Political Cortex: Reid Cops Out on Impeachment

Reid Cops Out on Impeachment

By Bill Hare
10/09/2007 02:22:17 PM EST

Christiane Brown of Reno's KJFK is to be congratulated for her recent interview of Senate majority leader Harry Reid.

We recall the statement that awaited us before Nancy Pelosi was even installed as House Speaker as she emphatically declared that, where George W. Bush was concerned, "Impeachment is off the table."

Brown, when Reid scoffed at impeachment as a "foolish" idea, replied to Reid's dismissive statement that Bush had only one more year to serve as chief executive, saying that lives could be saved in an illegal Iraq War if Bush were removed from office.

When Reid irritably exclaimed that Cheney would assume the presidency upon the removal of Bush, Brown countered by informing him that the former Halliburton CEO could be removed as well by the same process.

Certainly Reid knew without Brown needed to inform him that Dennis Kucinich already has an impeachment resolution before the House against Dick Cheney. It was obvious from listening to the brief but highly informative 1 minute and 54 second interview that a very uncomfortable Reid did not want to discuss impeachment and felt highly awkward in doing so.

Those interested in hearing the interview can do so by surfing over to Democrats.com, where David Swanson has written a paragraph about it as well as supplying the click-on capability to hear the colloquy.

In seeking to dismiss impeachment talk, Reid then mentioned the trial of Bill Clinton. Brown countered that, while this was a "ridiculous" action, a movement against Bush and Cheney was altogether different and contained merit.

At that point Reid made the most absurd comment of the interview when he declared, "Ridiculous is in the eye of the beholder."

What point were you trying to make, Senator Reid? In his anxiety to get an astute and determined Christiane Brown away from discussing impeachment he made a comment that, to the uninitiated, would appear to be saying that perhaps the action against Clinton had merit while such actions against Bush and Cheney did not.

No, Reid was not making those points, but his absurd and irrelevant "eye of the beholder" comment would seem more feasible in such a context. What his comment really showed was that a flustered senator was using a stonewall tactic, a practice in which so many of them engage in, as a means of avoiding talking about an issue that they find awkward, as Reid did in the interview with Brown discussing impeachment.

Thank you again, Christiane Brown, for fleshing out Senator Reid and letting him display why in a recent national poll, where Bush holds a pathetic 33 percent support rating, Congress, the House headed by Pelosi and the Senate presided over by Reid, rate even lower at 29 percent.

Read the U.S. Constitution on the subject of impeachment, Senator Reid.

Also read the Federalist Papers, Senator, particularly what Alexander Hamilton had to say about the impeachment process.

We know, Senator Reid. You are not anymore likely to study what this nation's constitutional framers had to say about impeachment than you were to discuss the subject with Christiane Brown on radio.