How to Insulate Yourself From Impeachment

[TwilightGardener]

It's pretty simple, really--I picked up this nifty tip from all the anti-impeachers, including Nancy Pelosi and many here on DU:

Use doctored-up and manipulated intelligence to create a HUGE international disaster. Kill many thousands, destroy a nation's infrastructure and economy, create a refugee crisis and chase out the nation's best and brightest who might have helped you rebuild, create flimsy justifications for continuing the illegal disaster, resist and ignore credible experts from both the military and civilian sectors on how to keep the disaster from worsening, rely instead on political cronies with no valid prior experience in such matters, beg, borrow and steal many billions of dollars from taxpayers and China to keep the disaster going, foment a sectarian civil war, give terrorists a new haven, divert troops and resources from a legitimate war against our enemies, create a quagmire that will be bloody and very difficult from which to extricate ourselves, and set the stage for a region-wide sectarian conflict that may change the balance of power in the region in ways that may not be in our best interests.

If you accomplish all this as President, then rest assured you cannot be impeached. The opposition party will claim that they are TOO BUSY trying to clean up the mega-catastrophe you started and continue to perpetuate--in other words, the very reason you SHOULD be impeached is also your protection from it. You will walk away without shame at the end of your term, enjoy an easy retirement at your ranch, and continue to believe that you must have done the right thing, since nobody ever brought articles of impeachment against you--Clinton was clearly in the wrong, but you are not. History won't remember the low polls and fist-shaking and blame. You will be vindicated.

[zonmoy]

1. figure their reason for not impeaching is worse then that

either they are being blackmailed, probably with threats to completely overthrow democracy if they impeach, or they are complicit in the crimes to an extent that impeaching him will cause both parties to fall.

[TwilightGardener]

2. I do wonder whether there is self-protection involved

in the reason not to start proceedings--but I doubt that BushCo really has enough on Democrats to take them all down with them.

[zonmoy]

6. I fear they have enough to take down our entire nation if not the world.

[ComerPerro]

5. That is one scenario I have wondered about. What will be Bush's revenge

when we impeach yet fail to convict?

[zonmoy]

7. disband congress and declare martial law and himself emperor.

[ComerPerro]

9. Granted, he could try to do that now, but it wouldn't work as well as if he

did it in response to a failed impeachment trial. He could say it was an attempted coup.

Plus, threatening to do it before impeachment trials, unprovoked, might sour just enough Repig Sentaors to get a conviction.

[zonmoy]

12. four words

false flag terror attack.

[ComerPerro]

15. it would have to be a big one, really big. Another anthrax scare wouldn't do it

[zonmoy]

16. probably a dirty bomb or releasing a chemical or biological weapon

in a populated area will do it.

[ComerPerro]

17. I'd lean more toward trumped up stories about thwarted terror attacks

[zonmoy]

19. do you think that would be enough to work to the point of

ending democracy or would they need something really big and scary to do that.

[ComerPerro]

20. enough of them back to back, with a few close calls, would

[zonmoy]

23. possibly if the american people are brainwashed to the point

where they don't see them as phony or they figure out a way to blame the democrats for them with proof that could stand up in court.

[ComerPerro]

25. they will blame Dems, and won't need proof that can stand up in court

just get the news networks to push it 24/7

[zonmoy]

27. what people still have any trust in the mainstream media will buy it

but I don't think many people still trust that anymore. I myself go to what really happened and other alternative news sources whenever possible.

[ComerPerro]

28. its all in how you sell it. But we are way deep into speculation now, lol

[TahitiNut]

3. "None dare call it treason ..."

Same shit; different day.

[ComerPerro]

4. you know what else works really well? Get a bunch of spoiled crybabies, green party wannabe types,

and have them go around the country harassing your political opponents, attacking them and disparaging them to make sure that their base does not want to vote for them, and may even go third party.

That way, the opposing party will never have enough political sway to take you down. They will be too divided from within to actually get things done, and will experience infighting at every step.

Now all you need to find are some willing puppets....

[TwilightGardener]

10. LOL! I, too, wonder why some folks here think it's a great idea

to drive a wedge into the Democratic party by harrassing those officials who are working on the very thing they want to see happen. Division, misplaced blame, and infighting makes us look like keystone cops instead of a threat to this administration.

[zonmoy]

14. since when are the democratic leadership working on impeaching

bush or stopping the march to fascism.

