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Ref. : Local Newsbriefs
Ref. : Letters to the editor
03.05 Open Letter to Congressman Bart Stupak
Video National Health Care Systems In Other Countries
03.12 Slick Barry and the $100-Billion Medicaid/Medicare Fraud Claim
03.09 Kill Bill: Death to Obamacare!
03.09 Obama’s Rhetoric May Be “Fiery,” But His Health Care Reform Is Still Lukewarm
02.24 Obama’s New Plan
02.21 Time to Pass the Health Insurance Industry Antitrust Enforcement Act of 2009
03.16 WPost Blames Obama First, on Israel
03.16 Letter to the New York Times' Editor: Stovepiping To Persia
03.12 Cud and Complicity: Burying the Alternatives to Empire's Dominion
03.11 NYT and the ACORN Hoax
03.05 Sorry, Rove, Bush Did Lie About Iraq
03.03 It's Snow News
03.03 The Woeful Washington Post
02.28 The NYT Veers Neocon
02.18 US Media Replays Iraq Fiasco on Iran
Ref. : The Daily Howler
02.26 America's Supremes: Court Over Constitution
03.11 Power Rangers: Policing the System With the "Fightin' Progressives"
03.09 Thinking About Countings
03.07 Unnatural Acts: Breaking the Fever of Militarism
02.25 Future Shock: A Better World Beyond the Imperium
02.24 The Last Flight of Joe Stack
02.22 Thinking About Sadie
02.18 All Systems Go: No Dysfunction in Profitable Afghan Enterprise
03.16 America's Secret Prisons
03.13 Palestinian Dispossession in East Jerusalem
03.12 Israeli Settlement Expansions Continue
03.11 Brutalizing Palestinian Children
03.08 The Russell Tribunal on Palestine: Barcelona Session
03.05 Targeting Israeli Apartheid
03.01 America's Permanent War Agenda
02.25 Global Sweatshop Wage Slavery
02.23 Israeli Unaccountability and Denial: Suppressing the Practice of Torture
02.22 American Genocides: is Haiti Next?
02.18 Israeli Abusive Administrative Detentions
02.16 MK-ULTRA: The CIA's Mind Control Program
03.14 The Crisis in America's Telecommunications Network
03.09 The Business of Water: Privatizing An Essential Resource
03.05 Is the Recovery Real?
03.04 IMF-Style Austerity Measures come to America: What “Fiscal Responsibility” Means To You
03.04 Barry C. Lynn's "Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and Economics of Destruction"
03.01 Thinking About Fees
02.22 Campaigning for State-Owned Banks
02.22 Social Security Will Fall To Obama Before The Taliban Do
02.19 Obama’s Stealth Entitlement Commission
02.19 Selling Out America to Wall Street
03.15 Peace Process Hypocrisy: Stillborn from Inception
03.03 Muslim Disunity
03.02 Funding Israeli Militarism, Belligerence and Occupation
02.26 Iran Captures a 'Good' Terrorist
02.24 The Dubai Hit
02.22 Holland Has Had Enough: Killing of Innocent Civilians Goes On Apace in Afghanistan
02.19 The Placeman Cometh: New IAEA Chief Stokes Iran War Fever for the Bush-Obama Regime
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.
