Rep. Murtha Proves Impeachment is About Criminalizing Conservatism
Listening to the far-left’s cries for impeachment one can seriously believe that the United States has become akin to fascist Germany. They seriously believe people are being rounded up in the middle of the night because they “spoke out”. Never mind not one single example can be mentioned.
Today the California Democratic Party passed a resolution calling for impeachment. This is significant because the California Democratic Party is no small organization.
The unfortunate thing is, many claims they make for Bush’s “crimes” are either not crimes or not true. While I’d prefer my elected leaders to not lie to me, there is nothing illegal about it. That, and whether or not he used false information, the fact that he was wrong does not prove he lied. In fact, if one actually reads the Downing Street Memo, they’d realize Bush genuinely believed the information he used. Being wrong is not a crime.
Further, “disclosing the name of an undercover CIA operative” is simply not true. First, undercover CIA operatives do not work at Langley… ever. However, more importantly, the facts have shown that it was Richard Armitage that leaked the name, not Bush.
Lastly, there is the issue of “signing statements” that are “used to ignore or circumvent portions of over 750 Congressional statutes.” Read the Constitution, the President is the chief law enforcer in the state and checks and balances allow him the leeway into how he applies the law. There is certainly on crime there.
While we can all find things we disagree with Bush about, impeachment is no small matter nor a political club to beat others with. When Clinton was impeached at least there was a crime involved (perjury), and at best all one could say was that it was a small crime that was “just about sex.” In this case, there are no real crimes involved at all.
Yesterday, Representative John Murtha had a rare moment of honest and told America what the impeachment drive is about. On CBS, Murtha said “What I’m saying, there’s four ways to influence a President. And one of them’s impeachment”.
The impeachment drive was never about the Geneva Conventions, the war, or any other supposed crime. It is about criminalizing conservatism, or more appropriate, criminalizing any idea not accepted by Democrats. Even a very flexible reading of the Constitution requires the President to be impeached for “high crimes and misdemeanors”. No where is it even remotely suggested that impeachment is even legal in the case of political disagreement or unpopular policies. In fact, likely such an impeachment, if it occurred, would be overturned in the courts on just those grounds.
The party of “hate crimes” and “speech codes” has always sought to bring the law to bear to provide outside pressure to the debate. Instead of engaging in debate, they engage in threats. It’d be far easier to just ride out the next year and a half and just elect one of their own to the office instead. That is the democratic way, after all.
Impeachment talk began roughly on inauguration day in 2001 and it hasn’t stopped then. While Bush has certainly given them plenty of PR fumbles for the left to beat him up with, they certainly don’t rise to the level of impeachment. Since gaining power in Congress, the Democrats have consistently engaged in actions that rape our constitution and enshrine their own power. At least John Murtha is honest about it.
John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.
He is the current owner of BlogSoldiers, a blog-only traffic exchange.
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Posted by John Bambenek on April 30, 2007 1:49 pm
» Filed Under News, Politics As Usual
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15 Responses to “Rep. Murtha Proves Impeachment is About Criminalizing Conservatism”
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Instead of wasting time on impeachment they need to study the effects of salt water and pollution on brain dead people.
Yup you are correct. Murtha must have gotten really
saturated with salt water.
Murtha is a disgrace. These guys are playing politics with the lives of the military and national security.
Were you similarly outraged with the impeachment hearings of Clinton? Of course not. If you honestly believe that nothing this administration has done rises to or exceeds Clinton’s perjury about oral sex, you are a deluded and truth-blinded mope.
Brujo: Maybe had the Republicans not been playing politics with Clinton impeachment hearings and been more focused on terrorism, 9/11 could have been prevented. Are you upset at all thaty Bush, when given a CIA warning on 8/06/01 that Al Queda was determined to strike the United States through the transportation infrastructure, turned to the person who reported this information and said, “Now you’ve covered your ass.” He then returned to his month-long Crawford vacation. Responsible mature leadership, kind of like playing golf the day AFTER Katrina. If you want to debate, we can do that all day long, my friend. Becuase if you are defending this administartion, you will lose any debate to me. You’ll win the lables and hyperbole game; I’ll crush your ass with facts and logic.
