The Gulf News says Democrats are ready to impeach Bush, but the Dems themselves are not so sure:
Bush may not know it, but "his presidency is now over" said Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic Party chairman, who promised that Bush would be held accountable for "the colossal failure in Iraq that has set our foreign policy back by 50 years". He added: "The man will go down as one of the worst presidents in our country's history."Oooh, yes. Let's all be sensible and grown-up. Grrr...
But Democrats are split over how best to take advantage of their strong position in Congress, with some moderates determined to resist pressure from what they describe as "Left-wing crazies" that would tear Washington apart and split the party down the middle.
Though Democratic control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate would ultimately make impeachment proceedings feasible, Democrats are prepared temporarily to put aside their desire for immediate revenge against the President for long-term tactical gain.
Apart from investigating the use of intelligence in the run-up to the war, another priority for congressional Democrats will be to focus attention on what they call the "war profiteering" of some Republicans and the misuse and waste of taxpayers' money in Iraq.
Democrats hope to use a populist investigation to pacify their party's Left wing and prepare the ground for subsequent and more wide-ranging investigations into the war.
"These guys are going to be seriously investigated," promised a Democratic House aide, already preparing for Congressional hearings. "But there's a way to make Iraq a winning issue for us and there's a way to make Iraq a losing issue. The Left has to understand what it is to govern. A lot of these people don't know how to be in a majority."
Moderate Democrats elected from usually solidly Republican districts are also insisting that the party takes a cautious, methodical approach.
I just don't get it, I really don't. Here's a snatch from a pre-election article by Tim Dickinson at Mother Jones:
Impeaching Bush alone, of course, would be of no use—for Cheney, equally if not more culpable, is but another head of the same abominable Hydra. And there's the rub. Take away Bush, take away Cheney, and the line of succession would point to…President Nancy Pelosi. In order to replace a president who (for his many grievous sins) was popularly elected in a national election after the fiercest campaign in memory, we'd anoint a politician who hasn't faced serious opposition in two decades and was last elected by 225,000 true blue citizens... of San Francisco.Why? Why is President Pelosi such a bad thing? Why do we all have to be so bloody sensible?
No, I'm confident the American people would far prefer a porn star or a midget, fairly elected — or, for that matter, two more years of the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush — than to see the White House change hands in what could only be described as an administrative coup.
