Reid says he won't support Bush impeachment ...wants good government

This tidbit buried about 3/4's of the way through this article:

On other issues, Reid said:

-He wouldn't support any move to impeach President Bush - who has been a target of harsh criticism from Reid. "I think that should be a last resort," Reid said, adding, "I'm certainly not interested in impeachment. I'm interested in good government."

-The guilty plea Tuesday by embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff to federal charges of conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud is "indicative of the corruption that has taken place in Washington, D.C. ... Lobbyists have too much power, and I'm going to try to do something about it."

Republican operatives have tried to link Reid and other top Democrats to Abramoff, but Reid said, "I don't know him. I don't want to know him. I know nothing about it other than what I read in the newspaper. ... This is a Republican scandal."

story here...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2006/jan/03/010310016.html

you can't have one without the other.

Reid's position makes me wonder ...both he and the Prez say they never met Abramoff ...

"I don't know him (Abramoff). I don't want to know him." Why the second one? Sounds like an unintentional admission.

...Despite using the ENRON jet for his 2000 campaign and a series of letters personally addressed to "George" as opposed to "Governor Bush".

Good government begins with a President who is not above the law. Does Reid remember Clinton by crimminy?

Harry's just trying to look like a concerned patriot, as if he wants to give Bush every chance to succeed. I think Reid would be at the head of the lynch mob should the opportunity arise.

cause I could have sworn we've seen "opportunties" aplently already

...and he was successful.

what his stance is on this after further investigations, and after the elections this fall.

Olafr

Impeachment IS the last resort.

And it AIN'T up to a senator, folks. It gets done in the House.

He said it should be a "last resort". It was a good statement, IMO. Nothing to attack with that one.

Let's face it, most of the country still doesn't want the disruption of an impeachment. Reid is clearly leaving his options open though if things change. So it was a smart statement.

rolling Reid will be onboard. or maybe he wont be. I dont know if we have an opposition party or not.

Bush will be out of office well before they get their ducks in a row.

'nuf said.

i've Learned to trust harry.

He should not make such an open-and-shut statement, and it's disingenuous of him to suggest that impeachment and good government are mutually exclusive.

It means "not right now, but yes if things develop the right way." Bush said war in Iraq would be a last resort. And the war came.

And he didn't say they were exclusive. He said good government was his first priority, and would only consider impeachment in service of good government. Another good line. He knows what he's doing.

He's parsing and you're buying in. I would happily--nay, ecstatically--be proven wrong but the cynic in me doubts it'll happen. :(

House holds the impeachment hearings and if they approve the senate needs 3/5 vote in order to toss the guy out of office. It's very unlikely that we would have 60 votes to get rid of Bush - hell I don't even think we'll have the majority in the senate after 2006.

I watched the Clinton impeachments and there were two very powerful things that came out of it. First - American didn't care about the impeachment and it showed in the 1998 elections when Democrats made signficant gains in both the house & senate. Sure, the 'crime' that Clinton committed was a joke compared to what Bush is doing but our Congress is so divided that it would be nearly impossible to get the votes needed to actually remove Bush from the White House. And even if we could then we would be stuck with Dick Cheney who is essentially running this government anyways.

The other thing was the fact that NOTHING ELSE happened during the impeachment hearings. Republicans pretty much put everything on the backburner in hopes of getting the votes needed to remove Clinton from the White House. The last thing I want is the war, healthcare, education, environment, election reform, government reform and a host of other very important issues be put on the backburner while we go through the motions of impeaching Bush but never getting him out of office.

Unless we can get 10-12 Republican Senators come out and openly committ to voting to impeach & remove Bush from the White House then I have to agree with Harry Reid on this one. I'd rather vote to have our soldiers removed from Iraq before I worry about Bush!

If we get a majority of one vote in 2006, I'd rather see him impeached REGARDLESS of whether or not he ends up being convicted.

If we DON'T get back the majority, then we at least need to bring up an impeachment charge against him and see where it goes. It'll at least become part of his history and part of his legacy that an impeachment attempt was made upon him.

Call it anything you want...poetic justice, a blemish on his resume, revenge, whatever....Bush MUST be impeached!

Reid is trying to take the 'high road'.. don't come out foaming for impeachment...

but when the time comes... he'll support it..

"Please don't throw me in the briar patch"...

