Have I been wrong about impeachment all this time?
Time Magazine makes the case about Americans being against impeachment. Take a look at this article about whether the President obstructed justice:
Last week, in dozens of interviews across the nation, TIME correspondents explored attitudes about possible presidential involvement and what should be done if (the President) is indeed culpable. They found that there is indeed a dominant feeling that the President was involved in one way or another. Yet there is also a deep fear of the national trauma that long and messy impeachment proceedings would probably cause.
And this poll from TIME shows that only 39 percent in favor of impeachment or resignation.
I have always been a strong advocate of impeachment.
But if the Time links above are any indication, and if the country doesn't want impeachment then it would seem there's simply no way we're going to get Congress to take action.
There's no way that the President could be impeached under these conditions, right?
There's no way Congress could begin investigations despite public sentiment, right?
WRONG!!!
Because the story above was not about Bush and the poll was not from 2007.
Both the news article and poll above were about the prospects for putting President Richard M. Nixon out of office.
Yes, the facts in the article and others like it painted a grim pictures that it would very tough to impeach, and at any rate the public didn't want it.
And what happened?
- Investigations began.
- Evidence was collected and reported.
- Public opinion began to turn.
- Articles of impeachment were created.
adopted.
- Public opinion continued to turn.
The public tide turned against him. And Republican Senators, convinced that the votes to convict Nixon were present in the Senate, urged him to resign before he was convicted.
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So what's the message here?
The message is, DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE.
Don't believe the hype when people tell you that everything was all rosy and simple when Nixon was (practically) impeached and "things are different now."
There was the same public indifference and/or ignorance on the issues initially. The MSM wrote articles stating that Americans weren't in favor of impeachment. There were polls showing that the idea was not a winner. There were people saying Republicans would never oust Nixon.
And guess what? It happened anyway.
Because when you have a mountain of evidence about a corrupt, sleazy and criminal administration, that's what's known in the business as, "a winning hand."
Now let's play our hand, and win.
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(hat tip to Meteor Blades)
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Update [2007-7-14 21:36:10 by BentLiberal]:
occams hatchet likes this this passage from the same article and so do I:
B.L.: great diary, but you left out this classic: (22+ / 0-)
From the TIME article:
Many who believe Nixon participated in the cover-up and do not think he should be impeached are fearful of an Agnew presidency. Many Democrats would not want to see Agnew inherit the presidency because that might place him in a strong position for election in 1976. Decision Research Corp., a New England polling organization, explains that "the seriousness of the whole idea of impeachment, and of Agnew taking over, accounts for the large number of people who think the President was involved but are unwilling to advocate impeachment."
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. - Justice William O. Douglas
by occams hatchet on Sat Jul 14, 2007 at 04:50:46 PM PDT