What Hyde/DeLay said about impeachment back in 1998

[DesEtoiles]

"I think the president should step down," Hyde said in one of two television appearances he made the day after the Judiciary Committee completed its two-month impeachment inquiry. "I think he could really be heroic if he did that. He would be the savior of his party. . . . It would be a way of going out with honor. If he doesn't, it's hard to predict what the consequences are."

"I would just hope," said DeLay, "that the president would put the American people ahead of his own ambitions and resign." Armey said he does not presume to advise the president, but "if it were me, I would have done so long ago."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/impeach121498.htm



HENRY HYDE:

The rule of law protects you and it protects me from the midnight fire on our roof or the 3 a.m. knock on our door. It challenges abuse of authority. It's a shame "Darkness at Noon" is forgotten, or "The Gulag Archipelago," but there is such a thing lurking out in the world called abuse of authority, and the rule of law is what protects you from it. And so it's a matter of considerable concern to me when our legal system is assaulted by our nation's chief law enforcement officer, the only person obliged to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.

...

Now we're told an impeachment trial would be too divisive and too disruptive, that it would reverse two elections. We're not reversing any election. Bob Dole will not end up president of the United States if there is an impeachment. We are following a process wisely set down as a check and balance on executive overreaching, by our Founding Fathers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/hutchinsonstext121198.htm

[Wetzelbill]

1. I wish DeLay would follow his own advice

[Erika]

2. They need to listen and heed their own words

The Rove/Libby incident cannot be tolerated. Bush should resign or be impeached. He also is responsible for sending us into a unjustified war and needlessly killing our troops and Iraqis.

Bush exceeds the corruption level of Richard Nixon. Go W, away and in disgrace.

[Lucky Luciano]

3. No kidding...Nixon is a comparative saint nt

[Greeby]

4. What you said

Well, truth be told, he's got a long way to go to match the body count of Nixon. But if he isn't stopped, hes sure gonna try :grr: :nuke:

[Lucky Luciano]

10. For Nixon's body count, he did inherit something nasty that he did not

start at least...boy king on the other hand got himself into this mess absolutely and completely.

[DefenseLawyer]

5. Well of course, but that was different

Remember, the Clinton impeachment was about serious matters, like perjury and obstruction of justice.

[Old and In the Way]

6. So essentially, their own words are just bullshit.

Republicans are pure political animals who put their own Party ahead of the interests of this country. If Clinton had been a Republican, there wouldn't have been a scandal because the Republicans would never have even considered investigating it. Of course, neither would the Republican corporate media.

So their words were meaningless then, their words are meaningless now.

[Carla in Ca]

8. Absolutely meaningless

Here are quotes from 1999 re:Kosovo


"President Clinton is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."
-Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)


"No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it."
-Sean Hannity, Fox News, 4/5/99


"American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy."
-Representative Tom Delay (R-TX)


"If we are going to commit American troops, we must be certain they have a clear mission, an achievable goal and an exit strategy."
-Karen Hughes, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate George W. Bush

[punpirate]

7. Well, these folks can parse this any way they like...

... but the simple fact is that both Nixon and Bush II lied about the conduct of the government and the commission of crimes, whereas Clinton was entrapped into lying about a personal affair with no connection to the conduct of the government or to a crime.

Anyone who equates the two doesn't understand either the Constitution, the impeachment process, or both. Or doesn't care about them.

[aquart]

9. Republicans never speak of "the rule of law" anymore.

Why is that?