The House impeached Bill Clinton and the Senate came within one vote of removing him from office. This for having consensual sex with an aid, and lying about it.
We now have a president who's list of offenses is infinitely more serious and consequential and yet the Democratic leadership refuses to honor their responsibility to defend the constitution.
WTF?
The House had prepared 3 Articles of Impeachment for Nixon in July of 1974.
1.) Obstruction of Justice
2.) Abuse of Power
3.) Contempt of Congress
All three would be completely appropriate today for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney
4 comments:
The Charges against Clinton were not:
1) Having Consensual sex
2) Lying about the aforementioned Consensual sex
The charges were:
1) Perjury - he lied under oath, one of the consequences of this was his disbarment. This disbarment was not done by a gang of congressional republicans either.
2)Abuse of Power - Using political office to get sexual favors: It's wrong for Republicans as well as Democrats. If you want sexual favors go to the bar not the White House. Also, this whole episode started out as an investigation into Whitewater and expanded into a sexual harassment probe. None of which the Clinton's fully cooperated with. Files mysteriously disappeared and then reappeared - for example.
3)Obstruction of Justice - i.e. "Depends on what the meaning of 'is' is.
Clinton did deserve what he got, and I will add, so does any politician who pulls the kind of political stunts he pulled. The problem is that there is a double standard in Washington D.C. and with politics in general.
If you are a Republican accused of engaging on some harmless hanky panky, bad land deals, or running your political machine effectively, then you will be booted out on your ass before you know it.
But it you are a Democrat the media will probably play down whatever you did as a harmless indiscretion and blow it off by the end of the week.
Politicians from both parties should be held equally responsible for their actions - for example, Harry Reid and his land deals, Fainstein and her conflict of interest problems.
And do not blow me off as a republican, I'm not a Bush fan - he is a NeoConservative, I am a Libertarian.
Jonathan,
I don't want to defend Bill Clinton, I'm not a fan of his. But the purpose of my post was to compare the relative merits of the impeachment of Clinton to the merits of the impeachment of Bush that I am proposing.
You list "abuse of power" as one of the articles of the Clinton impeachment. I think you're wrong about that. If you can provide any proof - I'm interested.
The other two articles - perjury and obstruction of justice - are correct. I didn't say, in my post, what the actual articles of impeachment were, I just said why he was impeached, and I believe I was correct. The Republicans saw an opportunity to remove him from office for having sex and lying about it. Again, I'm not defending Bill, and I've never cheated on my wife, but imagine that you did. Wouldn't you then lie about it? Isn't that just the way it's done? Wasn't he trying to protect his family?
Even if you disagree, please compare the crimes of Bush to those of Clinton.
You say there is a double standard, and that Democrats are excused for these sexual indiscretions, while Republicans are driven out of town. Explain, then the recent case of Republican Senator David Vitter whose name was on the recently published list from the DC madam. He has admitted to illegal use of the services of prostitutes. When he returned to the Senate after this news broke, they applauded him. He is not being driven out of town.
But really, don't we have more important things to worry about?
I found the articles of impeachment for Bill Clinton at Wikipedia, and it list the source at the Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/impeachvote121198.htm
Hillary Clinton (as much as I dislike her) is a very smart woman. I doubt she was completely in the dark about Bill's affairs. I consulted to leading authorities on women (my mother and my wife) and according to them most women know when their husband is cheating, many of them just chose to deny it. Also, I wouldn't lie if I cheated, I wouldn't be able to live with myself.
I do have problems with Bush, and his goals of essentially forcing democracy on people. It is a typical neoconservative tactic to think democracy can be forced on people. Democracies, Republics, and such have to be established on an intellectual level first. Socialism by contrast are more emotionally based - but I digress, before I go on a rabbit trail.
Bush is guilty -- of poor planning, poor communication, surrounding himself with "yes men" and "yes women", stubbornly refusing to attack the failed policies of his adversaries, and going along with his adversaries in the spirit of a so called "new tone" hoping that they will not turn around and attack him. But, Bush is not guilty of anything qualifying as a high crime or misdemeanor.
I (like you) would like to see him (Bush) out of office. Although I did vote for him both times, I voted for him both times as the lesser of two evils. Frankly, I am glad Bush was in office when 9-11 hit, Al Gore would have run out and hugged a tree to keep it from happening again. John Kerry would have recklessly pulled our troops out and without a second thought, giving Bin Laden a vacuum in the middle east to fill.
Bush is guilty of what I mentioned above. But, cronyism isn't a crime . Presidents have engaged in Cronyism before, and will do so in the future. What we need to do now, is elect a President - Republican or Democrat - who is straight forward, and unapologetically honest about what they want to do. Unfortunately, the only democrat who hasn't been a waffle and is being honest is Sen. Gravel (sp?). On the Republican side, I personally like Ron Paul or Fred Thompson (that was a freebie endoresement).
I think Vitter got the treatment he did because he is not a perceived threat at the moment. But, that is just off the top of my head.
Yeah, we do have more important things to worry about. That is why I do not think it is worthwhile at this point to try impeaching the President. We have a nut case in Iran who wants to usher in the 12th imam, and we have borders which are completely unprotected for the most part.
I guess you're right, Clinton was charged with abuse of power but that article failed by 148 to 285.
Bush ignored many warnings about an imminent attack before 9/11 and did nothing. Gore would have acted and probably prevented 9/11.
Bush is certainly guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. Go to some of my other posts which list them, and defend him more specifically.
Pulling our troops out now is exactly what we need to do. Staying is catastrophic for all parties except Al Qaida. They are thrilled that we are inflaming hatred against us. We are the perfect Al Qaida recruiting tool.
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