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Impeaching Bush takes facts, not anger

If you're one of a large number of Americans who think President George W. Bush is right and ready for impeachment, you might want to stop and think awhile.

Better yet, you might just want to jog down to your local bookstore and pick up a copy of "Impeachment for Dummies." Chances are, if there were such a book, one of the first chapters would be entitled "Impeachable offenses."

You see, while there's a growing tide of anger toward President Bush over the Iraq war, the perceived scandals and any number of other issues, impeachment calls for something more than raw emotion. It calls for fact.

The most sensible way to gauge whether a president can be impeached is to ask the question: What has he done that constitutes a high crime or misdemeanor?

Well, what has President Bush done that he hasn't been exonerated for?

Of course there's the war in Iraq he brought us into that country on false pretenses. That cost lives. It's an open-and-shut case for which we should have impeached the president years ago.

Right?

Well, no. As much as "Bush lied, people died" has been a theme in newspapers and television news reports, members of congress can't make that argument. Bipartisan committees have justified the use of force in Iraq. The Weapons of Mass Destruction that were supposed to have been there? The intelligence given to President Bush on the matter was the same as that given to members of congress. That argument for impeachment isn't going to hold water, and the Democrats know it. That's why they haven't and won't try it.

Oh, but how about the execution of the war. He botched it. No doubt about it we can get him for that.

Right?

Well, I'm afraid we're wrong again. As costly as mistakes were on the ground in Iraq, mismanaging a war is not an impeachable offense. Mistakes happen in every major war, bar none. And, of course, mistakes in wars cost lives. So mismanagement of the war is a nonstarter.

Okay but the outing of Valarie Plame. There's the ticket. The Bush administration leaked the identity of a covert agent. That is at least as bad as what Bill Clinton did to get impeached. We can get President Bush on that.

Right?

Well, the answer, again, is no. Do you wonder why Scooter Libby went down for the outing of Valarie Plame? If you do, you're not paying attention, because he didn't go down for the outing of Valarie Plame. He only went down for lying to a grand jury.

The fact of the matter is that the original crime being investigated by Patrick Fitzgerald was never committed. Valarie Plame was never officially covert. Our legal system ran its course, and it came out that nobody did anything wrong. Lawmakers can't impeach a president based on allegations alone.

So where does that leave us? With the firing of U.S. attorneys? With the lack of response to Hurricane Katrina? Now, we're really reaching.

Bush has been scrutinized at every turn, and ne'er an impeachable offense has shown up.

Well, now, you might be angry about that. You might not believe the bipartisan committees or the special prosecutors who found that the Bush administration didn't do anything wrong.

But lawmakers can't impeach a president unless they have something rock-solid to accuse him of. That's just not the case here. Which is why if you ever stop to think about it you realize not a single reasonably-minded lawmaker has floated the impeachment idea yet.

And they're no dummies.

Learn more about this author, J.R. Anthony.
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