Dismantling the arguments against impeachment

[babylonsister]

Dismantling the arguments against impeachment
by occams hatchet
Fri Feb 22, 2008 at 03:03:27 PM PST

"I, {name}, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
-- Congressional oath of office




In the flush of excitement after the November 2006 elections, when Democrats had taken control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years and anything seemed possible, there was much discussion in the progressive blogosphere about the tantalizing prospect of finally holding to account the criminals in the BushCheney administration through the use of the constitutional mechanism of impeachment. (This in spite of the fact that incoming House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi had taken impeachment "off the table" half a year earlier.)

To some who had worked so hard to get Democrats elected to Congress, impeachment seemed the most obvious and necessary thing in the world now that BushCo's Republican accomplices were no longer in the way to stop it - a natural process that would follow the administration's criminal misdeeds as surely as night follows day.

Others argued against impeachment. Let's not focus on the past, they said; we need to move our Democratic agenda forward. If Congress spends all its time on impeachment, it won't get anything else done. Besides, they would argue, Republicans will spin it that we're just out for revenge. It will hurt our chances in the 2008 elections. Anyway, we don't have the votes to guarantee success. Not to mention that the Clinton fiasco cheapened impeachment forever in the minds of the public.

The arguments were heated and prolonged. November and December 2006 were interesting months in the blogosphere - and there was nary a candidate diary in sight.

Time passed. Tempers cooled - and so did expectations. The new Democratic Congress was seated in January 2007 amid high hopes. But as the year progressed and most of the bills forming the vanguard of the "Democratic agenda" died slow, ignominious deaths - some cowering in fear of a Republican filibuster or a presidential veto, others mortally wounded at the President's desk, returning to perish on the Senate floor, still others abandoning their earlier brave promises to the electorate by fleeing Capitol Hill altogether, their places taken by Republican-friendly bills that funded the Iraq occupation or enlarged the president's power to illegally surveil, imprison or torture - it became apparent that the hopes of both those who counseled patience on impeachment and those who breathed fire for it were to be dashed. The prognostications of many were to be proven wrong, both those which favored impeachment -

lots more...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/22/173110/544