Grotesque Malevolent Koala

This myth is based on the observed net increase in President Clinton's popularity after his own impeachment challenge. President Clinton emerged more popular after his acquittal than he was at the start of the impeachment.

The problem with this idea is that, although it is rooted in an observation of association, the association is mistakenly being seen as a causation.

Let us assume that the person employing this myth genuinely believes it to be true. The obvious logic is that an impeachment automatically causes an increase in popularity. If this logic is true, wouldn't it be reasonable for Republicans to initiate impeachment in order to increase President Bush's popularity?

The absurdity of the proposal illustrates the absurdity of the underlying causal argument.

Why, then, did President Clinton's popularity go up? The prevailing opinion is that, after massive exposure to the televised proceedings, the majority of the public came to believe that the impeachment attempt was little more than a politically-motivated smear-job. The key accusation, after all, was that Clinton was lying about what can reasonably be construed as a personal and private matter with no direct implications regarding his duties as President of the nation.*

Would the same thing happen with respect to President Bush? I don't think so.

The Clinton impeachment was essentially a top-down affair. The newly-dominant Republican majority launched an unfocused investigation based on vague allegations of misconduct in a real estate involving the Clintons ("Whitewater"). The Lewinsky affair turned up after tens of millions of public tax dollars had been spent investigating Whitewater with no substantive results. Evidence of the affair was broadcast widely to the public, who suddenly took intense interest in the proceedings.

The movement to impeach Bush is essentially a bottom-up affair. Many grassroots groups across the nation have been arguing for years that impeachment is deserved for a variety of substantive reasons -- all of which are intimately tied up with the official conduct of members of the executive branch. Several accusations revolve around a failure to uphold the oath of office, which is a much more serious charge than any leveled against Clinton.

It is possible that an impeachment effort would fail. In this worst-case scenario, it is even possible that Bush would emerge vindicated in the mind of the public. I, personally, view this outcome as highly unlikely.

Notably, public demand for impeachment has been growing steadily, despite a relative lack of coverage of the topic in the major media. People are being convinced by evidence that is already readily available online -- it will not require a prolonged and expensive investigation to find a cause, only short and focused efforts to obtain relevant evidence for existing accusations.


SUMMARY:

• It is absurd to believe that the impeachment itself caused the increase in Clinton's popularity. Would Republicans impeach Bush to increase his popularity?
  
• The Clinton impeachment was organized in a top-down manner. The Bush impeachment movement is organized in a bottom-up manner. The current effort is people-driven, not politics-driven.
• An impeachment of Bush requires only narrow investigations into well-defined accusations of wrongdoing, not a wide-spread and costly "fishing expedition" as was seen with Clinton.
  

*As stated elsewhere, while I agree with the sentiment that Clinton's affair was a private matter, I do not agree that lying about it to the public was a legitimate response to the investigation. I supported the effort to impeach Clinton.

Once again, we have an argument that sidesteps the question of whether impeachment is justifiable. It is often used in conjunction with the "more important business" argument discussed in part VI.

First, this argument pre-supposes that an impeachment trial will be a lengthy and drawn-out process. If we look at the history of the Nixon administration's last days, we can see that it is in no way certain that an actual trial would ensue. Nixon, at the urging of Republican leadership, promptly resigned when it became clear that articles of impeachment would pass in the House. If a trial did occur in this case, it would likely be as short as it could reasonably be. It would be in the interests of both Democrats and Republicans to settle the matter as quickly as possible.

Second, this argument hints that a successful impeachment would simply not be worth the time and effort to achieve. I find this stance to be frankly unbelievable. I have difficulty appreciating the mindset that allows one to look at it in this way. Does someone who thinks this way view impeachment as only a means to the end of removing Bush from office? If so, then the idea that it would take longer to impeach than to simply "wait it out" is understandable.

However, I vehemently disagree that impeachment is solely about this administration. As discussed in other posts in this series, there are greater Constitutional issues at stake. Quite simply, the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches has shown a dangerous erosion for some time, but has reached a critical tipping point in recent years. We cannot allow the example of the Bush administration's behavior to become the established precedent for future executives.

Such an established precedent should frighten Americans of any political orientation.

SUMMARY:

• An impeachment trial should not take long, and may not even be necessary.
  
