Yikes! That is one long and windy post you link to. Anyone who actually reads it to the end has my sympathies.

To the Leftists: Knock yourself out! (so to speak) I welcome every attempt to cement the Republican party in power. :)

Its a media driven myth that Clinton was and is as popular as reported. He garnered only 46% and 49% of the vote in the two elections. He was barred from campaigning for his Vice President who should have been elected by a landslide. There is no question he should have been impeached for perjury though more so for having illegal possesion of FBI files, illegal campaign shenannigans and approving the sell of technology to the Chicoms. I contend it was a political winner based on the evidence of the present Republican control of the governorships, the House, the Senate and the White House.

Jeffords would have found some other "outrage" to justify his traitorous defection if he didn't have the impeachment to hang his commie loving hat upon.

Clinton should have been impeached for his lax attitude on terrorism and technological exports to China et al.

So they bagged him for "what is is" lies. So what. They nailed Capone on his tax forms. He reaped what he sowed.

That'l lefty Leiter...the law prof that is so insecure about the US News Rankings the he invents his own counter-rankings to game up his school a higher position. The guy that is so obsessed with the preception of law school rankings that he lurks on college message boards and poses as a student. The guy so obsessed with getting the US News rankings first every year that he linked to a supposed scanned copy of the magazine on a personal website and wound up hosting Tubgirl on UT's servers. Ha.

One other note, what was one of those "solving problems for the American people" that Clinton wanted to focus on? Oh that's right, reforming, no saving, social security

Ace, remember that there is a double-standard at work here. After all, the MSM had an interest in downplaying anything that was thrown at Clinton, even the things that he was guilty of. The MSM feels no need to downplay any similar charges at Bush-- in fact, just the opposite. Unlike, say, the Republicans looking for dirt on their opponents, the MSM has actively aided the Democrats in looking for dirt on *their* opponents. Thus, every non-story involving Bush gets constant play.

Like this impeachment thing. It won't go anywhere, and everyone-- including the MSM, and the Democrats with functioning brain stems-- realizes that. Yet, every story that covers this will spend one sentence laughing about it and then ten sentences talking about how bad Bush is, leaving the impression that, while he's certainly not *technically* impeachable, hey, wouldn't *you* want to get this guy? In the end, this constant background noise lays the groundwork for the day that a *real* scandal may emerge. A scandal that at any other time would be survivable, but this time around is enough to bring down Bush and the GOP, mostly because Joe Public associates getting rid of Bush not as a negative but as a positive, not because they hate Bush but they simply want all the noise to stop.

Of course, this is what happened in Clinton's case as well. And the GOP would have succeeded in impeachment had they not turned around and made more noise than Clinton. The average American in the middle simply wants to ignore politics, and for a long time there they felt that Clinton was making them pay attention to politics when they didn't want to care. As soon as the GOP supplanted Clinton in that respect-- the government shutdown, and then the impeachment trial-- the American people at large wanted the problem to go away.

The danger today is that the noise around Bush, while it's been there since he came into office, could one day grow large enough that people want Bush to go away not because they dislike Bush, but they know that as soon as he leaves, things will quiet down again. Unfortunately, you and I know that would never be the case, because the moment such politics is rewarded is the moment it becomes standard politics in Washington. We're probably too late as it is.

Anyway, bottom line: the Democrats will shoot themselves in the foot as long as Bush doesn't visibly and indisputably screw up. Despite liberal arguments to the contrary, Bush hasn't screwed up yet. But if he does. . . man, the MSM and the Dems will *pounce*, and I seriously doubt the GOP has the spine to fight for the man if push comes to shove.

Sad.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Clinton came out ahead because of the media.

Bush would lose for the same reason.

You're being as silly as the Dems: impeachment paralyzed Clinton and pretty much ended his ability to do anything. If the same thing happened now to Bush, we'd all be screwed.

The big difference though is that the media has lost some of its power. Where Clinton had an almost entirely sympathetic establishment media on his side, today's media is not monolithically against Bush with "right-wing" venues rising to prominence. This is not to downplay its remaining power, which is considerable, just look at Durbin staying in office. It just means that its not going to be an automatic slam dunk for them to persue this.

But if it took impeachment to paralyze Clinton, why would they need to impeach Bush? He's pretty much doing nothing as it is now anyway. SS reform? Judges? Tax reform? An ambassador to the UN?
Bush is to busy playing nice to actually play hardball and get stuff done. If Bolton doesn't reach cloture Bush should just orderd State to shut down the US mission to the UN, that would get the Dems hopping mad. Maybe even threaten to redeploy our powderblue troops, since he can't coordinate with our allies.

But instead he'll just do nothing. Which I suppose is still better than the something Kerry would be doing in his stead.

The only thing that offended THIS republican about the impeachment of Bill Clinton was the TOTAL INCOMPETENCE that party leadership in the House nad Senate showed. No witnesses to testify in front of Congress? Fine!! Clinton doesn't NEED to show up and testify in person, but can do so by video-for-God's-sake-tape, complete with breaks? Why the hell not! Don't want to raise the issue of the FBI files that "accidentally" turned up in Hillary's closet? Okeydokey! Is there anything else we Republicans can do for you, Bill? Bend over, maybe?

If you don't impeach a President for committing perjury, what do you impeach him for? Wait for a politically opportune moment?

I would have like to see a real investigation of Clinton's campaign financing, say about getting a million bucks from ChiCom intelligence and what the ChiComs got for their investment. How about abuse of power, the 700 or was it 900 FBI files, the framing and malicious prosecution of Billy Dale from the Travel Office, the abuse of the IRS and the malicious use of audits against political opponents and how about citizens who spoke up to Clinton, who received visits from the Secret Service.

There was a lot that Clinton did, that the Congress was too afraid to touch.