Desire is strong in Dems to impeach; Meanwhile Reid ridicules idea

Desire is strong in Dems to impeach

MacEachern
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Aug. 13, 2006 12:00 AM

Impeachment hearings? Nobody launches "impeachment hearings."

Should Democrats reassume control of the House of Representatives this fall, an increasingly likely event, they will not convene hearings focused on the possible impeachment of President Bush. Just ask any Democrat in Washington except the delightfully candid Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., whose lust for impeachment is almost refreshing.

"Impeaching the president is so far-fetched it's ridiculous," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid told me last week while in Phoenix for Democratic Senate candidate Jim Pederson.

Reid said he was "very glad" for the opportunity to debunk the 350-page "investigative report" released last week by Conyers in anticipation of a Bush perp walk out of the White House.

"Regarding Conyers, he's been called into (House Minority Leader Nancy) Pelosi's office," said Reid. "Don't worry about that (report)."

Not that the Conyers report needed a lot of debunking. It is heavy with references to left-wing conspiracy-theorist Web sites of the "Bush lied, people died!" variety and columns by Bob Herbert and Frank Rich, both of the New York Times. We didn't need a 350-page report to know that Herbert, Rich and their pals on the op-ed pages of the Times would like to see Bush impeached.

But if Reid really believes that, once in power, House Democrats will be able to resist hearings of the sort that invariably morph into impeachment hearings, he's not paying attention.

For one thing, Pelosi can bark at Conyers now all she likes, but Conyers will become House Judiciary Committee chairman following a Democratic takeover. When that happens, Conyers won't need Pelosi's blessing to convene hearings.

And it isn't just Conyers. The desire among some Democrats to impeach Bush is every bit as passionate as that of the nuttiest Clinton-hating conspiracy theorists in 1994. Billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife has been replaced today by billionaire George Soros. Scaife's preposterous "Arkansas Project" has been replaced by Conyers' tail-chasing report, "The Constitution in Crisis." We know where Scaife's fever-blinded trip up the Whitewater River led. Conyers' little report, however dingy, is capable of kick-starting similar events.

For several weeks now, The Arizona Republic Editorial Board has been entertaining congressional candidates. Many of the Arizona Democrats chasing open or Republican-held seats told us that "impeachment" hearings would be bad. But most added that they would welcome formal hearings into various Bush transgressions. It is a distinction without a difference.

"There is no doubt in my mind the president is impeachable," said Democrat Herb Paine, who hopes to unseat Rep. John Shadegg, R-District 3. "But impeachment hearings would be very divisive." Paine insisted the nation shouldn't go down that road.

But regarding more generic "hearings"? Oh, that's different, Paine said. Yes, by all means, let's have hearings. And lots of them. Let's just not call them "impeachment hearings." Not yet.

Among the several Democrats vying for the open District 8 seat in southern Arizona, enthusiasm for such hearings ranges from merely eager to slobbering with anticipation.

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