• Impeachment is not merely a means to the end of removing the current administration. There are fundamental Constitutional concerns about the eroded checks-and-balance of a weakening legislative branch.
• Allowing the current administration's example to become established precedent should frighten Americans of any party.
  

This myth is most frequently employed as a softer, gentler version of the argument discussed in part V. Like several other arguments, the user implicitly agrees that impeachment is deserved. The disagreement is the relative priority of pursuing impeachment versus other legislative agendas (e.g. ending the war, healthcare, restoring civil liberties, etc.).

This disagreement over "priority" sneaks in the false choice at the center of this myth. The speaker presumes that it is impossible to pursue any of the other worthy and important goals listed if impeachment is taken up. This is absolutely not true.

First, anyone pursuing these other goals must surely recognize that the current administration will do everything in its power to oppose any progress. Many of these goals stem from problems created by the current leadership! It is silly to expect that any progress can be made towards these other goals while the Bush administration remains in power.

Second, Congress routinely works on many tasks at the same time. Although an impeachment effort might occupy most of the time that key Democratic leaders have in a day, there are many other capable legislators in the Democratic majority that can be organized to tackle these secondary problems.

I do not label such serious problems as "secondary" lightly. As grave as they are, they pale in comparison to the Constitutional crisis currently going on. We plainly have an executive branch that the Founding Fathers would consider to be edging towards tyranny. Many of the same complaints found in the Declaration of Independence are being echoed today in more modern language.

Impeachment is the "safety valve" of our checks and balances, designed to legally and peacefully reign in an executive who refuses to acknowledge the co-equality of the legislative and judiciary branches. We have such an executive now, as evidenced by the frequent use of "signing statements" to undermine passed legislation, claims of "executive privilege" used to deny the information needed by Congress to do its job, and many other infractions.

Put more simply: If the precedent of the Bush administration is allowed to stand -- if the executive branch is allowed to build on this administration's legacy, the power of Congress will have been weakened to the point where it effectively no longer exists. At that point, there is little chance of progress on any other "more important" goals.

SUMMARY:

• The "more important business than impeachment" argument is based on a false choice.
• It seems reasonable to predict that progress cannot be made on other important matters while the current administration holds office.
  
• For our government of the people, by the people, and for the people, there can be no more important business than protecting the Constitution.
  

Of all of the common arguments against impeachment that I've examined so far, this one is by far the one with the least merit.

I've seen and heard it phrased many different ways:

• "Why take away the rope they're using to hang themselves?"
• "Look how well 2006 went for us, 2008 will be even better at this rate!"
• "There's no upside for Democrats in impeachment."

If confronted with this argument, I encourage you to drive straight to the heart of the matter: Any such partisan viewpoint on the matter is exactly the kind of "party before country" mentality that Democrats have been accusing the Republicans of for years. Such accusations have been quite accurate. For a Democrat to adopt such an attitude now is the height of rank hypocrisy, and, as such, should be strongly challenged.

The implications of impeachment go far beyond the immediate concerns of the 2008 election. Arguably, the future of our democracy is at stake.

Does the previous statement seem far-fetched? Then consider this little-known fact about impeachment: Upon successful conviction, the guilty party is not only removed from office, but is barred from ever again holding political office in the future. As it is laid out in our Constitution:

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party, (defendant), convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Bearing that in mind, let's review a little history.

• In 1974, President Nixon resigned when it became clear that a successful impeachment was forthcoming. At the time, Cheney was Nixon's Deputy Assistant to the President.
• Under Gerald Ford, Cheney worked as Assistant to the President and later became Ford's Chief of Staff.
  
• During the Reagan administration, Cheney (then a Congressman) was the ranking minority member on the congressional committee to investigate the Iran-Contra scandal.
• Under the current President, Cheney (as Vice President) created the Office of Special Plans in order to bypass the normal intelligence-assessment process, build the case for the Iraq War, and promote it to the American public through official channels.
  

There are two things that are important to note in this brief tour of history:

• First, the seriousness of the transgressions against our Constitution have become increasingly worse over the last few decades.
• Second, Vice President Cheney has had a long career in government. There is every reason to expect that he will continue to be involved in government for as long as he is able to.
  

