Impeach the President, Part III

This may not be the wisest subject matter for me to blog about since I reside in the midst of “Bush country,” but what the heck, and here goes more. There has been a lot of talk for some time now on impeaching President George W. Bush. But what exactly does it mean to “impeach” a President, and what would be the reasons for doing it?

According to dictionary.com, impeach is a verb that means
1. to accuse (a public official) before an appropriate tribunal of misconduct in office.
2. Chiefly Law. to challenge the credibility of: to impeach a witness.
3. to bring an accusation against.
4. to call in question; cast an imputation upon: to impeach a person's motives.
5. to call to account.

Grounds for impeachment are treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. A trial and conviction must follow the formal impeachment for a President’s removal from office.

To date, there have been two Presidents impeached, but neither were convicted. They are Andrew Johnson, 17^th President of the United States, and Bill Clinton, our 42^nd President. In summary, Andrew Johnson (Democrat) was impeached for attempting to oust the Secretary of War without Senate approval, which was a violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Bill Clinton (Democrat) was impeached on grounds of perjury and obstruction to justice relating to his testimony of conduct with intern Monica Lewinsky.

Richard Nixon (Republican), our 37^th President, resigned office while impeachment voting was in process for charges surrounding the Watergate scandal and break-in of the Democratic National Committee offices.

There’s the history, now for the future. Are there grounds for impeaching President George W. Bush?

I have no doubt that every President has made mistakes. For the most part though, Presidents tend to have the American public at heart. After all, they want to get re-elected or at least keep their party in office. But some of the charges against Bush seem rather… well, large. Bush seems to make BIG mistakes that have a very negative impact on us Americans.

Some of the reasons cited for impeachment are:

• illegal spying in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the Fourth Amendment
• illegal detentions and conspiring to commit torture of prisoners violating the Bill of Rights, the Federal Torture Act, the UN Torture Convention, and the Geneva Convention
• illegal war that was launched based on misleading Congress and the American public and in violation of the False Statements Accountability Act and the federal anti-conspiracy statue; potential violations also of the US Constitution, which says Congress must declare war

I’ll list a few resource links as follows. Blogs and websites abound on the subject. This will be my final (I think) post on Impeaching President Bush, but I’ll be following up in a few days with a survey. As always, I appreciate your thoughts and comments.

Web Sites and blogs:
Wikipedia - contains information about some of the background and reasons for the movement to impeach Bush, as well as criticism to the movement - information resources are cited for further research
ImpeachBush - this site is a movement or campaign to impeach President Bush
ImpeachBush.tv - editorials and information on how to impeach Bush & Cheney
Let's Try Democracy - be sure to look at the right side-bar for a listing of books on the topic
National Impeachment Resource Center
Impeachforpeace -grassroots nonpartisan efforts to impeach Bush & Cheney
Impeachpac.com - supports Democratic candidates for Congress who support the immediate and simultaneous impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney for their Iraq War lies

Articles containing current impeachment effort status:
CNNPolitics.com- Kucinich effort to impeach Bush kicked into limbo
Boston.com article - Democrats scuttle proposal to impeach Bush
Chicago Tribune - Kucinich: Impeach Bush