Impeaching Bush In 2007 [View All]

Cutter's Way - Column by Charles Cutter.

March 31,2005

Richard Nixon, facing impeachment, was forced to resign the presidency in August of 1974 - twenty-one months after a record breaking victory. With nineteen months to work, and following a disputed razor-thin reelection, it's time to focus on the elections of 2006 - and George W. Bush's removal from office in 2007.

What are the odds of pulling it off? Historically, it's a long-shot. Short of death, no American president has ever been removed from office. Andrew Jackson, in 1868, was impeached but acquitted; Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998, acquitted in '99. Mr. Nixon simply saw the writing on the wall and made a quick exit.

The numbers, too, are daunting. Currently there are 232 republican members of the House of Representatives, to 202 Democrats (and one Socialist, Bernard Sanders of Vermont). In the Senate the Republicans hold 55 seats to 44 for the Democrats (with one Democrat-leaning Independent, James Jeffords - also of Vermont). The House requires a simple majority to pass an article of impeachment; the Senate requires a two-thirds majority for conviction.

So it might sound like wishful thinking, or perhaps outright fantasy. But keep in mind - America went from record budget surpluses to record deficits virtually overnight. In less than two years we witnessed what was generally a democracy embrace disturbing elements of fascism.

We are living in a tumultuous era of extreme action and extreme reaction.

How vulnerable is Mr. Bush? Just more than two months into his second term, Bush has put himself on the line twice - regarding Social Security privatization and federal incursion into the Terri Schiavo case. In both instances - thus far - he seems to have miscalculated. There is a growing sense that second-term impotence may be setting in quicker than usual for Mr. Bush.

The challenge, then, is to galvanize Democrats with a singular sense of purpose. The anti-Bush forces need to coalesce around a powerful issue backed up with disturbing images. An issue that could put substantial Democratic majorities into both houses of Congress, that could incite impeachment charges against both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

With, of course, a well-chosen Speaker of the House waiting in the wings to assume presidential duties.

Waging an illegal war should have been a sufficient issue, but too many Americans have already shrugged off this particular atrocity - as John Kerry learned in 2004.

The issue that needs to be driven home to Americans - in a visual and visceral contest - is Mr. Bush's "culture of torture."

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Soaring deficits and the fiscal insanity that created them, an illegal war, lying, gas prices, international opprobrium, and the Bush "culture of torture." Is impeachment our issue in 2006?