Democrats Pushing Impeachment

The Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

The California Democratic Party approved a resolution on Sunday calling on Congress to investigate the actions of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and take appropriate action, including impeachment. Meeting in San Diego, the left wing loons also passed a resolution calling for President Bush to begin withdrawing U.S. soldiers from Iraq.

Apparently, the reason the Democrats want the President impeached is because they continue to believe the discredited assertion that we were mislead into invading Iraq:

Delegate Charles Coleman from San Fernando said he believes Bush should be removed from office for lying about the war in Iraq.

Sunday, on CBS'"Face The Nation," Pennsylvania Congressman and Speaker Pelosi's preferred choice for House Majority Leader, threatened to impeach President Bush as a means to "influence" the President to accept the Democrats position that we should retreat from Iraq:

MURTHA: The White House says no. But the White House has said no to everything. They say we’re willing to compromise, and then we don’t get any compromise. We’ve compromised on waivers for the requirements for the troops, which is their own requirements, and also goals instead of requirements for the benchmarks.

So, we’ve already compromised. And we need to make this president understand, Mr. President, the public has spoken. There’s three ways or four ways to influence a president. One is popular opinion, the election, third is impeachment and fourth is, and fourth is the purse.

SCHIEFFER: Are you seriously talking about contemplating an impeachment of this president by Congress?

MURTHA: Bob, what I’m saying, there’s four ways to influence a president.

SCHIEFFER: And that’s one of them?

MURTHA: And one of them’s impeachment, and the fourth one…

SCHIEFFER: That’s an option that is on the table?

MURTHA: … I’m just saying that’s one way to influence a president. The other way is through the purse. And the purse is controlled by the Congress, who’s elected the by the public. In the last election, the public said, we want the Democrats in control.

Last week, Ohio Congressman and presidential wannabee, Dennis Kucinich introduced three articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.

On April 20th, the Vermont Senate voted 16-9 to support a resolution urging the initiation of impeachment proceedings in Congress against President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. All 16 supporters were Democrats.

The Democrats need a brief lesson on recent history. We were not mislead or lied to about why we went to war in Iraq. Supplanting Saddam's tyranny and oppression with freedom and democracy was one of the rationales put forward in the run up to the liberation of Iraq. Even the New York Times acknowledged this in a February 27, 2003 editorial:

President Bush sketched an expansive vision last night [in an American Enterprise Institute speech] of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq. Instead of focusing on eliminating weapons of mass destruction, or reducing the threat of terror to the United States, Mr. Bush talked about establishing a ‘free and peaceful Iraq’ that would serve as a ‘dramatic and inspiring example’ to the entire Arab and Muslim world, provide a stabilizing influence in the Middle East, and even help end the Arab-Israeli conflict. The idea of turning Iraq into a model democracy in the Arab world is one some members of the administration have been discussing for a long time. President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union made the same case....

There is no justification for the false allegation that the administration lied about the WMDs. Everyone was convinced that Saddam had such weapons and had used them. The intelligence and common wisdom proved to be wrong, but that doesn't equate to a lie. The Bipartisan Senate Select Committee Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs. At pages 284-285 the reports states:

Conclusion 83. The Committee did not find any evidence that Administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

[Redacted]

Conclusion 84. The Committee found no evidence that the Vice President's visits to the Central Intelligence Agency were attempts to pressure analysts, were perceived as intended to pressure analysts by those who participated in the briefings on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, or did pressure analysts to change their assessments.

Besides that report, two other independent investigations came to the same conclusion.

The Robb-Silberman Commission On The Intelligence Capabilities Of The United States Regarding Weapons Of Mass Destruction likewise found "no evidence of political pressure." At pages 50-51 the Robb-Silberman report states:

The Commission found no evidence of political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments.

The British Butler Report, Review Of Intelligence On Weapons Of Mass Destruction similarly "found no evidence of deliberate distortion." At page 110 the British Butler report states:

Treatment of intelligence material

449. In general, we found that the original intelligence material was correctly reported in [Joint Intelligence Committee] assessments. An exception was the '45 minute' report. But this sort of example was rare in the several hundred JIC assessments we read on Iraq. In general, we also found that the reliability of the original intelligence reports was fairly represented by the use of accompanying qualifications. We should record in particular that we have found no evidence of deliberate distortion or of culpable negligence.

The effect of departmental policy agendas

450. We examined JIC assessments to see whether there was evidence that the judgements inside them were systematically distorted by non-intelligence factors, in particular the influence of the policy positions of departments. We found no evidence of JIC assessments and the judgements inside them being pulled in any particular direction to meet the policy concerns of senior officials on the JIC.

The consensus that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction formed in the Clinton administration. The consensus was more than evident in 1998, when President Clinton was threatening to attack Iraq.

President Clinton:

If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons-of-mass-destruction program.

Secretary of State Madeline Albright:

"We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction," Albright said Sunday, addressing a news conference in Jerusalem.

"The chemical weapons Saddam has used and the biological weapons we know he has tested pay no attention to borders and nationalities."

Sandy Berger, Clinton’s National Security Adviser:

He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983.

Nancy Pelosi, now Speaker the House, and then a member of the House Intelligence Committee:

Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons-of-mass-destruction technology, which is a threat to countries in the region, and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process.

In a letter to President Clinton, from 27 U.S. Senators:

We urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the US Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs.

In addition to the history lesson, the Democrats need a lesson in Constitutional Law. The Constitution provides for impeachment for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, not to "influence" a president to accept Mr. Murtha'

s strategy to slowly bleed the war effort to death.

From California Yankee.