posted on December 23, 2000 12:12:23 PM
This is becoming really sad. The guy hasn't even been inaguarated yet. Why impeach, just get together and overthrow the new gov't once its there January whatever. I'll stay out of it, thanks. I thought this was the U.S. of A.
posted on December 23, 2000 12:41:50 PM
If he were impeached wouldn't that mean that Chaney would become president? What about the cabinet appointment's made by Bush, would they stay?
posted on December 23, 2000 12:50:20 PM
Basically, Impeachment is just plain wrong when it is not used as intended. Even Ronald Reagan, when he eventually admitted that he lied to Congress during the Iran-Contra hearings - a Federal Felony I add, there was no call for Impeachment.
Rather, I would like to see GW, Dick Cheny, and his entire administration each have a Personal Special Proscecutor that is just as dedicated as Ken Starr was to find "wrong-doing' both in the past and in the present. Let's see them be hounded to the ends of the earth! Let's wathc their family and friends's lives be totally ruined by these prosecutors as they did for Clinton. Yes, let's let it be exactly like it was for Clinton and we'll see who deserves Impeachment and who doesn't!
posted on December 23, 2000 12:51:27 PM
I don't know, when was the last impeachment? (besides Clinton, but he didn't leave)
Yes it would probably go to Cheney, and then Cheney would be the President, and thence keep the appointments already made, or change them. But I do think you need Gov. Bush to be the actual current President first before you go and impeach him.
posted on December 23, 2000 12:54:13 PM
Borillar-it doesn't look like President Clinton is doing so bad after that, in fact he's been offered all different sorts of jobs after he is out. His wife is Senator, and also has a book out.
And I do believe he'll still receive his Presidential pension too.
posted on December 23, 2000 01:00:45 PM
near- maybe they are just trying to get signatures so they will be there after he is president, and then take action.
I don't know how long the petition has been on that site, and so far only a couple of thousand signatures.
The person that sent it to me is a real Bush hater, but I know he didn't start the petition. He sent it to about 25 people asking that they would sign and inform other people that it's there.
posted on December 23, 2000 01:06:40 PM
Kinda off topic, but when Clinton was first elected, or was it the second time? can't remember. Wasn't there a bunch of people doing the same type thing? I do remember seeing a lot of bumperstickers on cars saying
Impeach Clinton.
Boy whoever this person is that started it, really is a Bush hater.
posted on December 23, 2000 01:35:13 PM
He already has over 3200 people probably all the disenfranchised who's votes did not count. LOL
Actually I think an investigation would be in order. But, I hardly think Cheney would live through it and then who would that leave us with if they impeach Bush?
posted on December 23, 2000 01:41:38 PM
"Kinda off topic, but when Clinton was first elected, or was it the second time? can't remember. Wasn't there a bunch of people doing the same type thing?"
Yes, that's right, and it was when Clinton was elected the first time, not the second time. When Clinton was first elected, a group of political fanatics wanted to impeach him just for the sake of impeaching him. They went looking around for any basis to do it on. It wasn't until his second term that they created, or found, however you prefer, a way to do it. But, your memory is correct. The desire for the result came first, and then the means were found to support a pre-determined end.
"I don't know, when was the last impeachment? (besides Clinton, but he didn't leave)"
An impeachment is like another word for an indictment. First someone gets indicted, then the person goes to trial. The impeachment is the indictment in the House of Representatives, the trial then happens in the Senate. The trial in the Senate is presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, in Clinton's case it was Rehnquist. Clinton was impeached (indicted) in the House. The Senate trial failed to convict him (which would have resulted in him being removed from office.)
So, just because a president gets impeached, doesn't mean he gets removed from office. The only other presidential impeachment was Andrew Johnson's, in 1868, and he wasn't removed from office either, the Senate in his case acquitted him by one vote.
That two presidents have been impeached, and neither removed from office, leads to some interesting thinking, and highlights the political nature of each impeachment, i.e. impeachment for political gain rather than for the legitimate reasons that impeachment should be used for.
posted on December 23, 2000 11:46:01 PM
Actually, to clarify history a bit, impeaching Clinton was only the first part of a plan by Newt Gingrich and the New Republicans. Now, as crazy as this sounds, this is the absolute truth as it came from their own mouths (braggarts that they are!)
First, President Clinton gets Impeached, so the Vice-President becomes President.
Second, find something to Impeach Al Gore on and then the Speaker of the House next becomes President. Guess Who? Newt Gingrich!
Yes, this was thier plan to circumvent the will of the people, democracy, and anything else standing in their way for absolute power. A prescendent that eventually led to GW being elected President ... well, not elected, as the majority didn't vote for him, but the person who stole the White House.
NearTheSea, you asked, " don't know, when was the last impeachment?"
I think it was in 1869 or 1879 -- a bit before you were born. A Democratic President wanted to beat up and punish the South for the war and this upset the Party of Lincoln a.k.a. the Republicans. They disliked this idea so much that they fabricated dirt and tried to impeach the president -- didn't work though. While many simularities exist between the two Impeachment trials, the Clinton Impeachment left him wholey vindicated. All that was left was to strip his enemies naked and horsewhip past the White House . . .
posted on December 24, 2000 04:53:11 AM
"I think it was in 1869 or 1879 -- a bit before you were born. A Democratic President wanted to beat up and punish the South for the war and this upset the Party of Lincoln a.k.a. the Republicans. They disliked this idea so much that they fabricated dirt and tried to impeach the president -- didn't work though."
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. What you think, Borillar, and what the truth is, are, yet again, quite far apart from each other.
The other presidential impeachment, besides Clinton's, was Andrew Johnson's in 1868.
Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, was Abraham Lincoln's Vice-President. Lincoln, a Republican, had chosen Johnson, a Democrat, to be his running mate in his second term election, as a sort of... bipartisan effort, in hopes of garnering enough Democratic votes to win re-election.
When Lincoln was assassinated, at the end of the Civil War, Andrew Johnson became president.
Andrew Johnson, a Southerner, was one of the few (only?) Southern Democrats who didn't go with the Confederacy. Although he had gone with the Union when the war broke out, he still had Southern sympathies, and Southern prejudices.
On the end of the war, with Lincoln's assassination, and Johnson's ascension to the presidency, came the time for Reconstruction. Since the Southern states had seceded, the Congress was filled with Republicans. The most fanatical of these were a group known as the "Radical Republicans."
The Radical Republicans pushed hard for immediate voting rights for the newly freed Southern slaves. Since the war had now ended, the former members of the Confederacy were going to be able to get their voting rights back. The Radical Republicans saw that their chance to stay in power depended on tapping the large voting block of Freedmen Southern Blacks, to counter the voting power of the re-enfranchised white Southerners, who would surely vote Democratic, because of their hatred of the Republicans.
Andrew Johnson, Southern Democrat, and white supremecist, didn't want to go for it. Congress and Andrew Johnson battled again and again over the Congress' efforts to immediately give voting rights to newly freed slaves. Also, Johnson infuriated the Congress by pardoning many Confederate politicians and military members. The Republicans in Congress, especailly the Radical Republicans, wanted to punish the South, and Johnson was constantly at war with Congress over Johnson's more lenient approach.
Congress tried to impeach Johnson twice, and failed, but was successful the third time, by, basically, setting Johnson up for a trap that he couldn't (or wouldn't) avoid (and which I won't go into.)
Johnson wasn't, however, removed from office. Like Clinton, when Johnson's impeachment came to trial in the Senate, the Senate failed to convict him.
Some historians say that the Radical Republicans didn't want Johnson removed from office, although they did want to impeach him as a way to weaken his power.
If Johnson had been removed from office, the man he had chosen as his vice-president would have become president, and then maybe would have run for the next election as an incumbent president, which is a much more advantageous position to be in when running. The goal of the Radical Republicans, back then, wasn't so much to get Johnson out, but to get themselves in. And they did succeed in getting themselves in. U.S. Grant, the Radical Republican's candidate, was elected president next.
Looking back at the history of Andrew Johnson's impeachment, I'm not at all convinced of the truth of Borillar's assertion of the Republican plan re Clinton's impeachment. In fact, I think it's much more like the Johnson situation.
The Republicans who pushed for Clinton's impeachment had to have known they didn't have enough votes in the Senate to remove him from office. Senate votes don't come as a suprise, not at all, it's not voting like we regular people do voting. When Congress prepares to vote on something, they spend a lot of time beforehand sending out feelers, marshalling their own party members, and trying to build a coalition. They strong arm their own party members, they trade favors with members of the other party, they work it all pretty thoroughly. By the time all this informal talking, favor-trading, and strong-arming is done, everyone knows how the vote will come out before an item is put to a vote, there aren't any suprises.
A plan to impeach Clinton, and remove him with a vote in the Senate, and then impeach Al Gore, and remove him with a vote in the Senate, to make Newt Gingrich president?? That seems, to be polite, extremely far fetched. By the time all that investigating, impeaching, and trials were over, it'd be about time for the next presidential election.
Much smarter to do to Clinton what was done to Johnson. Impeach him, but don't remove him. The last thing the Republicans wanted, I think, was to was remove Clinton from office. The goal here, as it was in Johnson's time, wasn't really to get Clinton out, but to get a Republican in.
If Clinton had been removed from office, Gore would have become president, and Gore would have run in 2000 as a sitting president, a much more advantageous position than the one he ultimately ended up in.
As it was, it worked like it was supposed to for the Republicans, sort of. That Florida thing was pretty sloppy, and might cause trouble later.
posted on December 24, 2000 10:33:11 AM
Impeach Clinton, then impeach Gore, then Gingrich becomes President?
I'm a moderate living in what used to be Gingrich's district. I suspect that if that was the plan then I would have heard something about it.
Considering the immensely drawn out process that impeachment by the House and trial by the Senate involves, I can't give any credit to such a plan.
Gingrich was far too much the attack dog of the extreme right wing of the Republican Party to ever merit serious consideration for President.
Not to mention the personal baggage he carries. Divorce. Shady publishing deals. Shady use of PAC monies. The "course" he taught at Kennesaw State that was nothing more than a primer for Republicans seeking election. His affair with a staffer and subsequent second divorce.
The pot was willing to call the kettle black only so long as no one was paying attention to the pot...
posted on December 24, 2000 12:08:30 PM"Wrong, wrong, and wrong. What you think, Borillar, and what the truth is, are, yet again, quite far apart from each other."
-donny-
Donny, now that was unkind of you and unwarrented. It should have been clear that I was just trying to recall a few facts that I wasn't entirely sure of - heck, I couldn't even remember the year quite clearly.
While the specific details between the two trials were different, of course, but that the Republicans twice tried to use the constitutional impeachment provision as a means to overpower someone of the executive branch, namely a sitting Democratic, has some parrallels from one trial to the other. You can't deny that!
But thank you for bringing up the facts. I watched the History Channel special on that a few times, but htat wwas a couple of years ago and I wasn't trying to memorize anything in particular. But the facts did bear mentioning again.
codasaurus it is true. Once again, the exact time and place eludes me at the moment. I recall that it was the Republican leaders like Trent Lott, Bob Barr, etc. That there was a real plan to move Newt Gingrich into power as President without the voters having a chance to give their say-so was real. It was such a novel approach on usurping the democratic process in this country that it struck me. I'll have to go research the exact quote and I'll post it back here for you.
