Yonivore
11-06-2007, 09:54 PM
Democrats = Washington Generals
Call this Steny stymied. Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich called for an up-or-down vote on impeaching Vice President Cheney.
The No. 2 Democrat in the House tried to ditch the proposal like Ugly Betty at the Junior Prom. House Republicans decided to have a little fun with it. They voted to allow Kucinich to proceed with his little resolution.
Sure, expose to the nation just what kind of loony bins voters sent to the House of Representatives. Congress has the lowest job approval rating of anyone ever in Washington. 11%. Cheney’s numbers are better!
Sure, show the public just what these lifer politicians are doing in Washington.
Sure, do it.
Blogged Paul Kane (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2007/11/cheney_impeachment_resolution.html) of the Washington Post:
“More than 120 members, predominantly Republicans, then switched their votes in favor of holding a one-hour debate on the issue, with a final vote of 251-162 supporting a debate on impeachment. Rather than allow a debate fraught with political risk, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) moved to send the Kucinich resolution to the Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), has publicly speculated about impeaching the president or vice president but has declined taking any action since taking the gavel in January.”
Way to go Democratic House leadership. I would call them all clowns, but clowns serve a purpose: Distracting bulls at the rodeo.
Democrats seem to be split now between the incompetent and the insane, with a few people in both camps — and to be fair, a few in neither camp.
A wise man would at some point cut a deal with the other side of the aisle, get the budget passed, get SCHIP reauthorized and get something to show voters other than the constant bickering.
But it is a game of chicken as both sides hurtle toward that cliff in their hot rods. Democratic leaders think they will win because they are a car length ahead.
This greatly amuses Michelle Malkin (http://michellemalkin.com/2007/11/06/all-aboard-the-impeachment-bandwagon-cheney-first-bush-next/). The left? Not so much (http://www.memeorandum.com/071106/h1800).
And, how 'bout the Democratic leadership? Suffice it to say, the leaders are pissed at Dennis for bringing up impeachment. I love it. Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308738,00.html) is reporting that the Democratic leaders in Congress are seething over Dennis Kucinich for dragging impeachment onto the political stage.
Kucinich is an embarrassment to the party. He’s like the Crazy Aunt who spills all the family secrets.
They want him to go back into the attic. Republicans are handing him a megaphone.
Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings had the line of the day. Hastings was impeached as a federal judge over bribery before he was elected to Congress, where bribery is called campaign contributions. Irony, Dennis Kucinich barely survived a recall vote midway through his one 2-year term as mayor of Cleveland in the 1970s.
Hastings told Fox News:
“Dennis Kucinich is on a quest of his own. He sees flying saucers and he acts like one, too.”
Steny Hoyer, who as the House’s No. 2 Democrat has taken over for the incompetent House Squeaker Nancy Pelosi, (reminding me how well Hillary "license the illegals" and Nancy "No Bill" are representing their sex), tried to kill the Kucinich impeachment resolution.
Republicans were all set to help him until it occurred to them, screw Hoyer. What has he done for Republicans lately? Being portrayed as pulling the wings off children over SCHIP chaffed Republicans. So they decided to give Kucinich enough rope to hang all the Democrats.
86 Democrats (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1037.xml) were serious in voting for the resolution. 165 Republicans (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1037.xml) voted for the resolution just to send a message to Democratic leaders. Shelley Moore Capito was among the Republicans voting for the resolution.
Technically the motion was to table, so the 162 votes for tabling were against the resolution, while the 251 no votes were technically for the impeachment resolution.
Besides Kucinich and the rest of the Tinfoil Caucus of the Democratic Party, House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel voted for the impeachment resolution.
Maybe Democratic leaders should stop playing games and start cutting deals with the Republicans in order to get legislation passed.
Here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071106/ap_on_go_co/cheney_impeachment) is the AP report in full:
House Democrats on Tuesday narrowly managed to avert a bruising debate on a proposal to impeach Dick Cheney after Republicans, in a surprise maneuver, voted in favor of taking up the measure.
Republicans, changing course midway through a vote, tried to force Democrats into a debate on the resolution sponsored by longshot presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.
The anti-war Ohio Democrat, in his resolution, accused Cheney of purposely leading the country into war against Iraq and manipulating intelligence about Iraq’s ties with al-Qaida.
The GOP tactics reversed what had been expected to be an overwhelming vote to table, or kill, the resolution.
Midway through the vote, with instructions from the GOP leadership, Republicans one by one changed their votes from yes to kill the resolution to no, trying to force the chamber into a debate and an up-or-down vote on the proposal.