Clearly, impeachment matters in the long run even more than the short run. If we are going to halt this steady race to the bottom in terms of Presidential behavior, there is no alternative but to place future executives -- regardless of the party they represent -- on notice that such behavior will not be tolerated. A successful impeachment not only stops the problem now, it helps prevent problems like it in the future.


SUMMARY:

• A Democrat who avoids impeachment on partisan grounds is just as guilty as the Republicans when it comes to putting "party before country".
  
• Impeachment is even more important in the long term than in the short term.
• Impeachment not only removes the guilty party from office, it also prevents that party from ever holding office again.
• The trend over the last few decades suggests that impeachment is the only option for putting a stop to increasingly egregious executive branch abuses.
  

This is another pernicious myth often employed to cut the debate on impeachment short. The implication: Yes, impeachment is richly deserved, but it's just not politically possible to pull off.

This argument implicitly makes the assumption that only party line votes against impeachment can be expected, no matter what charges are brought and no matter what the evidence submitted is. Such a deeply cynical view should be directly an unapologetically challenged.

The results of last November's election have given serious pause to many long-time Republican members of the House and Senate. Bush's popularity has recently reached record lows, and party officials are anxious to avoid a repeat of 2006, where not a single Republican candidate won a seat held by a Democrat. It seems reasonable to believe that moderate Republicans would be willing to break party ranks -- if not out of their sworn obligation to uphold the Constitution, then simply to save their own political skins!

Indeed, assuming that the evidence is as easy to obtain as impeachment proponents believe it will be, the case for impeachment should be incontrovertible to anyone regarding the situation rationally. A failure to impeach in the face of appropriate evidence would be ample evidence of bad faith in the execution of a senator's duties.

The real question that must be asked is: Are there not at least 17 honorable Republican senators in office right now? I think it's safe to assume that there are. Remember, as discussed in part II and part III, there is a path to impeachment that is both Constitutional and precedented, and that would keep the White House under Republican control.

If there are not at least 17 honorable Republican senators, the public needs to see this with its own eyes, so that it can vote appropriately in 2008.

SUMMARY:

• This argument pre-supposes that Republican senators will act dishonorably.
• It is by no means certain that party line votes are to be expected.
• Even if the Senate fails to convict, impeachment would provide valuable information for voters in 2008.
  

This myth is frequently espoused by those who wish to short-circuit the debate by presenting an even worse alternative than President Bush. As many people who favor impeachment flinch at the idea of a President Cheney, this gambit is often successful.

However, impeachment no more ensures a President Cheney than it does a President Pelosi. The reasons are laid out in more detail in part II of this series, but the short version is that, if Vice President Cheney is successfully impeached (or resigns from office) before impeachment proceedings against President Bush are begun, the danger of him ascending to the presidency is readily avoided.

There are good reasons to believe that a successful impeachment of Cheney is in the works. On April 24th, Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced HR 333, a resolution containing three separate articles of impeachment against the Vice President. Over 45 documents supporting the charges are available on his website.

An online campaign to collect public opinion (and, at your request, forward that opinion to elected representatives) sprung up almost immediately, and, at the time of this writing, it has collected over 35,000 comments from regular Americans, and the number is growing constantly. Astoundingly, even though the campaign is seeking opinion both for and against impeachment of Cheney, registered opinion as I write this is over 99% in favor.

Some in Congress appear to be being influenced by this campaign. HR 333 was introduced with no co-sponsors, but on May 1st, two other members of Congress signed on in support of the resolution. Those members are William Lacy Clay, Jr. and Jan Schakowsky. The resolution is currently awaiting a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee. That committee is chaired by Congressman John Conyers, who introduced his own resolution calling for an investigation into impeachable offenses last year.

It's too early to say how the resolution will play out, but there are encouraging signs that the Democratic leadership is exploring the possibility seriously. Recently, MoveOn conducted a quiet poll seeking input on the matter of impeaching Bush, and MoveOn is notorious for moving only at the pace Democratic leaders are comfortable with. The successful impeachment of Cheney would almost certainly be a political pre-requisite to impeaching Bush. Notably, Jan Schakowsky, one of the new HR 333 co-sponsors, has been called a member of Nancy Pelosi's "inner circle".