Murtha is a former combat veteran, unlike the five-time draft dodger Cheenyand the AWOL national guard Bush, whose daddy mysteriously helped his sone leapfrog dozens of more qualified candidates to enter the guard and avoid Vietnam. I am sure Murtha, a decorated war vteran, is playing politics with the troops. You’re brilliant.
Yup, seems so easy. If you don’t want an Republican in office, make up all sorts of excuses to impeach them.
I think it’s true Bush, Rove and the rest have carefully done things in ways that leave them the defense that they haven’t actually done anything illegal. However the very fact that an administration would be so very careful in making sure that they always have a legal defense is a strong indication they are up to no good. (Remember all those signing statements, Bush has given himself a legal out for just about every bill that had provisions he might not want to obey).
Given that so much corruption and mismanagement has occurred so close to this administration it is completely reasonable to assume that they are in the loop on at least some of this stuff. The alternative is to believe that they are the worst administration ever for having chosen so many crooks or incompetents. I don’t really care whether they are simply incompetent or actually criminals, I just want to be rid of them so this country can get back on track.
What far-left are you talking about. I not even sure there is a medium-left anywhere in congress. Congress is made up of centrists, the right, and the far-right. What you imagine as the right fighting the left, is mostly different factions of conservatives fighting each other. Sure many of these conservatives call themselves Democrats, but they don’t have all that much in common with a real political left if you look at things on a world wide scale.
Watch where you get your facts. Murtha was in bed with John Kerry and another
butthole who caused us to lose the war in Vietnam. He is a coward not matter
how many medals he put himself in. And as far as Bush being AWOL you need to
find out why Dan Rather lost his job reporting false information. If Clinton
had not played chicken he would have gotten Bin Laden and not backed out of Solmia.
If Tony knew anything about the facts he would be dangerous. Yes he is brillian
the shinning example of an idiot.
Where’s your anger at Cheney and Bush for not fighting, let alone volunterring like Kerry, in Vietnam? Dan Rather lost his job because of falsified documents, moron, but the underlying claim was never disproved. Where was your Republican outrage when Bush took office and for nine monthe never one-time mentioned directing attacks against Bin Laden. It took three-thousand dead just to get him to broach the subject and drag him away from My Pet Goat. If Clinton did such a poor job of managing Jihasdist threats, where was the outrage from the Republicans at the 2000 convention; at the debates; and during his first nine months of office. And, it was the Republicans who passed legislattion, yes legislation, demanding Clinton leave Somalia. Mkae your arguments with facts, not name-calling!
And, I am not sure cowards serve in the military. Cowards are those like Cheney who take deferements to avoid military service and then traipse around like Darth Vader.
I think former CIA Director George Tenet would disagree with you on this, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked to Justice Department to investigate.
Tenet ordered an investigation to see if a law was broken… a variety of laws could have been in play that don’t require her to be an undercover operative because undercover operatives don’t work at Langley. But we can play that game two ways…
If she was an undercover operative, someone would have been indicted for outing her… didn’t happen, not undercover.
Just to add to Tony’s facts (correct me if I’m wrong), but it was Republican
Sen. Trent Lott who said that Clinton’s fixation on bin Laden was an obsession,
and that Osama–and Islamic terrorism in general–did not pose much threat to
the U.S. Republicans at the time claimed that Clinton was merely using the
terrorist card to fear-monger and divert attention from Ken Starr’s investigation.
And in response to John: IF it was a crime to out Ms. Plame (who WAS
undercover), it would still fall on the Attorney General to prosecute said
crime. It would take an amazing blaze of denialism to baldly claim that
this Attorney General would ever, at any point, follow through on a case that
would reveal Bush Inc.’s lack of integrity and patriotism.
The attorney general recused himself in the case… nice try.
You had Patrick Fitzgerald who has literally wrecked the Republican Party in Illinois (albeit deservedly) by indicting damn near everyone in the George Ryan administration… surely you don’t think he’s all the sudden a Kool-aid drinking GOPer?
tried to read this for giggles. stopped reading at this part:
“First, undercover CIA operatives do not work at Langley… ever.”
you obviously have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. apparently everything you know about the CIA you either pulled out of your rectum, learned from watching james bond movies, or just parrot from other idiot right-wingers who likewise have no idea what they are talking about.