Tell me why Bush shouldn't be impeached

It is only a crime if the lie involves a material issue that is relevant to a legitimate criminal investigation or judicial inquiry.

President Clinton sexual adventures while in office were private matters between consenting adults. Those were none of the business of the special prosecutor because they were not admissible in any legitimate courtroom proceedings. Modus operandi evidence, or evidence of other incidents, is admissible only when intent or identity is at issue and when the surrounding circumstances and underlying facts of the incident being investigated or prosecuted and the other occurrences are virtually identical. Clinton's encounters with Monica Lewinsky did not help prove or disprove Paula Corbin Jones' allegations of "sexual harassment" because the situations were so different. On the other hand, evidence of Jennifer Flowers' claims probably would have been permitted.

No, I did not personally approve of Clinton's sexual antics.

 

By your definition was Clinton's policy working? Are you as concerned about the Taliban's victims? Or Saddams? Pretty narrow perspective. If you were really concerned about global warming, you would park the Prius and walk. That would be hunky dorky.

As of 12:20 Central, no terrorist attacks on American soil. Seems to be working.

 

It was about lying about a blowjob. It was about lying about something that was no one's business but his. Your last paragraph is simply a mark of your naiveté.

 

Why are you trying to change the subject? Did I say anything about Clinton? Did I say anything about Republicans or Democrats? And I'm surprised to see that a Bush supporter would hark back to "Saddam's victims" when it's an undeniable fact that Saddam killed most of his victims during the 1980s, when he was Ronald Reagan's great ally in the Middle East--our proxy warrior in the fight against Iran. It was only when Saddam refused to lie down and assume a subordinate role to the U.S. that he suddenly became public enemy number one. Do you have any memory at all? Or are you just not old enough?

It's not about "humanitarian" aims. It's not about "victims" and saving populations from "bad guys." And it sure as hell isn't about a "war on terror." It's about spreading America's empire. If we can do it with terrorist death squads in Guatemala, we don't bat an eye. If it takes assassinating foreign rulers, we're on the spot. If it takes mining the harbors of countries with whom we are not at war, the SEALs are there. We are above the law. So let's not hear anything more about America's "humanitarian" goals. Whether Democrat or Republican, our goals are imperial--pure and simple.

 

It was about character assisination, derailing a legimate president's agenda by the losing party, pure and simple, no matter how you spin it. It was shameful and led our country down the path to further and more venomous attacks in the future. It was NOT helpful in anyway either then or in the future. It was partisian hacking by losers of a legimate election which has led to nothing but more rancor and distrust and did not advance our way of life or status in the world. Did republicans really believe their witch hunt would unite or further divide the country? DIVIDE which is the only way that minority can get ahead. No regard for the future.

 

In the interest of fairness: I'm a liberal who will never forgive Slick Willie for forcing me to explain to my two daughjters, ages 13 and 12 at the time, about semen stains. I never defended him by saying, " in Europe they wink and look the other way...a political leader is not expected to be a personal role model..." yadda etc.

In this political culture I DO expect a President to be less of an alley cat than Warren Hard-on (elected 1920). I do not respect him for humiliating his wife and daughter. And it's not as if Monica was an innovation in pizza delivery. Bill Clinton can't, or at least couldn't, keep it in his pants. This fact dogged him long before Monica, and if not the acts themselves, the blatant, disingenuous lying about them is---heh---a permanent stain on his "dress".

But, IALTMANN, I have read the Constitution, and it says here "...high crimes and misdemeanors...". George II KNEW he was going to take on Saddam---through the sacrifices of your son and daughter and mine---from the day he took office. Richard Clarke and others have proven this to us, and it's confirmed by the Downing Street "memo", which is not a forged or made-up document.

KNOWING that he would "lead" us down this path, two full years before he pulled the trigger, how could he and Rumsfeld NOT have made sure our troops would be the best equipped in the world, as both Democrat and Republican Presidents are fond of trumpeting? Is deceiving and exaggerating for geopolitical ends not a high crime?

If this man next wanted to take us to war against, say, Argentina, would you trust him that his "reasons" were legitimate?

I share MarinJohn's respect for Clinton's intelligence and, for the most part, his politics. I appreciate his willingness to intervene in Kosovo, late though that was and Somalia, "failure" though that was. Bush's unwillingness to intervene in Darfur is shameful, especially in contrast to Iraq.

 

Exactly... Bush ran back in 2000 on the platform of "being a uniter, not a divider"

... and then in his first term all he does is pander to the rich, to the conservatives, and generally to his base.

Come 2004, we were the most divided ever.

 

It's too bad Americans don't look deeply in to the mess in other countries. Then they would realize how good they have it.