[TwilightGardener]

22. Conyers, Leahy, Waxman--three guys who are on Chimpy's ass.

Not sure if impeachment is in the works, but you've got to gather at least an inkling of evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors first--that's your road-map.

[zonmoy]

24. three out of how many house members.

[TwilightGardener]

26. Those are the guys in the House (Leahy in the Senate) digging up

the dirt. My attitude is, let's not hamper them, let's encourage rather than punish.

[zonmoy]

29. we need to punish those who are stalling and blocking the good ones

though.

[TheWraith]

8. Where are the 67 votes?

Answer me that. 67 votes are needed to remove from office, otherwise the whole thing is a waste of time. Where are those 67 votes? I want the shrub to just leave as much as anybody, but pretending that we CAN do it and just DON'T isn't accurate.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. There weren't in '73 either

history is a bitch I know, but that didn't stop them

Oh and Nixon was popular too... they still went ahead.

Any otlher talking point you want to use?

Oh yes, the Presidency is sown up

That was the talking point in '88, I slept through the Dukakis administration, how about you?

[driver8]

13. Great response. I am sick of hearing "but where are the votes"?

The impeachment process will bring out the lies, deception, manipulation, and whatever else these thugs have been up to.

It is a process -- not just a fucking vote.

[TheWraith]

35. That assumes that the Republicans can be shamed.

If, after everything that's been brought out already, there aren't more than 4-5 Republicans who've broken from Bush yet on something as comparatively small as timetables for the war, what makes you think that 17 Repub Senators are going to jump ship and vote to remove their boy from office?

[ComerPerro]

21. Bush isn't the resigning type, and neither is Cheney

[nadinbrzezinski]

30. Neither was Nixon

but I am sure you knew that.

Most impeachments, if you read the history of the process, don't actually go through, since those around the parties involved force a resolution outside the process.

Nixon was not the resigning type... his party forced him to resign.

I don't have a crystal ball, so I cannot tell you how this will end... and you know what, neither do you. But Tricky dick was just as stubborn as these two. Hell, Tricky dick taught Rummy, who taught Cheney

But if you asked anybody when the process started in '73 how it would end, resignation was the last thing in their minds

Funny thing, the revelations of Iran Contra SHOULD have led to impeachment proceedings, but the WH was sown up and our congresspeople lost their taste for the Constitution, this problem is not new... tell me... did you enjoy the Dukakis administration and what exactly is it noted for? I seem to have gone to sleep during it, only to wake up in the Bush '41 administration... damn quantum physics.

And those who claim but we don't have the votes or any other excuse... have also lost a taste for the Constitution

What is at stake is nothing less than the Republic.

But we don't have the votes... and he is not the resigning type, and we have the white house sown up, so why make waves?

:sarcasm:

By the way, those three are DLC talking points, transmitted very well by the MSM.

[ComerPerro]

33. How fucking dare you accuse people that say we don't have the votes of not valuing the Constitution

[TheWraith]

34. There were sufficient votes for a conviction in '74. That's why Nixon resigned.

I don't know why I'm explaining this to you, since I don't exactly see the relevance of your comment.

[TwilightGardener]

18. Honestly, I have thought about this from all angles, and as far as the

Senate conviction votes go, I can't guarantee we'd get anywhere close to 67. But I am still not able to come to grips with the fact that we should just let this administration leave office with low ratings and a huge shit-pile for the rest of us to clean up for years to come. Is impeachment a risky undertaking that might result in Democrats losing elections? Perhaps. Is it the only official way to make Bush, Cheney, and their entire Neocon cabal face up to what they've wrought, for all the world to witness? Yes.

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. Been readhing on the hsitory of impeachment

and the conclusion is 180 from teh talking point

If we do nothing, that will lead to the loss of power and the WH... not doing something.

I know, I know it goes against the talking point, damn history.

Here is the book, get it and read it

The genius of Impeachment, by John Nichols

[TwilightGardener]

32. Thanks for the book rec. He's the Nation writer, correct? He's

pretty good--will have to check it out. It just drives me nuts to think that a President can illegally and immorally fuck over our Constitution, and this country (and Iraq), in so many ways, and then Dems let him get away with it by saying, "Sorry, we're too busy cleaning up this immoral and illegal disaster to impeach the perpetrators. They'll just have to cruise to the end of their terms, and hopefully won't start any more wars or trash the Constitution any further". Yes, his misdeeds are SO HUGE, they're beyond our ability to stop him or even reprimand him.