Impeachment idea sparks debate
By Michael Powell
The Washington Post
HOLYOKE, Mass. — To drive through New England's mill towns and curling country roads is to journey into its impeachment belt. Three of this state's 10 House members have called for the investigation and possible impeachment of President Bush.
Thirty miles north, residents in four Vermont villages voted this month at annual town meetings to buy more rock salt, approve school budgets and impeach the president for lying about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and for sanctioning torture.
Window cleaner Ira Clemons stroked his goatee as he considered the question: Would you support your congressman's call to impeach Bush? His smile grew until it looked like a three-quarters moon.
"Why not? The man's been lying from Jump Street on the war in Iraq," Clemons said. "Bush says there were weapons of mass destruction, but there wasn't. Says we had enough soldiers, but we didn't. Says it's not a civil war — but it is.
"I was really upset about 9/11; so don't lie to me."
It would be a considerable overstatement to say the fledgling impeachment movement threatens to topple a presidency; there are only 33 House co-sponsors of a motion by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., to investigate and perhaps impeach Bush, and a large majority of elected Democrats think it is a bad idea.
Web sites lead the way
But talk bubbles up in many parts of the nation, and on the Internet, where several Web sites have led the charge.
"The value of a powerful idea, like impeachment of the president for criminal acts, is that it has a long shelf life and opens a debate," said Bill Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents Guantánamo Bay detainees.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted last month to urge Congress to impeach Bush, as have state Democratic parties, including those of New Mexico, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
A Zogby International poll showed that 51 percent of respondents agreed that Bush should be impeached if he lied about Iraq, a far greater percentage than believed former President Clinton should be impeached during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Democrats remain far from unified. Prominent party leaders — and a large majority of those in Congress — say talk of impeachment and censure reflect the polarization of politics.
"Impeachment is an outlet for anger and frustration, which I share, but politics ain't therapy," said Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts liberal who declined to sign the Conyers resolution.
"Bush would much rather debate impeachment than the disastrous war in Iraq."
The GOP establishment has welcomed the threat. With Bush's approval ratings lower than for any president in recent history and midterm elections in the offing, Republican leaders view impeachment as kerosene poured on the bonfires of their party base.
"The Democrats' plan for 2006?" Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman wrote in a fundraising e-mail Thursday. "Take the House and Senate and impeach the president. With our nation at war, is this the kind of Congress you want?"
The argument for an impeachment inquiry — which draws support from prominent constitutional scholars such as Harvard's Laurence Tribe and former Reagan Deputy Attorney General Bruce Fein — centers on Bush's conduct before and after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
It is argued that Bush and his officials conspired to manufacture evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to persuade Congress to approve the invasion.
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told CBS News' "60 Minutes" that "from the very beginning there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go. ... It was all about finding a way to do it."
And a senior British intelligence official wrote in what is known as the "Downing Street memo" that Bush officials were intent on fixing "the intelligence and the facts ... around the policy."
Critics point to Bush's approval of harsh interrogation of prisoners captured Iraq and Afghanistan, tactics that human-rights groups such as Amnesty International say amount to torture. Bush also authorized warrantless electronic surveillance of telephone calls and e-mail, subjecting possibly thousands of Americans each year to eavesdropping since 2001.
"Bush is saying 'I'm the president' and, on a range of issues — from war to torture to illegal surveillance — 'I can do as I like,' " said Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "This administration needs to be slapped down and held accountable for actions that could change the shape of our democracy."
Tribe wrote Conyers, dismissing Bush's defense of warrantless surveillance as "poppycock." It constituted, Tribe concluded, "as grave an abuse of executive authority as I can recall ever having studied."
Not all liberals agree
However, not all scholars, even of a liberal bent, agree that Bush has committed "high crimes and misdemeanors." His legal advice may be wrong, they said, but still resides within the bounds of reason.
"The Clinton impeachment was plainly unconstitutional, and a Bush impeachment would be nearly as bad," said Cass Sunstein, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago.
"There is a very good argument that the president had it wrong on WMD in Iraq but that he was acting in complete good faith."
In Massachusetts and Vermont, though, the discontent with Bush is palpable. These are states that, per capita, have sent disproportionate numbers of soldiers to Iraq. Many in these middle- and working-class towns are not pleased that so many friends and relatives are coming back wounded or dead.
"He picks and chooses his information and can't admit it's erroneous, and he annoys me," said Colleen Kucinski, walking Aleks, 5, and Gregory, 2, home.
Would she support impeachment? Kucinski nods her head "yes" before the question is finished. "Without a doubt. This is far more serious than Clinton and Monica. This is about life and death. We're fighting a war on his say-so, and it was all wrong."
Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
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