For example, somebody brought up Canadian socialized medicine. They must not have ever experienced it to claim the Canadian Liberal Government gives one rat's a** about the people.

If Canadian Socialized medicine was so hot, why does The Mayo Clinic have direct numbers in most Canadian cities, including Winnipeg? Why do Canadians get second mortgages on their homes to afford health care in the United States, to avoid the lines in Canada?

As far as cutting social services, during the 1990's, Finance Minister Paul Martin told Canadians that we all had to "tighten our belts." That was a very disingenuous comment to make.

If you don't know, Paul Martin is considered by many to be up in the Billionaire League. He ran Canada Steamship Lines, where one of his greatest cost-saving measures was firing unionized Canadian seamen (Usually while still in the middle of the ocean, forcing them off at the next port of call and forced to make their way back to Canada at their own expense) and also "flagging" in foreign countries to avoid paying Canadian income tax.

Paul Martin also has connections to the mysterious "Power Corp" of Canada.

http://paulmartintime.ca/mediacoverage/000017.html

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2004/cover121504.htm

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover042505.htm

Paul Martin also made huge slashes to the socialized medical system, resulting in deaths from waiting lists of sometimes 4-5 years for critical operations. There were also huge cuts in nursing homes, so an elderly person can now expect to be put into a hospital CCU (Continuing Care Unit) for upwards of 5 years - if the CCU has any room - before they find space in a nursing home.

Paul Martin also claimed to have eliminated that nasty budget deficit to the point that the Liberal Government now claims huge "surprise" surpluses. Most Canadians don't believe this, as the Crown Corporations that claim the surpluses are not subject to auditing or reporting or disclosure. I doubt many countries believe the surplus claims either.

If there were all these huge magic surpluses, why isn't the money being spent on the failing health care system, the crumbling roads, the "rust out" of the Canadian Armed Forces, or new helicopters to replace the ancient Sea King choppers. Kind of embarassing when we have to call in the U.S. Coast Guard to rescue somebody, but at least the U.S. Coast Guard flies somethign modern and reliable, like their fleet of EuroCopter Dauphin's.

The recent scandals - almost too many to keep track of - should have kept the Liberals out of Parliment during the last election. But - as usual - they forked over a wad of money to the Greater Toronto Area and Montreal, and squeaked in with a Minority.

http://paulmartintime.ca

http://paulmartintime.ca/story/000267.html

http://www.theurc.com

http://www.theurc.com/defence.cfm

http://www.theurc.com/publicpurse.cfm

http://www.flyourflag.ca

 

I agree with you on everything except this. What do you have against her husband? The woman was missing much of her brain, could not think or remember, and could never recover. She was like a headless chicken essentially, and had been that way for 15 years (!) yet her idiot parents couldn't look any deeper than her skin and eyeballs and concluded she was fine. And, of course, there were no signs of physical abuse uncovered in the autopsy.

South Park had a great parody of this; the episode is "Best Friends Forever" though the title has little to do with the episode.

 

My apparently clumsy writing style obscured my point: that the Bushies SAY they want people to "be responsible", but also want people to forfeit that authority in "matters of life and death". I supported Mr. Schiavo, as, I believe, did most. But Bush, in one unprecedented move, tried to abort (pardon the felicitous use of the word) Mr. Schiavo's exercise of his responsibility.

The point is the hypocrisy.

"You know best what's good for you---except when we know better." How is this different from what the right accuses "liberals" of?

 

How does that song go?
"You know better, but I know best"

 

I've kept silent until now but I am now prepared to make a few statements. Most politicions are liars and most have ties to deep pocket special interests. Bush's family legacy is oil. It's no wonder oil prices have skyrocketed and we are now occupying a country that has huge oil reserves.

We all knew he was an oil man and a bible thumper and all the baggage that comes with that. Are we REALLY surprised by what has occured? He is trying to overturn Roe vs Wade and makes big money whenever fuel prices jump. He had an agenda uncompleted from his fathers presidency. He acts just like I expected he would. No surprises there!

Clintons name in political circles before his presidency was Slick Willy. Hmmm, and we wonder why he lied? He has always had sexual control issues and we wonder why he had a BJ under the white house desk.

Are we, as a people, really so short sighted that we can no longer predict ones behavior based on clues given during candidacy? If you don't like ones behavior in the white house... VOTE during the next election.

The current political system has been corrupted by money. Our founding fathers never foresaw the damage it causes in our system of checks and balances. If you want better candidates, then vote for political reform and control the special interest influence.
-Paul R. Haller-

 

The real victim in the Schiavo case was the poor family doc who was sued for $7M. The coroner concluded that there never was any evidence that she died of an eating disorder, so the doc didn't miss anything. The eventual settlement was to take care of her medical needs for the decades she was expected to live. Once the check cleared, the husband decided that it was better to pull the plug.

