In a point that underscores how little traction the issue of impeachment has right now, Al Gore gave a major speech today in which he essentially called the president a criminal.
You'd think such a charge coming from a former Democratic candidate for the presidency would be incredibly newsworthy, especially since Gore was introduced by former Republican congressman and Clinton impeachment manager Bob Barr. Of course, you'd be wrong. Not even the sight of powerful politicians from opposite ends of the spectrum coming together to condemn the president could stir the media from their apathy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
And BTW - is was in all the top internet news sources when I left work today. So it IS getting some traffic.
That being said, I would imagine I would avoid anything Al "Fun Times" Gore said if I were in the press as I don't think he gets headlines like that pregnant Angelina!! That baby will be adorable!
The problem the way I see it is the fact that the Dems have been calling for impeachment since almost day 1.
Sorry, but I don't buy your assumption here. Rank and file Democrats, maybe, but can you name me a single Democrat of Gore's level who's made a charge this harsh -- that the president is a criminal? The whole point of the Nation article, in fact, is that no one has called for impeachment before, and this is all suddenly new. And they're the ones out on the edge.
Add to the fact that the President can play the Patriot card
Didn't work for Nixon. Wouldn't work now. A couple years ago, sure. But the polls reflect that that dog just don't hunt anymore.
And BTW - is was in all the top internet news sources when I left work today. So it IS getting some traffic.
Yeah, even Wolf Blitzer was all over it this afternoon. Maybe it will gain traction. We'll see.
By the way, as I noted in the post before this one, I think all impeachment talk is premature and not worth following at least through the next elections and in all likelihood never.
I hear you, Joe, but I think right now, Gore is right up there with Kerry as the party's leading statesmen, largely because the public defines leaders not in terms of congressional leaders but presidential nominees. (And the way I've always seen the story of the lack of a Gore challenge is that Gore himself nixed it. If he'd wanted a senator, Paul Wellstone or someone like him would've leapt at the chance.)
And I think it's a mistake to see this as Bush spying on terrorists. He wasn't. The NYT has a story up about the thousands upon thousands of people who had their phones tapped without warrants and, as it turns out, without any results. These people had no ties to terrorism, and as a result, that means the Bush administration wasn't spying on terrorists, they were spying on ordinary Americans.
This is worse than Watergate for one simple reason -- the American people realize that this time around, it wasn't some high profile Democrat who was getting spied on, it was normal people. It was them.
Like your typical wishy-washy librul, I agree with everyone. In my book Gore still has a lot of authority, and when he talks, I listen. But I don't think there's all that many people who feel that way, and we all know that the press has long loathed Gore for a variety of BS reasons.
Gore's done a number of great, fiery speeches the last 2 or 3 years. Each got major play on the blogs, each got inadequate to modest coverage in the regular press, and each went away a few days later.
I definitely agree with you guys that impeachment ain't gonna happen. I disagree with you, TJ, about impeachment being called for since day 1, but there have been a few instances of it (I think John Conyers may have called for impeachment proceedings, but I could be wrong about that).
As far as the issue of spying on U.S. citizens, I'm a lot less concerned about the civil liberties aspect than I am the breaking the law aspect. I think that Bush really was trying to enhance national security with the wiretapping stuff, and I wouldn't have had a problem with it if it'd gone on in the aftermath of 9/11, until they had a chance to address it legislatively. But the fact that they never bothered to even try to make it legal is scarry to me.
Post a Comment