ASKIAM
Senior Correspondent

WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com) – There have been increased calls for President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to be driven from office for “numerous impeachable offenses.”

“Nixon was bad. These guys are worse,” 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee George McGovern wrote in The Washington Post Jan. 6.

Days later three members of the House Judiciary Committee called on committee chair John Conyers to conduct impeachment hearings.

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“In this time, at this moment, Congress must stand for truth,” Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) said in a floor speech Jan. 14. “A growing chorus of Americans is calling for accountability. The response from Congress thus far has been silence and denial.”

Mr. Wexler, and Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) support an impeachment resolution, introduced by presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). In April 2007, he introduced “Articles of Impeachment Against Dick Cheney,” which was reintroduced on Nov. 6, 2007, as House Resolution 799.

The impeachment resolution is co-sponsored by Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Albert Wynn (D-Md.), William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.), Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Jim McDermott (D-Wa.), Jim Moran (D-Va.), Bob Filner (D-Calif.), Sam Farr (D-Calif.), Robert Brady (D-Pa.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Donald Payne (D-N.J.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), Ed Towns (D-N.Y.), Diane Watson (D-Calif.), Danny Davis (D-Ill.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), and Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.).

The House Democratic leaders oppose impeachment proceedings because they would be “divisive.”

“I had said right from the start that what we are trying to do is bring the country together,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters Jan. 17 in response to a question from The Final Call.

“When the Democrats came into office, we did not want a discussion of impeachment to eclipse both in perception and in the time that it took the initiatives that we thought were necessary, raise the minimum wage, make college affordable, make America safer, make health care more accessible and our full agenda, pass an energy bill.

“It was my belief that an impeachment of the vice president or the president of the United States would be very divisive in our country, and that is what I believed then.I said it during the campaign. It should have come to no surprise when I became speaker I said it again, and I continue to hold that view,” Rep. Pelosi.

The charges against the vice president are too serious to ignore, insists Mr. Wexler. He argues the vice president must be ousted first, otherwise successfully impeaching Mr. Bush would move Mr. Cheney into the Oval Office as president. Mr. Cheney’s ouster is essential, “in order to restore the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches, which has been eroded by an ever-expanding claim of authority under (Mr.) Cheney and President Bush,” Mr. Wexler said. Since Jan. 1, more than 200,000 people have signed an on-line petition on Mr. Wexler’s website supporting impeachment hearings.

The first charge against the vice president says he “purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests.

“Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Vice President actively and systematically sought to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.”

The second charge is that Mr. Cheney “purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States about an alleged relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests.”

The third charge says Mr. Cheney “has openly threatened aggression against the Republic of Iran absent any real threat to the United States, and done so with the United States proven capability to carry out such threats, thus undermining the national security of the United States.”

Speaker Pelosi said she does not want to appear to let the administration off the hook, but she does not think Mr. Bush nor Mr. Cheney can be successfully impeached.

“Even if you wanted to do so, the prospect for success is so minimal, but the damage that would have been done is so consequential, that that’s the course I chose.And you’re right,I am criticized for it not only in my caucus, but across the country, because I go through airports, and people have buttons as if they knew I was coming.

“And in any event, there is a lot of unhappiness in the country about the war in Iraq, how it was initiated, how it has been conducted and where we go from here, and I understand the frustration of the American people.I do think, though, that the unity of our country is something that we all value, and (impeachment) would not be in furtherance of promoting that unity.”