Wisconsin Dems: Impeach Bush; Cheney, Rumsfeld too

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Wisconsin Dems: Impeach Bush; Cheney, Rumsfeld too

Published on Monday, June 13, 2005 by the Madison Capital Times (Wisconsin)

State Dems: Impeach Bush
Cheney, Rumsfeld too

by David Callender

Wisconsin Democrats are calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Loyalists at this weekend's state party convention in Oshkosh passed a resolution calling for Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against the three officials for their role in the war in Iraq.

The resolution contends that the administration "lied or misled" the United Nations, Congress, and the American public about the justification for the war. It cites the so-called "Downing Street memo" from British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, as well as reports from U.N. weapons inspectors as evidence of widespread deception.

"Democrats, not only in Wisconsin but throughout the U.S., have been outraged by what we believe has been a clear cover-up of why the U.S. went into Iraq," said newly elected state party Chairman Joe Wineke.

Wineke said the resolution expresses the "the sense of frustration that Democrats in Wisconsin have over fighting a war for the wrong reasons."

Wisconsin Democrats are not the first to pass such a resolution.

The Nevada state party passed a similar resolution calling for Bush's ouster last year. And both the state and national Green Party, as well as former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader, have called for Bush's impeachment because of his handling of the war in Iraq.

But with both houses of Congress in Republican hands, the resolution will not likely result in any congressional action, said Charles Franklin, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"It's the sort of thing you might imagine spreads among opposition parties, but it is so far from the political reality of anything that could happen in Washington that it makes your party look a little ridiculous," he said.

What's more, he added, even if the House of Representatives began impeachment proceedings against the president and vice president, "I don't think you can impeach the secretary of defense."

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