At one point there were 290 votes to table. After the turnaround, the final vote was 251-162 against tabling, with 165 Republicans voting against it.
“We’re going to help them out, to explain themselves,” said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. “We’re going to give them their day in court.”
Democrats countered by offering a motion to refer the proposal to the House Judiciary Committee for further study, effectively preventing a debate on the House floor. That motion passed by a largely party-line vote of 218-194.
The White House, in a statement, said Democrats were shirking responsibilities on issues such as childrens’ health insurance “and yet they find time to waste an afternoon on an impeachment vote against the vice president. … This is why Americans shake their head in wonder about the priorities of this Congress.”
Kucinich has long pushed for a vote to impeach Cheney, but has failed to win the backing of the Democratic leadership. After Kucinich introduced the resolution, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., immediately moved to table it.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “impeachment is off the table” and Congress is focused on responsibly getting U.S. troops out of Iraq, covering 10 million uninsured children and meeting national priorities long neglected by the Bush administration, said her spokesman Nadeam Elshami.
The resolution said that Cheney, “in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of vice president,” had “purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests.”
The 11-page resolution also charged that Cheney purposely deceived the nation about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida and has “openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States.”
House approval of an article of impeachment sends the issue to the Senate, which has the constitutional authority to try and, with a two-thirds vote, remove a person from office.
I’d call it a three-ring circus in the Democratic Congress, but circuses are organized.
The story is surprisingly refreshing. It may be the fact that this AP writer is as relieved as congressional Democrats that they won't have to register votes on impeaching Vice President Cheney.
The article doesn't go into why it would have been a "bruising debate" for Democrats. Here are a few reasons off the top of my head:
(1) Impeaching a sitting Vice President is not all that popular with the public.
(2) Impeachment is pretty popular with the Lefty fringe which has been driving the party for the last few years. However, it's likely poison for moderates that Democrats would like to attract in the general.
(3) Congress is already sitting at super-low approval rates, in part, because it's gotten no work done.
(4) The premise of the impeachment relies on losing the Iraq War; Democrats appear to have missed their opportunity (knock on wood).
(5) Related to (4), this would make foreign policy the dominant issue for the 2008 elections, as it was in 2004 and 2006. Democrats have examined public sentiment and found that things look more like 2004 than they do 2006.
What else am I missing?
Call this Steny stymied. Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich called for an up-or-down vote on impeaching Vice President Cheney.
The No. 2 Democrat in the House tried to ditch the proposal like Ugly Betty at the Junior Prom. House Republicans decided to have a little fun with it. They voted to allow Kucinich to proceed with his little resolution.
Sure, expose to the nation just what kind of loony bins voters sent to the House of Representatives. Congress has the lowest job approval rating of anyone ever in Washington. 11%. Cheney’s numbers are better!
Sure, show the public just what these lifer politicians are doing in Washington.
Sure, do it.
Blogged Paul Kane (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2007/11/cheney_impeachment_resolution.html) of the Washington Post:
“More than 120 members, predominantly Republicans, then switched their votes in favor of holding a one-hour debate on the issue, with a final vote of 251-162 supporting a debate on impeachment. Rather than allow a debate fraught with political risk, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) moved to send the Kucinich resolution to the Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), has publicly speculated about impeaching the president or vice president but has declined taking any action since taking the gavel in January.”
Way to go Democratic House leadership. I would call them all clowns, but clowns serve a purpose: Distracting bulls at the rodeo.
Democrats seem to be split now between the incompetent and the insane, with a few people in both camps — and to be fair, a few in neither camp.
A wise man would at some point cut a deal with the other side of the aisle, get the budget passed, get SCHIP reauthorized and get something to show voters other than the constant bickering.
But it is a game of chicken as both sides hurtle toward that cliff in their hot rods. Democratic leaders think they will win because they are a car length ahead.
This greatly amuses Michelle Malkin (http://michellemalkin.com/2007/11/06/all-aboard-the-impeachment-bandwagon-cheney-first-bush-next/). The left? Not so much (http://www.memeorandum.com/071106/h1800).
And, how 'bout the Democratic leadership? Suffice it to say, the leaders are pissed at Dennis for bringing up impeachment. I love it. Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308738,00.html) is reporting that the Democratic leaders in Congress are seething over Dennis Kucinich for dragging impeachment onto the political stage.
Kucinich is an embarrassment to the party. He’s like the Crazy Aunt who spills all the family secrets.
They want him to go back into the attic. Republicans are handing him a megaphone.