Since the doc didn't have $7M in cash or coverage, the plaintiff eventually settled for $2M.

To be completely fair, the husband did wait until the settlement was final and an appropriate time had elapsed before moving her to hospice, which was a free service and wouldn't erode the $2M any more than it had been. That was when he realized that she no longer wanted to be kept alive as had been said during the trial and she needed to exercise her right to die.

And die she did, but I don't think the malpractice insurance company was given a refund.

You are right. It is about the hypocrisy.

 

Just to set the history straight: Greece was never a unified empire. It was a collection of squabbling city-states that fought too many wars, not too few. Greece's golden age came to an end with a 30-year war between Athens and Sparta that left both states (and their allies) too weakened to effectively oppose the rising power of Macedonia a couple of generations later. Rome and its direct successor, Byzantium, were major world powers for over 1300 years, from (at least) the first Punic War in 264 B.C. to the battle of Manzikert in 1071 A.D. Since this is a longer time as a major power than any other political entity, ever, the real question isn't what went wrong - it's how did they manage for so long? (I suspect we would not want to engage in certain Roman practices. The Romans were shockingly brutal.)

 

Can't think of any good reasons why Bush shouldn't be impeached. Clinton was impeached for lying about having sex in the White House. Bush has started a war in Iraq based on false premises where our children have been dying. That should be grounds for a real impeachment, unlike the unrelenting persecution of Clinton by the Republican right wing on any grounds that they could find.

There's a bunch of other stuff that can be held against Bush, like attempting to regulate everyone and everything while claiming to be a conservative. And spending us into incredible debt while claiming to be of the party of small government. And giving unecessary tax breaks to the rich, while laying the bill on the middle class. But I see the Iraq war as a real crime that requires impeachment. Of course, it won't happen when his party owns the congress (and the Supreme Court as well, apparently).

-Roger

 

In other words, Bush really ought to be impeached for giving us a repeat of the Reagan administration.

 

Athens was the center of what we think of as high Greek culture. Sparta didn't value thought and reason as much as Athens did and flattened them. I didn't split Athens out because most folks don't appreciate such details. Rome's economic model was fundamentally flawed. It was based on plunder and slaves in place of productivity. They finally had too many mouths to feed and no more lands to plunder. Holding what they had also drained them.

The Greeks had basically the same problem economy as the Romans. Cheap slave labor prevented technological development. So Greece would have fallen the same way the Romans eventually did.

The Romans were brutal, but they knew how to party. The Greeks too.

I think the Chinese beat the Romans for duration, but the Mongols were in there, too. But they are getting ready to try it again the way things look.

 

Soon, thank goodness, Bush will be the lamest of ducks. Today I read he wants to "restructure" the tax code" next. Hold on to your hat!

Can't wait to see what Mr. Fitzgerald has for us.

 

First off, let me say that it would be damned near impossible for me to list all the reasons why I can't stand President Bush. Most of the time when I have discussions about this, I don't even know where to start. My general response is "pick a subject", and then I can state where I think the President has gone wrong. I'm not even very partisan, I admit I'm left of center, but I'm no progressive, and may even lean a bit to the right when it comes to economic polices. I may only agree with about 10-20 percent of everthing this president has done, and I can't stand his personal style and swagger (and uggh, his speech patterns, may be the worst public speaker ever).

That being said, I'm terrified of him getting impeached. What is that you say..
If we go down this path where each party finds a reason to impeach the other party's president, we will take another step towards an internal political implosion which has doomed many a nation in the past. The process is WAY to party oriented as is, and I'm really afraid things could get much worse.

If president Bush obviously did something worthy of impeachment, like a treasonous act, lying under oath to congress about affiars of state, disclosing the name of an undercover agent (oops, I guess that counts as treason), etc, then sure, the letter of the law should be followed and he should be impeached. But he shouldn't be impeached because he made a bad judgement call about Iraq, and it was a whopper of a bad call, maybe bordering on lying, but could be more reasonably described as seeing the data with blinders on.

So after all this, I still must say, g-d damned it! Three more years of this SOB, why, why, why!

Cosmo

 

[Broken External Image]:http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/images/20050808-6_g8o1217-515h.jpg

A picture is worth a thousand words. (Of course, this picture might be worth $3000+ if you buy a Prius in '06... which is what led this conservative to check out this website in the first place...)

As far as why he shouldn't be impeached, my guess is because he is unlikely to be convicted of treason, bribery, or any other high crime or misdemeanor. (article 2, section 4)... Always a good idea to read the constitution!