Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Ask Mohan about the Market -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David Rosenthal who wrote (17368)	12/12/1998 11:26:00 PM
From: Wildstar	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 18056

Dave, The polls say 60+% of the electorate does not favor impeachment. Bill Clinton was elected by a majority vote and a majority still wants him as President despite the perjury. Isn't there some concern that Congress would be wrong to overturn an election where the electorate has heard all the evidence and does not want to impeach? I believe that Zeev was making a similar point with regard to the polls. I do believe that this is the strongest argument against impeachment. But I don't necessarily agree with it. This all comes back to democracy vs. republic. Since the USA is a republic, we elect our leaders to make decisions for us, such as making laws, declaring war, and even impeaching presidents. I am sure that laws are made when it is "unpopular" to do so. And I know that wars have been fought when the majority of Americans were against them. I think that the Senate is the ultimate jury under the Constitution, not the American people. If the polls are so important, then we should have a popular vote for or against impeachment. But the framers didn't draw up the Constitution that way. And I am not sure you can base such a decision of the polls either. Before the election of 98 the polls showed that the Republicans would do well, or at least a lot better than they ended up doing. Did the polls indicate the real voice of the American people? I wish we could have a more detailed look at the methodology of how the various services conduct the polls. I saw one place where the respondents to the polls are placed in various categories based on race, sex,... and then after tallying up the responses, each category of people is multiplied by a fudge factor to come to the final percentage. That seems pretty dubious to me. When this scandal originally broke the pundits were saying that he had been damaged as a President. Has this been the case? Is he shunned internationally? Has he managed to deal with other issues despite the distractions? In the US, I think that he was pretty damaged as a prez but I think that politically, the Repubs are giving him new life. Internationally, I think that most countries think that the whole deal is ridiculous so I don't think he's damaged in that way either. As far as other issues of state, I think he'll do the same thing he's been doing the last six years - take a poll and go with the majority. One thing I am surprised by is how much I believe Al Gore to be hurt by this. I think that Americans want some kind of punishment short of impeachment and if they don't get it, they'll end up punishing Al Gore. I think that if the Repubs were smart, they would have dropped the whole thing after the Starr report came out and realized it only dealt with Monica. I think that that was the weakest Clinton had been, and if they had just dropped it, Al Gore would have been the one to pay for it in 2000. Wildstar Constitutional scholar -g-