Democratic Congressman Alcee Hastings had the line of the day. Hastings was impeached as a federal judge over bribery before he was elected to Congress, where bribery is called campaign contributions. Irony, Dennis Kucinich barely survived a recall vote midway through his one 2-year term as mayor of Cleveland in the 1970s.
Hastings told Fox News:
“Dennis Kucinich is on a quest of his own. He sees flying saucers and he acts like one, too.”
Steny Hoyer, who as the House’s No. 2 Democrat has taken over for the incompetent House Squeaker Nancy Pelosi, (reminding me how well Hillary "license the illegals" and Nancy "No Bill" are representing their sex), tried to kill the Kucinich impeachment resolution.
Republicans were all set to help him until it occurred to them, screw Hoyer. What has he done for Republicans lately? Being portrayed as pulling the wings off children over SCHIP chaffed Republicans. So they decided to give Kucinich enough rope to hang all the Democrats.
86 Democrats (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1037.xml) were serious in voting for the resolution. 165 Republicans (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll1037.xml) voted for the resolution just to send a message to Democratic leaders. Shelley Moore Capito was among the Republicans voting for the resolution.
Technically the motion was to table, so the 162 votes for tabling were against the resolution, while the 251 no votes were technically for the impeachment resolution.
Besides Kucinich and the rest of the Tinfoil Caucus of the Democratic Party, House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel voted for the impeachment resolution.
Maybe Democratic leaders should stop playing games and start cutting deals with the Republicans in order to get legislation passed.
Here (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071106/ap_on_go_co/cheney_impeachment) is the AP report in full:
House Democrats on Tuesday narrowly managed to avert a bruising debate on a proposal to impeach Dick Cheney after Republicans, in a surprise maneuver, voted in favor of taking up the measure.
Republicans, changing course midway through a vote, tried to force Democrats into a debate on the resolution sponsored by longshot presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.
The anti-war Ohio Democrat, in his resolution, accused Cheney of purposely leading the country into war against Iraq and manipulating intelligence about Iraq’s ties with al-Qaida.
The GOP tactics reversed what had been expected to be an overwhelming vote to table, or kill, the resolution.
Midway through the vote, with instructions from the GOP leadership, Republicans one by one changed their votes from yes to kill the resolution to no, trying to force the chamber into a debate and an up-or-down vote on the proposal.
At one point there were 290 votes to table. After the turnaround, the final vote was 251-162 against tabling, with 165 Republicans voting against it.
“We’re going to help them out, to explain themselves,” said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. “We’re going to give them their day in court.”
Democrats countered by offering a motion to refer the proposal to the House Judiciary Committee for further study, effectively preventing a debate on the House floor. That motion passed by a largely party-line vote of 218-194.
The White House, in a statement, said Democrats were shirking responsibilities on issues such as childrens’ health insurance “and yet they find time to waste an afternoon on an impeachment vote against the vice president. … This is why Americans shake their head in wonder about the priorities of this Congress.”
Kucinich has long pushed for a vote to impeach Cheney, but has failed to win the backing of the Democratic leadership. After Kucinich introduced the resolution, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., immediately moved to table it.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “impeachment is off the table” and Congress is focused on responsibly getting U.S. troops out of Iraq, covering 10 million uninsured children and meeting national priorities long neglected by the Bush administration, said her spokesman Nadeam Elshami.
The resolution said that Cheney, “in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of vice president,” had “purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests.”
The 11-page resolution also charged that Cheney purposely deceived the nation about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida and has “openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States.”
House approval of an article of impeachment sends the issue to the Senate, which has the constitutional authority to try and, with a two-thirds vote, remove a person from office.
I’d call it a three-ring circus in the Democratic Congress, but circuses are organized.
The story is surprisingly refreshing. It may be the fact that this AP writer is as relieved as congressional Democrats that they won't have to register votes on impeaching Vice President Cheney.
The article doesn't go into why it would have been a "bruising debate" for Democrats. Here are a few reasons off the top of my head:
(1) Impeaching a sitting Vice President is not all that popular with the public.
(2) Impeachment is pretty popular with the Lefty fringe which has been driving the party for the last few years. However, it's likely poison for moderates that Democrats would like to attract in the general.
(3) Congress is already sitting at super-low approval rates, in part, because it's gotten no work done.
(4) The premise of the impeachment relies on losing the Iraq War; Democrats appear to have missed their opportunity (knock on wood).
(5) Related to (4), this would make foreign policy the dominant issue for the 2008 elections, as it was in 2004 and 2006. Democrats have examined public sentiment and found that things look more like 2004 than they do 2006.
What else am I missing?