on this precludes giving their statements conclusive force. However, the words these Senators have issued are pretty clear in their meaning. Moreover, these aren't ordinary GOP Senators. Lugar is Mr. Foreign Policy and Warner is Mr. Military for the Senate GOP. Moreover, there was very little effort, if any, by McConnell et al to distance the Senate GOP as a group from these statements.
c) Voting to override is a weaker and easier rejection of Bush than is voting to remove him. Is there anyone who doubts that the Republicans would rather end the US occupation of Baghdad than end the Republican occupation of Washington, D.C.?
Based on the above as well as the bulletproof gravity and importance of the Iraq issue with the public, it is almost certain that a vote to override a Bush veto and enact a binding timeline is more likely to succeed than a vote to remove him from office. Also, the willingness of such GOP Senators to override a veto may come into play without an actual vote--via private discussions and negotiations between Bush and Congressional leaders.
- Impeachment and Iraq: Conflicts and synergies
Can we walk and chew gum, as Meteor Blades put it, at the same time? I say maybe.
If Congress leads with impeachment, it would almost certainly end any prospect of enacting a timeline for withdrawal. An impeachment and removal drive would essentially turn the party lines into battle trenches, with no man's land in between.
However, if Congress leads with Iraq timelines, then impeachment and withdrawal begin to support one another. If Bush holds out despite overtures from his own party, and a timeline is enacted over his veto, he will face a tough decision: Whether to obey the law as enacted, or play Mr. Unilateral Decider Commander Guy and keep the troops in under his inherent executive superpowers.
This is withdrawal from Iraq would be aided by impeachment, or more accurately the threat of impeachment. If Bush flagrantly disobeys a law passed by 2/3 majorities in both houses, then he has committed not merely an impeachable offense, but one where he is directly disregarding the will of a number of legislators sufficient to remove him from office. Moreover, the public support for such an impeachment move would be high. It's one thing to impeach him for commuting Scooter's sentence, it's another to impeach him for breaking the law in a way that gets American servicepeople killed and maimed.
Facing that reality, Bush would have no real choice but to withdraw. And if he didn't, he'd get impeached and removed swiftly.
This is a classic no-lose for us--either we get out of Iraq or we get Bush out of office.
Side note: Armando, of course, is also a proponent of the setting a date certain after which funding is unavailable for Iraq. I would note that such an approach would be appropriate as a measure of last resort--there is no way to fund the troops until a date certain without a presidential signature or veto override. Moreover, since Iraq would be part of the DoD appropriation, one would essentially need to hold the entire defense spending bill up to defund Iraq absent the votes to support the "date certain" approach.
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