SUMMARY:

• Any impeachment plan would likely involve impeaching Vice President Cheney first.
• The process of impeaching Vice President Cheney has already begun, and there is evidence of strong public support.
• Successful impeachment would very likely result in a moderate Republican taking office, as in the case of Gerald Ford.

Note: The summary takes into account some arguments already made in part I and part II of this series. Please see those posts for details.

This is the second most common argument that I've seen regarding impeachment: An impeachment attempt would be nothing more than a blatant partisan power grab aiming to install an unelected President Pelosi, and such a process is inherently un-American.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Many people who adhere to this line of argument are unaware of what played out in the final months of the Nixon administration. Here's a brief timeline:

• Nov 1972 -- Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew re-elected
• ??? 1972-73 -- Investigation begun concerning criminal wrongdoing by Agnew
  
• Oct 1973 -- Spiro Agnew pleads "no contest" to criminal charges, resigns before impeachment filed
  
• Nov-Dec 1973 -- Gerald Ford confirmed by Congress as new VP
• July 1974 -- first article of impeachment vs Nixon approved
• Aug 1974 -- Richard Nixon resigns

Time magazine has made a ton of their coverage of the saga available online. It's interesting reading for someone young enough to have never known much about the scandal. The point most relevant to today, however, is that both the Vice President and the President were removed from office while retaining a Republican hold on the White House.

How was this accomplished? Through the use of the little-known 25th Amendment to the US Constitution. This Amendment allows for the Vice President to be replaced through nomination of someone by the President, followed by subsequent confirmation by Congress.

Some people I've discussed this with have charged that President Bush cannot be trusted to make a reasonable selection for a new Vice President if Cheney is successfully impeached. It is important to note that a replacement VP cannot be installed by the President alone. The confirmation process should ensure that a new VP acceptable to both parties is brought into office. Bush may stall, but I would suspect that members of his own party would bring pressure on him to ensure a quick transition. Leaving the VP slot open indefinitely is not feasible.

With respect to the use of the label "un-American" when describing impeachment, I can only say that it is so definitively American that is has been a part of our Constitutional system since the beginning. The Founding Fathers laid it out as an emergency tool for use by Congress -- the representatives of the People -- to be used to unseat any executive branch officers with dangerously monarchical tendencies.

If impeachment is so fundamentally American, then why is it so often referred to as "the 'I' word" in recent political discussion? The reason seems to have a lot to do with the way Republicans conducted the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.* As one persuasive essay recently put it:

A few months ago, when a few voices on the far left first uttered the “I” word in relation to Dick Cheney and George Bush, I was turned off by the idea. Then I started to wonder why I felt that way. After all, if any two public officials in American history ever earned a thorough impeaching it's those two. Yet the idea of actually kicking that process into action produced a sinking, sickish feeling deep within.

Why?

Then it dawned on me — Republicans had “removed” impeachment from the arsenal that made Congress a co-equal branch of government.

The author goes on to say:

When mad-dog Republicans misused impeachment during their anti-Clinton feeding frenzy, the public — the sane majority anyway — was turned off by it. They saw it more for what is was — a legislative coup attempt by Republicans against a Democratic president, rather than the legitimate use of Congressional power.

It was also viewed as a monumental waste of time, taxpayer money and critically needed legislative bandwidth.

Over time that impression gestated into a deep national ambivalence, bordering on disgust, with the impeachment process. It's now almost a knee-jerk response when someone demands impeachment. You can almost hear a national moan:

“Oh no. Please, no. Don't take us down that road again! Please.”

So there you have it. With their unjust, frivolous, mean spirited, wolf-pack-like pursuit of Bill Clinton the GOP inadvertently inoculated its own top officials from the threat of impeachment today, even when so richly deserved.

I do not know for a fact that Democratic leadership would follow the Nixon administration model in any impeachment proceedings, but they would be well-advised to do so if they wish to retain the moral high ground. Presumably, the country can survive another unelected President like we had in Gerald Ford.

On a related note, and also in follow-up to part I of this series, I spotted an interesting piece this morning concerning very recent public opinion on the matter of impeachment. This poll was not conducted by what I would consider a strictly non-partisan source (the head of the polling firm is a former colleague of Newt Gingrich), but the data released is highly intriguing:

"Would you favor or oppose the impeachment by Congress of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney?"

