Convicting Bush and removing from office would be nearly impossible

[WI_DEM]

Impeachment is possible (I think it takes a mere majority of the House), but convicting Bush and actually removing him from office would be nearly impossible, I think. Would every Democrat in the Senate vote for conviction? maybe, but then maybe not. Would Lieberman, the independent? or more conservative democrats like Salazar, Landreau or Nelson of NE? Assuming all of them would vote to convict Bush, it takes 2/3rd of the Senate to do so and remove him from office. Where would we pick up the other 14 or 15 votes on the GOP side? The Maine two, maybe, but not for sure. Specter? Then who?

I'm not saying we shouldn't try and it would bring his crimes out in the open--but to actually remove him from office I think would be difficult--unless he gets to be so much of a liability that the Republicans will want to remove him? and then what? they have Cheney as president? I doubt they would vote to remove both Bush and Cheney.

[The Count]

1. But nudging him into resigning would be a trifle! (not really made of steel,

Little Boots)

[kentuck]

4. If a dozen Repub Senators gave him the word..

he would have no choice... And if he wants to conitnue this war, he will need their support and they will have no appetite to support Bush's war any longer...

[LSparkle]

10. As '08 looms, I think there will be more and more of them

who will be jumping ship, and although they may not care about this COUNTRY, they care enough about the future of their PARTY to go to RatBastard and tell him to resign for the sake of the Rethugs. As more and more evidence comes out that he's incompetent, inflexible, deaf to the voices of our citizens, etc., etc., his fellow partisans will have no choice but to save their own skins and throw him (and Darth) under the bus. (Or at least I can hope that will be the case.)

[rock]

2. Hey even if the Senate convicted him

He might veto it. Or maybe even make it ineffectual with a signing statement!

[WI_DEM]

3. that's not how it works, if he is impeached and convicted he can't veto it.

[rock]

9. You know the law but you don't know bush*

[tcfrogs]

5. So then the question becomes

Is introducing articles of impeachement a worthwhile exercise?

[Old and In the Way]

6. Who cares?

Those that elect not to convict can explain it to their constituents. The point is we, as a country, ought to go on record that the actions of this administration deserve investigation and a bill of impeachment, if the evidence warrants. That is what is important. Avoiding the question only serves to signal future boy-kings that we, as a country, will tolerate criminal violation of our Constitution and that those crimes are acceptable behaviour. History will label the American public as unindicted co-conspirators in this administration's actions if we do not make the effort to hold them accountable.

[WI_DEM]

8. as I said it should not defer us from trying, but if most people think

that impeachment will definitely lead to Bush's being removed from office, they may be mistaken.

[tcfrogs]

11. A major misconception at DU, I'm afraid

For whatever reason, a lot of posters here seem to believe that impeachment will mean removal from office. That's hardly the case, as you mentioned in your original post. There's that pesky matter of the trial in the Senate.

[AndyA]

13. I think the above statement just about says it all.

We must do whatever is necessary to uphold the laws of the land and the Constitution. To do anything less is encouraging similar behavior in the future. If we don't want our kids and future generations to grow up under a dictatorship, we need to take action now.

[Vincardog]

7. Why don't we see where the votes line up AFTER OPEN COMPLETE HEARINGS?

Let the Democrats take control next month.
Let the committees have televised hearings of all the lies corruption and thieving that has defined the NeoConvicts reign of terror.
LEt every sordid detail of their crimes against Humanity and Nature be placed on public display.

Then Let those who want to side with their evil stand up and be counted.

Then let the 2008 elections be conducted on paper ballots.

We will see who wants to lay down with these dogs.

[kenny blankenship]

12. Eventually Bush could push the Republicans to the point where

they are more anxious to impeach and convict his ass than we are.
He's chaining them as his party to "doubling down" in Iraq, just after the people have clearly shown they want our policy to head in the other direction--out of Iraq. The Repukes are smarting from 2006 but they have to be terrified right now about what 2008 may hold for them. They need this war to be over in the worst way. Bush's approach to the ISG and any of the loss-cutting goals it represents is to run right over them. Democrats can't change the policy in Iraq, they can only defund the war or impeach Bush. Either one of those options is a Constitutional crisis and holds potentially horrific, impossible to predict political risks for them. So basically Bush is saying, I FUCKING DARE YOU. You can give me what I want--all of it and it's going to be MORE than before-- or you impeach and remove me. He pretends to be interested in what the ISG report has to say, he pretends to be interested in what the voters had to say last month, but basically he's mocking everyone.
The GOP is strapped to this madman even more tightly than we are, and if the public reacts with fury and outrage to Bush's new moves or his intransigence (that may be a redundancy on my part), the reaction is going to aim at the GOP's heads first.



So the Republicans in the Senate may find themselves with a large and growing incentive to express their abhorrence for him by going along with a conviction. This showdown over Iraq War policy will be happening with a steady drumbeat in the background of investigations of corruption, fatal incompetence, and other offenses of Bush's Administration that merely accompany his major impeachable offenses. I think we all can agree that there's no end to the scandalous headline material that Democratically lead committees can dig up on the Bush Administration. He's at 30% now, I don't think he's going to have many friends on the Republican side of the Senate when investigations start churning up new testimony on Katrina, on the fraudulent rationales for the Iraq war, and the massive corruption set loose during the "reconstruction phase" of the war.

[Cleita]

14. It would have to be an inside the party job, but it is possible if

enough Republicans wake up and realize that the Bush administration is destroying their party, not to mention our whole country. It will be up to them to put the screws to the neo-cons to leave office like they did Nixon's crowd.

I personally, though, would like to seem them prosecuted and put in prison, and that means every one andlast PNAC signatory. I don't want to see them erupting in later administrations in public offices like the Nixon/Reagan cabal has in this administration.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

15. Not sure we have to have all these

things to get the message across to D.C. GWB won't change a thing, especially about Iraq on his own. Impeaching him is the only way ot affect some amount of change, no matter how small, on foreign ploicy. Or foreign policy, if you will :)
So I say, Impeach, impeach, impeach........ :)