Dear Mr. Welch,
Thank you for contacting me with your deep concerns about the behavior of this administration. I have heard from a number of people who are ready for this president, to be censured, even impeached. Recently, Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced legislation calling for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney. Certainly having endured the travesty of the Republican impeachment of Clinton, I can understand and sympathize with the drive to impeach the President and Vice President.
I believe that an impeachment process on an administration that is already on its way out the door would hinder the time and efforts of our slim Democratic majority in congress. The practical matter is that given the rules of the Senate, there is no way that an impeachment process would lead to the removal of the President or Vice President. Instead, it would create a media circus that would detract from our mission of reversing the policies (both domestic and international) of what the public continues to see as a failing presidency. With Democratic control of both houses of Congress, the legislative branch is already exercising its oversight and investigations role into many areas of the Bush Administration. We are conducting investigations into pre-Iraq war intelligence, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the firings of US attorneys, the Valerie Plame leak, and the way the Iraq War is being conducted.
While there is a part of me that would love to see this President and Vice President publicly admonished by Congress, I feel the American people have done that through their votes in the 2006 elections. If I were Karl Rove I would like nothing better than an impeachment process that wouldn't go anywhere, and would distract people from the very real failures of this administration on the important issues our country faces.
I would never discourage anybody from pursuing their passion. My passion is to hold this administration accountable and to enact progressive legislation, while we lay the foundation for a new administration in less than two years. Thank you again for sharing your opinion with me.
Sincerely,
Earl Blumenauer
Member of Congress
3 comments:
I'm fairly divided about the whole thing. On the one hand, I am at the point with this Administration where I feel he needs to be impeached/censured/something. The country feels ready for that too and it would be nice for this President to get knocked off his high opinion of himself a bit. He does seem to think he's above the law and so far he's been pretty successful at being above the law, which is demoralizing to what America is supposed to stand for.
On the other hand, the points in that letter are pretty valid too. Not all, but some.
A big problem I have with it is using the excuse that there's only two years left in this presidency so why impeach an outgoing president. I mean, for one, that's half his term! And two, by telling this administration the Dems had no plans to go after impeachment proceedings back when we took control of Congress, they practically gave this Administration permission to do whatever they want to do.
I just feel like, overall, it sets a dangerous precedent to say that a President will not be held accountable for his actions because he only has two years left to serve. This is politics, something like that is going to be taken advantage of, "Two years of no accountability!"
I agree in principle.
I definitely agree that censuring or impeachment is warranted; I definitely agree that half his term is a long time to wait. (Okay, technically, its less, more like 1.75, but who's counting.) But I also agree that getting the 'work of the Congress' (I love that phrase, it sounds so noble and means nothing) done is important. Given the tenuous grasp of power that they have, the Democrats can't afford to waste time or momentum -- and they've already blown some of the latter. It would kill me to see Bush get out of office without paying some kind of price, but if I had to choose, I would rather see Congress take the time to fix his programs and policies (the bad ones; not everything he does is bad).
He's already branded as a poor leader; impeachment or censuring won't remove that. Let him leave with that and go live in his Presidential Library -- I hear he's already bought the book.
Yeah, I see what you're saying as well. I guess that's why I'm conflicted on it. I don't know the best course of action. I guess my main thing is, I don't want it to be some kind of witchhunt, but if he has done illegal deeds he needs to be investigated and go from there.
I tell ya, while I'm not overly excited about any one candidate for 2008 yet, I am looking forward to this being over with.
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