Let's review the apparent Republican arguments, as laid out by Greenwald:
(1) It is an honorable and legitimate exercise of Constitutional power to impeach an overwhelmingly popular, twice-elected President because he lied in an ultimately-dismissed civil lawsuit about whether he had an extra marital affair, but . . .
(2) It is horribly un-democratic to impeach an overwhelmingly unpopular President if it is proven that he deliberately lied to American citizens in order to trick them into supporting a war he wanted to wage.
Definitely read the whole thing. I agree with the majority of it. And I think you'll especially find the comments by Hindrocket dating from before the Clinton impeachment to be...oh let's just call them "ironic."
Sometimes I wonder if there are any Republicans anywhere who wake up in the middle of the night. With a knot of bad feeling in their belly, remembering that they supported the Clinton impeachment. And then I read about things like this, and I realize that although Greenwald is right when he says:
...nobody who supported the Clinton impeachment can argue that impeachment itself is undemocratic. At least nobody who wants to be at least a little bit intellectually honest can do that.
After all, the GOP, unable to defeat Clinton in two national elections (or even to dent his popularity among Americans), were the ones who took the impeachment weapon out of the bag. As a result, they cannot be heard to argue that the weapon which they so gleefully fired less than 10 years ago as part of some sex scandal is now some sort of illegitimate anti-democratic tool of tyranny.
...the key phrase there, of course, "intellectually honest." The republicans made a choice in 2000. They could be intellectually honest, and nominate someone up to the job, or they could make a merciless grab for power. They chose power.
So now naked hypocrisy ain't nuthin'. To coin a phrase, "Once you start along the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."
Unfortunately, by our bad luck, it turned out that what could have been an unpleasant but tolerable caretaker presidency turned out to be one of the most signifigant, and dangerous, in recent memory.
I know similar points have been made before but just try to picture what happens if George W. Bush is in office on December 7, 1941. Imagine if he's in the Constitutional Congress. Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Bush.
We all know the answer, but this is one of those days when the question I'd most like to ask a Bush republican is, "Seriously...have you no shame?"
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