Favor: 39%

Oppose:55 %

Undecided/Don't Know: 6%

The survey of 621 registered voters has been weighted for age, race, gender and political affiliation. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4%.

Now, I cannot prove this, but my experience is that many people are unfamiliar with both the 25th Amendment and the exact mechanics of Gerald Ford's ascendancy to the presidency. The fact that the poll question could be construed as asking about support for a double-impeachment of both officials is therefore telling. It is quite possible that many of the respondents believed that the result of such an action would be a President Pelosi. Nonetheless, almost two-fifths of Americans surveyed supported it!

I would very much like to see further data gauging public support for an impeachment plan that guarantees a Republican White House.


SUMMARY:

• Impeachment is not "un-American", it is a fundamental part of the American way.
• Impeachment does not automatically create a President Pelosi; historical precedent shows that Republicans would be able to keep control of the White House if both Bush and Cheney are successfully impeached.
• Recent data suggests that as many as two-fifths of Americans support a simultaneous double-impeachment, which could result in a President Pelosi, but further research is needed to confirm this.
  

*For the record, I supported the impeachment of Clinton because he crossed the line when he lied to the public about the matter of Monica Lewinsky. It was entirely within his rights to simply tell the public to butt out, and, in retrospect, this would probably have been the quickest way to put the matter to rest. I make no distinction between lying under oath and lying in a press conference when it comes to the conduct of our high officials, so you can imagine how I feel about our current administration. The fact that Bush administration officials routinely avoid testimony under oath shows how carefully they tread around their own trap.

The call for impeachment of Bush administration officials grows louder and louder. Recently, a long-running campaign to initiate an impeachment via action at the state level was defeated in Vermont's state house of representatives, after passing handily in its state senate. This is the closest such a state-level measure has come to passing, but it is not the first such vote, nor will it be the last.

I have been following the impeachment debate online for quite a while. I'm sorry to say that most of the more prominent arguments against impeachment are based on nothing more than myths. This is the first post in a series that will explore these myths in detail, and hopefully help put them to rest.

Myth #1 -- "Only the far left fringe wants impeachment."

This is myth is easy to prove false.

The last serious poll on the matter was done by Newsweek in October 2006, shortly before the elections in which the Democratic Party made substantial gains and retook both the House and Senate. Although Newsweek was very careful in how it reported the results, a little review of the information provided shows that 28% of Americans polled said impeachment should be a "top priority", and an additional 23% said it should be a lower priority. 28%+23% = 51%. In other words, a majority of Americans asked supported the idea of impeachment, even if they did not agree on the priority level for pursuit of it.

Prior to that, the most significant serious poll was performed by Zogby International in January 2006. Conducted during the height of the furor over illegal domestic wiretapping, 52% agreed when asked: "If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment?"

In another Zogby poll, this one taken in June 2005, 42% of voters said "they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found the President misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq".

No matter how generous you want to be with your definition of "fringe", it is clear that it cannot encompass between 2/5 and 1/2 of the entire American public. Support for impeachment is clearly a mainstream view, and has been for some time. It's even more clear that public support for impeachment has been growing steadily.

Hard to believe? Look at the trend:

• Jun 05: 42% in favor if FISA laws have been broken
• Jan 06: 52% in favor if public's trust abused in promoting Iraq War
• Oct 06: 51% in favor of impeachment -- with no conditions attached!

Furthermore, it's clear that, if recent precedent is to be acknowledged, the threshold of public support required for action has been crossed. As one prominent blogger puts it:

[E]ven those identifying as Very Conservative support impeachment by a higher percentage than those of all political affiliations who supported impeachment and removal of President Clinton in the fall of 1998

On a final note, it's important to recognize that the 2005-2006 polling data cited above comes from a period when public approval ratings for the administration were significantly higher than their current level. It seems reasonable to assume that support for impeachment has increased since last October, but it will take more scientific polling to confirm this. The question is: Who will be brave enough to find out?


SUMMARY:

• Supporting impeachment is not a "fringe" opinion, it is a majority opinion.
• Support for impeachment has been steadily growing since at least 2005.
• Based on modern precedent, the threshold for Congressional action on impeachment has already been crossed.