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Ref. : Local Newsbriefs
Ref. : Letters to the editor
06.24 Mr. Holder, You Must Hold Torturers Accountable
06.29 Thinking about Climate
06.26 False Health-Scare Ad on CNN
06.25 Louella Learns the Limits of Medicare
06.23 The Simple Answer to America’s Health Care Crisis: Medicare for All
06.23 Tell ABC: Include Single-Payer in Healthcare Debate
06.23 Serving the Medical-Industrial Complex
06.22 Thinking about Recoveries
06.20 Obama's Health Care Waterloo
06.15 Obama, Like Clinton Before Him, is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform
06.11 Two Key Health-Care Numbers
06.10 Big Breakthroughs for Single Payer Health Care
06.10 Readying Americans for Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations
06.29 WP's Connolly Back, on Health Reform
06.17 Hypocrisy and Hope: Western Coverage, Iranian Courage
06.15 Excusing Outrages of the Right
06.11 Tying Obama to Bush's Budget Mess
06.30 Obama's Torture Hypocrisy
06.30 Court Circular: Annals of Imperial Continuity
06.29 Obama, They Want You to Fail
06.26 Who to Trust on a Truth Commission?
06.26 Tarnished Shields: The Morally Bankrupt 'Family Values' Republican Leadership
06.25 America's "Bases of Empire"
06.24 Twelve Angry White People: Jury Nullification in a Pennsylvania Coal Town
06.24 Touring Empire's Ruins
06.23 Employers are Undermining the Economic Stimulus Program
06.19 Criminalizing Dissent: Obama Pot Calls Iranian Kettle Black
06.17 Afghanistan's Operation Phoenix
06.16 Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran?
06.13 Where's the Anger as the Wheels Come Off Obama's and the Democrats' Recovery Program?
06.10 Waiving the Rules for Old Glory
06.10 Obama's Era of Openness Is Closed
07.03 Reviewing Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd's "Rules of Disengagement"
07.01 Iraq: A Bitter Strategic Failure
06.25 It's All Good, Again: 'Uptick' in the American-Made Tides of Violence in Iraq
06.22 Obama Opposes Plame-gate Release
06.21 Dexter's Legions: The "Good" Killers of the "Good" War
06.18 Extending the Tradition: Proudly Taking American Torture Into the Future
06.15 New UN Report Denounces America's Human Rights Record
06.14 Fear Rules
07.01 Michael Hudson's "Super Imperialism:" The Economic Strategy of Imperial America
06.23 Obama's Financial Reform Proposal - A Stealth Scheme for Global Monetary Control
06.10 Cyberscares About Cyberwars Equal Cybermoney
07.01 Pirates of the Mediterranean
06.29 Color Revolutions, Old and New
06.25 Iran Divided & the 'October Suprise'
06.23 Astringent Corrective: AbuKhalil on Iran's Turmoil
06.20 Are the Iranian Protests Another US Orchestrated “Color Revolution?”
06.20 Through a Glass Darkly: Sifting Myth and Fact on Iran
06.19 Iran's Election and US - Iranian Elections
06.16 The Ir-Af-Pak War: Obama Looses the Manhunters
06.12 Israeli War Crimes Against Children During Operation Cast Lead
COMMENTARY:
New Poll: Majority Favor Impeachment
And BTW, Independents Aren't `In the Middle' at All
And despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s insistence that “impeachment is off the table,” almost half the people in the country say they want the president impeached.
The Democratic leadership has been opposed to impeachment based on the absurd theory that while it is clearly popular among Democrats, an impeachment effort in Congress could “turn off” independent voters.
In fact the opposite appears to be true.
The American Research Group poll also reports that 50 percent of independents favored the impeachment of Bush while 51 percent of them favored impeaching Cheney. Hard to see how taking that position could be hurting Democrats with independents. Moreover, the poll found that 13 percent of Republicans wanted to see Bush impeached, while 17 percent wanted Cheney impeached. That is, roughly one in six Republicans would look favorably on a House impeachment effort, whichever member of the administration was the target!
And Pelosi is against the idea for fear of alienating voters on the right.
Interestingly, too, opposition to Bush’s commutation of I. “Scooter” Libby’s sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice was actually greater among independents (80 percent) than among Democrats (76 percent). So was opposition to a full pardon for Libby, with an astonishing 97 percent of independents opposed, compared to just 82 percent of Democrats.
What does this tell us?
What this suggests is that the prevailing wisdom among Democratic strategists, that independents are some mythical “middle of the road” group, is wildly off the mark. In fact, many independents appear to be to the left of the Democratic Party, particularly when it comes to how to handle the behavior of the criminal Bush administration. Or maybe left isn’t the right word. They are more concerned about preserving democracy than the Democratic Party is.
These results help to explain why the public support for the Democratic Congress, which has failed to act on ending the Iraq War and which has failed to been studiously avoiding any talk of impeachment, has fallen from a heady 68 percent right after Democrats won the 2006 elections, to 23 percent today, several points below the president’s 27-percent approval rating.
If Democrats don’t wake up and start impeachment proceedings, they are likely to lose control of Congress again in 2008, when these disgruntled independents and Constitution-loving Republicans, many of whom no doubt gave their votes to Democrats last November, stay home or vote for somebody else next time around. Meanwhile, the grassroots impeachment movement continues to build.
Events that used to draw a few dozen people are now drawing hundreds or even thousands. Dennis Kucinich’s Cheney impeachment bill, which languished for a month without any co-sponsors, now has 13 co-sponsors, with more joining all the time.
It’s all starting to come together.
If it doesn’t, the Democratic majority in Congress is likely to come apart.
About the author: Philadelphia journalist Dave Lindorff is co-author, with
Barbara Olshansky, of The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office
. His work is available at
www.thiscantbehappening.net.
Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent.
This story was published on July 8, 2007.