You don't want to call for blood until you know you're going to get any. He's going to keep impeachment off in the realm of "last resort" until he sees if he's going to get a House/Senate that will give him an impeachment.

Look, guys.

With Harry's playing, we won the nuclear standoff, we won Miers, we won ANWR, we won Social Security. How many victories in a row do we need before we see he's a smart player? He's not a screeching head. We have AAR for that. He's a savvy player, and that's what we want in the Senate.

The Senate tries the impeachments. We need the investigations first.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues/472476

And prudent, in my opinion. There hasn't been an investigation specifically into Bush's misdeeds, and while Republicans were flying off the handle as early as two seconds after Clinton's inauguration about impeachment, don't forget that none of the charges against Clinton got even a majority vote, let alone the two-thirds majority needed.

If Reid wants Bush out, and I think he really does, he knows that he has to go about it step by step. In his position as the Senate Minority Leader, he doesn’t have the clout to get the GOP-controlled House to do his bidding in drafting articles of chimpeachment. But reinforcing the call to get to the bottom of all this is a good move, because it puts the onus on the GOP to get off its dead and dying ass and do something about the maniac in the White House.

From bad to worse.

First, nothing about impeachment will even be considered unless the democrats get the majority in the house. And even if we got the majority that means we would probably spend the bulk of the next couple of years trying to get rid of Bush & Cheney while holding up the debates about how to end the war in Iraq.

politically I mean.

...

Harry Reid is going after bigger fish than the president. His goal is good government. And Bush is not the only player who is corrupt. You have to tackle corruption at its roots - and Bush is not the root - he is the symptom - not the cause.

If it wasn't Bush - it would be some other.....and as long as big money holds the eyes and ears of government officials via lobbyists - there will always be a Bush.

Harry is going after the roots of corporatism and I applaud him for that.

Reid is out to lunch on this one.

Im so sick of this shit.

might be sucking up to Bush for some bizarre reason connected the Abramoff issues ...good, bad or ugly ...I don't know. He's not a stupid man ...

nm

Cheney? :shrug:

Plus, we all know that when you impeach a president it doesn't necessarily mean that the guy is booted out of office. Hell that was only 8 years ago when we learned that lesson. If anything, the whole impeachment trial led to a decrease in republican popularity and the democrats started to make gains with new seats in the house & senate.

At this point what we need is a strong leader like Reid who will lead our senate in nullifying most of the crap that the Bush regime sends are way and the best way we can do that is by getting a democratic majority. Then once we have the majority our very first order is to end this war. Impeachment will only waste time for more important things like a deadline for the war, investigation into these horrible breaches against the constitution, rescinding the Patriot act & tax laws and finally keeping our judicial system in balance.

When Clinton was getting impeached NOTHING ELSE WAS DONE. I think what Reid is trying to say is we have more important things to do

Impeachment isn't going to happen anyway. This is a non-issue.

it's hard to know what Reid's real view of impeachment is right now ... sometimes, it's best to "go for it" and announce you're going for it right from the start ... and sometimes it's better to let the pressure build up gradually and then strike after your opponent has been weakened as much as possible ...

perhaps Reid really has no interest in impeachment; perhaps he sees the risk in calling for impeachment too soon ... bush is drowning in scandals ... he's already a weakened lame duck and will only get weaker ... maybe Reid is just waiting for the right time; maybe not ... bush has broken the law and should be impeached ... perhaps Reid is playing politics and thinks a weakened bush will help Democrats more than a bush replacement would ...

fwiw, here's a scene from "All the President's Men" in which Deep Throat is chastising Woodward for "overreaching" and publishing accusations he could not support (yet) ...

I am SICK of excuses NOT to DO THE RIGHT THING and from my own damn party!

It is time, NOW! I just finished writing to my own state Senator about this. The scandals are too great and IMO, THIS congress and THIS administration are THE most corrupt in history. Go back all the way to the very beginning and as far as I'm concerned there was no other that devalued our Constitution, Bill of Rights and almost every other law, act, or institution we have EVER created. They have attacked EVERYTHING we stand for.

Reid deserves to hear from his pissed off constituents in LARGE numbers. I can't BELIEVE what these people are willing to put up with!

involved in Abramoff scandal, or they have "something else" on him.

If NOT NOW (IMPEACHMENT)...WHEN?