Impeachment? On what charges?

Question

There is a lot of talk in the left-wing blogsphere about impeaching President Bush. But what crimes have been committed that would justify impeachment? Being unpopular is not ground for impeachment. Lying - if you think that he lied - is not illegal. Policies that may violate the Constitution are supposed to be handled via Judicial Review not impeachment.

I understand that Bush is very unpopular, especially among democrats and liberals, but that is not enough to warrent impeachment. So what am I missing? What high crime or misdemeanor would be the basis for impeachment?

Clarification: Lying is not illegal. Lying *under oath* is illegal. That was what Clinton was impeached for.

Answer 1

its all hate buddy thats all but you cant impeach someone you just hate.

Answer 2

lying under oath is illegal. He wasn't under oath when he talked about WMD's and stuff. Hell, if lying was illegal, there would be no such thing as a politician, they all lie, to get into office. Remember, "No New Taxes"? Bush Sr would have been impeached for lying in that case. He raised taxes, and created new ones.
As far as an illegal war, what was illegal about it? Bush's advisor believed there were WMD's, so he did what he had to do. Not to mention, Saddam wasn't helping either. When Saddam refused to let the UN inspectors inspect at their own free will, then someone had to force him to do so, and that was Bush. I am glad we went in and got rid of him. It was only a matter of time before we did go and attack Iraq again. Actually, Clinton attacked Iraq too, anyone remember Operation Desert Fox?
Also, Bush is not solely to blame for the war in Iraq, if you remember correctly, Congress has to approve a war against another country. The facts at the time was Saddam was hiding WMD's. If you never been to Iraq or the desert, there is a lot of hiding places one could put things like this. Not to mention, the neighboring countries could be hiding them. just because we havne't found them yet, doesn't mean they aren't there. Besides, if they were found, the result would be so classified, that no one would even know they did exist. Maybe Saddam was creating new ways of killing people and we, the US, wants to keep that to ourselves, so no other countries get the same idea, kinda like a UFO, won't say we have that either. Technically, its lying, but its just not telling the complete truth. Bush might have determined its better to keep the WMD's under wraps, because he feels it is better the Iraqi people don't know what they had, or what they were exposed to.

Also, keep in mind, the war started in 2003. Bush was RE-ELECTED in 2004. If he was a criminal, he wouldn't have been re-elected.

Myles D, You shouldn't believe what the media tells you. The goverment keeps secrets to protect itself and others. Your right, we don't own the world, however, there are countries that exist today because we saved them, Kuwait needed our help and asked for it. We were also protecting our other interests in Saudi. Iraq made moves to cross into Saudi, so we helped them as well.
Korea and Vietnam, we went there too, and they didn't attack us, so why wasn't anyone impeached because of them?

Ok, so if Bush did lie, and if there were no WMD's, then why isn't Bush impeached? There is more information that what was released to the media.

Answer 3

Well the "Because he dosn't play Fair with Us", and he "Kicked our behinds by the largest vote margin in History" accusations havn't caught on yet.
The reason there is talk and screaming for our "Left of Center" friends is because they love to hate, yet quote things they are clueless about.
The reason Democratic Leaders have not started Impeachment proceedings, is that you are right. Bush has not commited an Impeachable offense. Does anyone really think Hillary "The Shreeker Clinton", Nancy "Do I really get a gavel and fre plane tickets to give an award to a known terrorist, Syria) Pelosi, who by the way would be President, if Cheyney and Bush were kicked out. Speaker of the House is third in line.
So with so much to gain, why aren't the Democrat leaders beginning proceedings??? Because they know he didn't do anything to get impeached over, and THEY know it.. So for all you "Angry Liberals" Let your leaders know, Hillary and Pelosi, and Reed, that they NEED to proceed. See how far they go (NOT). Shouldn't you be angry at them for not standing up for you???

Myles, a victory margin of over 3,000,000 votes was the largest in America history, check it out. Sorry to wreck your response.
Also, I am not a Bush supporter in any way.
As far as Bush scrrened thae data? Well I guess old John Kerry lied in the Debates when he said'We all saw the same intel and all voted to fund the war, but Bush has no plan to win the Peace". Remember that chant? God it hurts when you try to change History, start a consiricy theory, when armed with no facts other than anger, and someone catches you dosn't it? Ouch for you dude...

Answer 4

Lying not grounds for impeachment? Bwhahahahahahahahhahahahaaaaaaaa!

Hmmmmm... I seem to recall a certain president Clinton and a certain Republican Congress impeaching him over lying about oral sex.

Nope. Lying definitely not grounds for impeachment.

Fine. Lying under oath is an impeachable offense. Then let's get Bush under oath and ask him some things about one of the trillion or so pieces of shady disinformation he's been feeding us from day one. Do you think Clinton just volunteered testimony under oath, or do you think an aggressive GOP Congress pushed him to testify?

