Last Friday, Code Pink was granted a meeting with Chairman John Conyers, in which he challenged the intrepid, peace-lovin' protesters to explain to him why he should dismiss the five most common reasons indicating that impeachment is not possible. The five reasons are below.
John Conyers’ five [paraphrased] reasons for not impeaching: I’m going to list them twice, first with my rebuttals and then with the rebuttals given on dailykos. Reasons by Rob Kall• Reason one: While the majority of people in this country want Bush gone, they don't want impeachment.
Rebuttal: Most people don’t understand that there are two parts to impeachment—hearings that Bush can claim executive privilege for, and the senate trial. People don’t want to deal with the senate trial. The polls Conyers may be seeing that show opposition to impeachment don’t explain this. They allow for ignorance.
• Reason two: The corporate media will slay us.
Rebuttal: No. The corporate media will get tons of cheap, free content that will provide high interest, attention grabbing news. They will love it. Sure, FOX News will criticize, but they do that 24/7 anyway.
• Reason three: Not enough time.
Rebuttal: The timing is perfect. The coverage will show the dirt, corruption, lies and criminality of Bush, Cheney and their republican enablers and will do devastating damage to McCain, GOP incumbents and the image of the Republican party. If impeachment hearings were started before June, they may have actually been TOO early, since Republicans could have cleaned up the mess and moved on. Now it is pretty much too late, even if the Republicans give Bush and Cheney the boot.
• Reason four: Not enough votes.
Rebuttal: The Dems control the hearings in the house. The “not enough votes” concern is all about the senate. The Dems can keep the trial from ever happening by keeping hearings going. That’s why we want impeachment, for the devastating hearings that will damage the Republicans. Forget about the votes. They will never happen. The Republicans will do “the Walk” to the whitehouse to tell Cheney and Bush they have to resign or the Republican party will be destroyed.
• Reason five: It will most likely cost the Democrats the election.
Rebuttal: Total cowardly, unsubstantiated nonsense. Impeachment hearings will increase the factor Obama wins against McCain by and will help more Dems beat Republican incumbents. The news coverage will be riveting and will cast an incredbly ugly light upon the Republicans. My poll, posted last week on OpEdNews.com, Will Impeachment Hearings Help or Hurt Obama and Democrats This Year? drew a 94% response saying that it would HELP, not hurt the democrats.
Rebuttals given by Markthshark on dailykos.• Reason one: While the majority of people in this country want Bush gone, they don't want impeachment.
Rebuttal: According to the Institute for Public Accuracy, a poll done by the American Research Group back in July 2007 indicated that 54% wanted to impeach Dick Cheney and 40% did not. In the same poll, 45% said they wanted to see George W. Bush impeached and 46% did not. Democrats.com has a whole series of polls from last year. Times have changed and percentages are most likely even higher in favor of impeachment now with recent disclosures from the long-awaited Senate Select Intelligence Committee Phase Two report and Scott McClellan’s new book What Happened.
• Reason two: The corporate media will slay us.
Rebuttal: Consider the source. I’m not trying to be trite here but the media in America simply have no credibility anymore because of how they failed to ask the hard questions during the run up to the war, and they’ve continued their dereliction of duties as the 4th branch of our government by not holding this scofflaw administration accountable for their crimes. Besides, impeachment hearings will be broadcast on C-Span full time and cable news part time. It's kind of difficult to refute the evidence once it's laid out on the proverbial table.
• Reason three: Not enough time.
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