Okay...
With the Occupation of Iraq continuing and the body count rising...
With the outing of a CIA operative under his watch...
With the government's response to two of the worst natural disasters the Gulf Coast has ever seen...
Is it any wonder why this country is losing its confidence in its leadership? Not only confidence, but the public trust.
Let me state that again. The public trust.
Not only is Shrub's popularity count down in the mid to low 30s, but his trustworthiness ratings have gone past the toilet, and are now on their way to the wastewater treatment plant.
Here's a man who acted on what he told us, in hindsight, was faulty intelligence about WMDs. Okay, we went in with that belief, all right, we can sort of get behind that. What? There are none? And now we're there to oust the country's leader for no real apparent reason? Hold the phone...
Anyone else out there think that our Leadless Fuhrers decided to go in there with this as the ulterior motive, and that the "WMDs" were a ruse?
Isn't this grounds for impeachment?
Let's do some comparison here...

Shrub has sent probably 80% of our military into Iraq and Afghanistan with not a lot of really good tangible results for the original reasons to be there. The death tolls, just from Iraq alone, are approaching 2100 men and women. No credible links to terrorism, and none of the biggies from Al Qaeda have been captured there, if I recall. We've ousted a country's leader, and pushed democracy in its place, but are meeting heavy resistance from insurgents, which is pushing both the military and civilian casualty rates through the roof. And what would we get out of it? Maybe a nickel off a gallon of gas, if we're lucky. Empire building at its finest, headed up by a man who's trying to fill Daddy's shoes... and probably has Daddy's hand stuck up his backside like a crazed ventriloquist's dummy.
Grounds for impeachment? He acted upon intelligence that he thought was good at the start, but turned out to be false, at least that's what he's told us. Did he know it was false in the beginning? Perhaps. In this case, the investigation is definitely worthwhile, and let's see if it's grounds for an impeachment hearing.
Will he get impeached? We'll see...


The last POTUS to be impeached was William Jefferson Clinton. Main reason? He got his knob shined.

Comparison: Rising death toll in a land where our popularity has more swinging than an elementary school playground at recess, based on intel he probably knew was bad intel.
Versus: A man who used a cigar as a Presidential Aid.

Y'know... looking at it like this, might as well impeach Shrub too, because like with the last one, someone's getting fucked...

From: [identity profile] stillking.livejournal.com

(history of) presidential scandals


[Skip 1974's Watergate here, but I will return to it much further below]

1980 -- Ronald Reagan assumes office, lauded as 'the Great Communicator' despite possibly grappling with senile-onset Alzheimers from the very beginning of his first term. Powerful anti-Communist sentiment (coupled with action), paradoxically coupled with repeated arms/vehicular sales to Nicaraguans, Guatemalans, Iraqis and Mojahedin. (The most (in)famous of these came to be known as Irangate.)

1988 -- George Herbert Walker Bush assumes office. Largely branded as a "wimp" and ineffectual speaker, despite several brilliant late-term speeches. Economy suffers during this presidency, possibly due to Reaganomics backlash. Bush is implicated in no 'scandal' of which I am aware, besides playing tennis throughout his 8-hr Acting Presidency during which surgeons were removing .22 bullets from Reagan's thorassic cavity. Ironically, Bush 41's most lasting present-day criticism is for liberating Kuwait BUT LETTING THE IRAQI (HUSSEIN) ADMINISTRATION REMAIN IN POWER; this will have unforeseen consequences when George Walker Bush (Bush 43) assumes the presidency in 2000.

1992 -- William Jefferson Clinton assumes office. Numerous marital infidelities surface, some publicized (Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky), others settled quietly (Gennifer Flowers, Elizabeth Gracen); these do not sway the American people _until_ affadavits of uncertain truthfulness are submitted before a grand jury, leading to perjury/impeachment proceedings. Fiscal malfeasance of uncertain scope are discovered (Whitewater realty ventures, bailed/bought out by a false-front company using Arkansan state funds)... this scandal caused at least one suicide (Vincent Foster). Although less publicized, some 'damage' was dealt to the traditional executive-legislative-judicial system during Clinton's presidency, most notably the line-item veto and independent-counsel statutes.

2000 -- George Walker Bush assumes office. Some mid-grade pocket-lining is suspected here (chiefly concerning the Halliburton Corporation and big-oil money); additionally, the second-generation Iraqi war garners much less support than its 1990 predecessor, though no 'scandal' per se is attached to this UNTIL the Valerie Plame/Wilson CIA leak, which seems to stem from an internal memo/effort to smearing and discredit outspoken war critic Joseph Wilson. Joseph Wilson's (seemingly-substantiated) material may prove that Bush's 2002 "Saddam Hussein is purchasing uranium in Africa" was inaccurate and/or falsified, making this a (as-yet-unresolved) scandal within a scandal.

----------------------------------------

I went into such detail here because I think it's important to rank these things in order of priority, NOT media attention. If Bush-43 is guilty of sparking international conflict based on incomplete/not-wholly-truthful premises, it is perhaps on par with Reagan's backing of death squads and foreign rebellions; while extremely unethical (to the point of possibly qualifying as a 'war crime'), I don't believe this threatens individual credibility on the same scale as, say, domestic embezzlement or repeated untruthfulness under oath.

Further, all three of these scandals are (IMHO) light-years more egregious than Nixon's staff pilfering through a rival's campaign materials, though the Plame/Wilson fiasco comes closest. Based on precedent and comparisons above, I do not believe such involvement merits impeachment -- unless G.W. stands before a grand jury and issues false testimony in the next 30-60 days, which (assuming he has competent legal counsel) he is unlikely to do.

-- Sven
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