Should the Senate have removed Bill Clinton so we could remove George Bush?

[TahitiNut]

Poll question: Should the Senate have removed Bill Clinton so we could remove George Bush?

One of the more oft-cited reasons I've seen for impeachment being "off the table" is the apparently foreseeable political harm it would do to the Democratic Party (what ever that is that would be 'harmed') to attempt to impeach Cheney/Bush and fail in the Senate.

I'm personally in awe of those with such perfect crystal balls. Indeed, I have to wonder how the Republicans didn't have them when they impeached Clinton. After all, isn't the GOP chock FULL of 'pragmatists' without principle? Aren't they the experts in pragmatic advantage in abandoning principle? What happened to their perfect foresight - the foresight all pragmatists must have to KNOW that they'll benefit from an action that ignores principle in favor of advantage.

So, why weren't those crystal balls working in the Democratic Senate? Why didn't the Democrats vote to remove Clinton?

I'm sure the DUers who can predict these things so perfectly must've known then that removing Clinton would have made it possible to impeach and remove Clinton ... so, wouldn't that have been worth it?

How many lives have been lost by not impeaching Clinton?

[endarkenment]

1. No. Clinton lied about a blowjob. nt.

[TahitiNut]

6. Who cares? The House impeached him.

It's about pragmatism ... NOT about the principled basis for impeachment. Are we saying the GOP isn't pragmatic? Didn't they KNOW that the Senate wouldn't vote to remove him? Didn't they KNOW that impeaching him would lose them the House, the Senate, and the Presidency? (Ooops! It didn't. Go figure.)

[endarkenment]

8. Sorry but it is about due process and justice.

The calculated political witch hunt against Clinton that started with a real estate scandal that went nowhere, wrapped itself around the supposed purge of the white house travel agency that also went nowhere, considered (absurdly) for a while murder charges against hilary clinton regarding the suicide of vince foster, and then settled down to a classic honeypot sting that netted bill on not fessing up to a blowjob was not something that our party, with some odd foresight ought to have agreed go along with so that they would in the future have the moral authority to demand a bi-partisan effort to remove the current sitting president for real crimes obviously committed, crimes that have hurt and perhaps wrecked our republic.

That the republican party appears to not have any sitting members of congress with the integrety to oppose the cabal is not something we could or should have 'fixed' by going along with the shennanigans from persecution of bill clinton.

[TahitiNut]

9. If it were the principles of "about due process and justice" then nobody would object to impeaching

... Cheney/Bush. But we have a HUGH!1! number of folks on DU who say it's about pragmatism and the Democrats holding power and not pissing off people who support Cheney/Bush.

Pragmatic. That's what I hear folks saying.

Are we saying that it wouldn't be worth having Gore be President in order to get the quid pro quo of the GOP today in empeaching Cheney/Bush? After all, what's worth more ... pragmatically, that is.


Caveat: I'm not real good at this 'pragmatism' thing - where it's the opposite of what I think the "right thing" is. Even at 63 years old, I figure more people support the "right thing" than pragmatism. But that's just me.

[Catherine Vincent]

2. Hell no!

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Refuse to answer except to say

not in the poll

The Senate did not have the votes, just like we DON'T have the votes

[mmonk]

4. No.

Lying about an affair under oath isn't political.

[porphyrian]

5. The two aren't connected at all.

The Clinton witch hunt impeachment was a last desperate attempt to make something stick years and billions of dollars after republicants tried to get him for a shady real estate venture.

The current administration has been committing crimes left and right in everyone's face an no one is doing anything about it (with a few exceptions). There is no better example of what our Founding Fathers meant impeachment for than the current administration. Balking at this point is just fucking stupid and arguably criminal itself.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. "Pragmatic politics" is like the Mafia saying it's "just business".

Frequently with similar results on a larger scale.