I guarantee if Bush went under oath he would have no choice but to commit perjury to prop up his mountain of lies. But Bush will never submit to testifying under oath, so he'll never be guilty of perjury even though he breathes out lies every day.

Answer 5

WOW USC miss, where have you been? Theft of two Presidential elections, swearing to uphold the Constitution and then calling it "just a god damned piece of paper", lying to Congress and the American people to attack Iraq is a crime, INVASION is a crime, the resulting murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people and lost of arms legs eyes and peace are a crime against humanity, the unnecessary murder of U.S. Military personnel to profit big oil is a crime, illegally spying on Americans is a crime, illegally detaining an American citizen without due process is a crime, torture is a crime, kidnaping and rendition is a crime, signing statements to put his dead *** above the law is a crime. Geo.Bush, the knuckleheaded idiot who would be King, is a poster child for why the articles of impeachment were drawn. He's a worthless, incompetent corporate whore who could care less about you or me or America. And YES I hate him....he earned it.

Answer 6

What would make you understand this. America has occupied a foreign nation that did not attack or even threaten to attack us. The military has caused the death, THE DEATH, of countless thousands of people that did nothing to us in any way. That is a war crime. Did America not attack Saddam Hussein for invading Kuwait? Why did we jump to their defense. Why hasn't someone jump to Iraq's defense. Suppose Iraq had attacked this country and were now occupying our capital city. Would there not be insurgents trying to run them out. The hijackers of those planes were from Saudi Arabia. Why did we not attack Saudi Arabia? Is it because George Bush owes the Saudi royals so much that he is doing their bidding. I would call that treason. Putting our forces in harm's way in order to repay past iou's to another nation. Fabricating evidence when you know there is none there in order to invade another nation is punishable by death. I think that is what they did to Hussein, right?

Answer 7

He lied to congress. That is a felony. Not to mention it was a lie to implement a personal agenda that has cost the lives of almost 3,500 US service men. Yes I believe that is an impeachable offense. Now I understand that most Republicans, don't consider this to be as bad a lie as lying about cheating on your wife, but I for one think it is far worse.
The fact is this: Bush was told by the Italian Agency that received the Niger document, by The British intelligence and by G. Tenet in our own CIA that the document was not credible. they went so far as to remove it from a speech Bush made in Cleveland a couple of weeks before, but put it back in for the purpose of scaring congress into giving him authorization to go to war. You and I could have googled "The President of Niger" and proven this document to be false, so can you honestly say that the US,w ith an intelligence budget greater than the GDP of most countries in the world, couldn't figure out that that document was false, even the Seal of Nigeria was wrong. So yes, I find it impossible to believe they didn't know about it. Therefore they knowingly and purposely mislead congress and our country with this lie. And if the darn Democrats would get organized and focus on one thing for a change they could actually press the case for impeachment.

Ken C - You are a Bush supporter -you're creating your own realities, just like them. Largest margin in History? Wow, 53% of the vote, huge margin, darn near right down the middle.
As for the intelligence comment. It was Cherry picked intelligence screened by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfled, and only the intelligence that supported their agenda for going to war.

George P. you need to do some research on International Law. We don't own the world. There are other sovreign nations that exist also, and there are laws and procedures that govern invading them. Also, the rest of the world saw our intelligence and had their own and they didn't buy it. They thought it was a bunch of crap and a lie.

Answer 8

Waging an illegal war is a crime
A crime is an impeachable act

Clinton was impeached not because he lied but because he lied under oath which is a crime

Answer 9

Well, I agree that he did nothing quite as serious as a dalliance with an intern, but ..

He has undermined our system of checks & balances and Separation of Powers. Implementing Cheney's "Unitary Executive" theory, overuse of signing statements that say what he will choose to enforce in the law (when he is to enforce the WHOLE law-- he's not a legislator), ignoring subpoenas and locking Congress out of its Constitutional supervisory role.

Illegal wiretaps (one of the pending charges against Nixon) without Court Order-- when he has 72 hours to get retroactive OK from the FISA Courts!

He has violated Habeus Corpus. He has detained people without charge and without Due Process. He has violated our treaty obligations to the Geneva Conventions by tolerating t0rture and by "renditioning" to countries that will t0rture even worse.

How's that for starters?

Too bad somebody won't volunteer to give him a BJ, huh?

Answer 10

Bush lied about why we went to war with Iraq! This has caused Thousands of lives and Billions of Dollars! If you knew some one who lost a child or grandchild wife,husband,lover,mother,or father and they are asking why their loved one had to die and why many many more are dying each and every day. Then you would know why he needs to be impeached! To many young people have died. Bush lied and their blood is on his hands!

Answer 11

Lying to Congress is impeachable. Look up the Downing Street Memo. It proves he lied about Iraq.
Then there is the warrantless spying on American citizens.
Then there is the illegal detentions of Arab Americans, and the torturing of prisoners of war. Both gross violations of the Geneva Convention.