So the surge is working, eh? Fine-Then Bush Should Be Impeached.

[kpete]

So the surge is working, eh?

..............................

But let’s forget all that, and, just for the sake of discussion, assume Little Bush has achieved something worthwhile in Iraq during 2007. Shouldn’t he be recognized for his achievement?

No. He should be impeached.

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If the surge is working, Bush should be impeached precisely for the reason that it is working. This is a president who was told by at least two top generals in the military that he would need additional forces in Iraq in order to succeed in his objectives. Notice that they were not saying that the war was immoral or even a bad policy choice. They were simply arguing that to effectively achieve the political objectives Bush was pursuing, he would, in their professional opinion, need a much greater level of force presence. Notice that the same president who today incessantly hides behind the supposed force requirements of his generals, falsely claiming to defer to their military judgement, not only disastrously failed to adhere to this advice in 2003, but went so far as to cashier these career officials out of the military and destroy their careers instead in order to send a warning to anyone else stupid enough to be so candid.

Okay, so he’s a liar and a hypocrite. That ain’t exactly headline news. But here’s the larger point: If the surge is working, it would have worked a lot better had Bush listened to Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki and others back at the beginning. The fact that he did not demonstrates gross misjudgement which quite likely has meant the difference between a stupid and ill-advised war that might have ended quickly and relatively painlessly, on the one hand, versus a stupid and ill-advised war that will probably never end and has taken over a million lives so far, on the other. However ironic it certainly is, it is nevertheless indisputable that the very ‘success’ of the ‘surge’, such as it is, is therefore actually an indictment of Bush. It proves how dangerously wrong he was when he rejected precisely this advice even before the war was launched. The results of that failure of judgement have been astronomically huge and catastrophically disastrous. Anyone guilty of such egregious errors has no business being commander-in-chief, his slimy fingers gripping the nuclear trigger. If the surge is a success, Bush should be impeached for gross incompetence.

But he should also be impeached for gross negligence. We know from the Downing Street Memos that the British were stunned and amazed (and deeply concerned – rightly so, as it turned out) to learn in the months before the invasion that the Bush administration had no plans whatsoever for what to do after the land war was completed and the occupation began. No wonder they were apoplectic! Blair rightly realized that nothing less than his premiership and his place in his history was held in the hands of this bungling moron who couldn’t be bothered to plan for the management of a country he was sure to be owning very shortly. So down went Blair, as has just about every government associated with this debacle since the invasion, the Polish and the Australian ones being just the latest examples. Of the fourteen governments foolish enough to climb into bed with the Boy King in 2003, today only two remain in power today. After those, just one more is left to go down, and if American voters aren’t fully as dumb as a bag of hammers sitting out in the pouring rain, then this one will go as well next November.

I mean, good lord. This is a president who dressed up like a flyboy in order to declare the war was over before the fighting had really even begun. Leave aside that these same folks who love to wrap themselves in bogus concern for the troops forced the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln to wait an extra day to get home in order for to get his photo-op. And leave aside that Rove tried to blame the military (you know, the folks they’re always so concerned about) for the “Mission Accomplished” banner hanging off the carrier when it became an unshakeable albatross pointing out their hubris and stupidity. And you can even leave aside as well that the guy who led America to war in the heart of Mesopotamia was, by his own admission, a ‘gentlemen’s C’ student, and didn’t know that there was such a thing as Sunni and Shiite Muslims only two months before the war began. Even forgetting all that, if a commander-in-chief is such a boob-in-chief that he can’t figure out the difference between the beginning and the ending of a war, isn’t that alone grounds for impeachment? Now that he’s wrecked the Army and Marines, do we have to wait for him to sink the Pacific Fleet as well, and then declare victory over... jellyfish? If he drives us all into debtor’s prison and declares “mission accomplished” because we inmates no longer have to pay any bills, will that be victory enough to end this nightmare?

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Can you imagine what conservatives would have done to this guy if his name was Bill Clinton?

more at:
http://www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/The_Surge_Is_Working.html

[Demeter]

1. Stupidity, Arrogance, and Acting Like You're All-Seeing

isn't impeachable (unless you have a Congress out for blood--like for Bill Clinton's blood, remember?)

But real live crime? That's unassailably impeachable, and Congress would have to impeach--just as they were going to do for Nixon, which is how the GOP leadership convinced him to resign.

So here we are: Congress too "nice" or maybe too scared to impeach; courts and Justice department bending backwards to conceal and dispose of criminal complaints and evidence and witnesses.

Hell of a place to be, no?




Edited to add the second "o" in "too"

[SharkSquid]

2. Ummmmm I appreciate your enthusiasm

But your attempt to be creative and clever with a turnabout argument has no clothes:

"Anyone guilty of such egregious errors has no business being commander-in-chief, his slimy fingers gripping the nuclear trigger. If the surge is a success, Bush should be impeached for gross incompetence."

"gross incompetence" is not grounds for impeachement, high crimes and misdemeanors are.



"if a commander-in-chief is such a boob-in-chief that he can’t figure out the difference between the beginning and the ending of a war, isn’t that alone grounds for impeachment?"

Nope it is not.

"Can you imagine what conservatives would have done to this guy if his name was Bill Clinton?"
Not impeach him, (unless it was for perjury).


There are plenty of other arguments for impeachment, this one hold no water.