Friday, September 08, 2006

Is Any One Taking Bets As To Who Will Be The First To Be Impeached Come November?

Come November, things may look dramatically different in Congress. Let's hope the voters turn out in masses to prove to the idiots in charge that we don't like the path they have taken and we need to venture down a new direction.

Given the number of impeachable offenses that could be slathered on a wide number of the W, Rove and Co personnel, I got to thinking. Perhaps there is money to be made in Vegas or elsewhere by placing bets as to who will be the first to be impeached.

It might be fun to speculate as to who will be the indicted under articles of impeachment. Who will be the first found guilty of impeachable offenses, etc? Bookies aught to be all over this one.

What odds would you give Rummy, et al?:
The first and most obvious means is through the impeachment process. As a Cabinet secretary, Rumsfeld may be impeached and removed from office under Article 2 of the Constitution for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors." Rumsfeld's critics charge him with a long list of what they say are impeachable offenses, including incompetence and ordering the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other military detention centers.

Because historical practices and the weight of legal opinion suggest that impeachable misconduct generally requires not just a bad act but a malicious intent as well, it's not clear that incompetence qualifies as an impeachable offense. Although it's true that one federal judge was removed from office in 1803 for mental incompetence, Congress has never again impeached, much less removed, anyone for incompetence.

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