Impeachment

I am suprised that not one Republican has stepped forward calling for the impeachment of President Bush. Wolfowitz has admitted in an interview that the issue of WMD's in Iraq was only a pretense to invading Iraq. That one of the "benefits" of our invasion is the ability to remove our troops from Saudia Arabia. It is obvious, given this statement, and the history of falsefied documents which, among others, Powell read to the U.N., that this was a propoganda campaign to begin with. It is also obvious that the Pentagon ignored intelligence data compiled by the CIA that indicated that Iraq did not pose a significant risk, and accepted intelligence put forward by Rumsfelds own intelligence gathering appartus. An apparatus that slanted and filtered information to build a case for invading Iraq.
It is obvious that our President, his advisors, Secretary of State, the Pentagon has lied to the American People, the World, our allies. Is this not more damaging and significant as a lapse in honesty then the cover-up of a consensual sexual affair between our past president and an intern? Is it not a more serious offense to cause this nations citizens military to be put in harms way under false pretexts. If Iraq was not a "serious threat" to this nation and to the world, then we have wrongly invaded a soverign nation against all rules of international law.

"The purpose of impeachment

It is crucial to note the original purpose of impeachment when considering the most suitable punishment for Clinton. The Founders were clear that impeachment was not meant to be a punishment for individual wrongdoing, but a remedy for threats to the national interest. In Federalist No. 65, Hamilton said of impeachment:

The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.
Notice the word "immediately" -- the Founders were not talking about harm to society that was indirect, theoretical or several times removed.

The Founders showed the non-punitive nature of impeachment when they declared that Congress could only remove a president, not punish him with fines or prison sentences. They reserved punishment for regular courts of law after the president left office. They did this because they believed that no person should be placed in double jeopardy for the same offense, a principle they even wrote into the 5th Amendment.

You can see this point another way as well. In the regular courts, there are strict rules of procedure, guaranteeing due process for the accused. The rules clearly define the rights and responsibilities of both the defense and the prosecution. But such rules largely do not exist in the impeachment process. Indeed, the lack of rules is remarkable. The Founders intended this to be more of a political process than a judicial one. Impeachment was meant to remove a threat to the nation, not to serve justice to individuals."