A new poll by the American Research Group shows a majority of the U.S. public in favor of the House beginning impeachment proceedings against Vice President Cheney by a 54 to 40 percent majority. The same poll found a near tie on President George W. Bush and impeachment, with 45 percent in favor and 46 opposed to the House beginning proceedings. See Election Central.

ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN
Holtzman was a member of the House panel that voted to impeach Richard Nixon and is co-author of the book The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens. She said today: “The Congressional leadership cannot continue to say to at least half of America, ‘sorry, impeachment is off the table.’ The American people are putting it back on, and we’re beginning to see Congress respond. …

“When Nixon fired the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, the American people said, ‘enough is enough; no President is above the law.’ Well, we are nearing kind of critical mass again. With the self-serving commutation of Libby’s sentence, more revelations about Cheney’s central role in authorizing detainee abuse, and the White House invoking executive privilege to stonewall subpoenas, public support for impeachment is broadening and Congress is beginning to move.”
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DAVID SWANSON
Co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org and creator of ImpeachCheney.org, Swanson said today: “The House Judiciary Committee passed an article of impeachment against Richard Nixon for refusing to comply with subpoenas [as Bush has also refused to do]. The current chairman of that committee, John Conyers, refuses to take up impeachment, while claiming that the growing pressure for impeachment will force the White House to comply with subpoenas. But as long as Conyers promises not to impeach, the White House won’t feel the pressure and won’t obey the law.”
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JOHN NICHOLS
Author of the book The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism, Nichols said today: “The great mass of Americans has given up on George Bush and Dick Cheney; less than one in five people express confidence in the direction this administration is leading the nation. Yet, Congress continues to empower an executive branch that has broken faith with the citizenry and the Constitution. It’s a breakdown of the democratic process that the Founders anticipated. And they would want us to respond. Indeed, if the Founders were alive today and serving in the U.S. House, they would be sponsoring articles of impeachment against the most excessive executives in the history of the Republic.”
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For more information, contact the Institute for Public Accuracy at (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan at (541) 484-9167.