Kucinich Gets Hearing — Just Don’t Call It an Impeachment Hearing

July 25, 2008–
Kucinich Gets Hearing — Just Don’t Call It an Impeachment Hearing

Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, who is leading the charge such as it is to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, finally got a hearing on Capitol Hill to consider what he calls the two men’s “culpability for leading the country to war under false pretenses.”

The hearing before the House Judiciary Committee went for nearly six hours in response to Kucinich’s articles of impeachment.

Democratic leaders, who had resisted Kucinich’s efforts to hold a hearing on his impeachment articles, seemed reluctant to fuel the impeachment fire that rages strong among some of their party’s liberal supporters.

The hearing was initially billed by Kucinich and others as an “Impeachment Hearing.” By July 17, when it landed on the House Judiciary Committee’s calendar, it had been renamed as a hearing on the “Bush Imperial Presidency.” And then earlier this week, it was changed again to a “Hearing on Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations.”

Republican members of the committee, who sometimes avoid showing up for hearings they view as partisan, gamely attended, if only to needle Democrats for holding an event they know will not lead to impeachment proceedings.

“It seems that we are hosting an anger management class,” said Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith. “Nothing is going to come out of this hearing with regard to impeachment of the president. I know it, the media knows it, even the speaker knows it.”

Rep. John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the committee, acknowledged it wasn’t an impeachment hearing. “To the regret of many, this is not an impeachment hearing. To have an impeachment hearing, the House of Representatives has to vote to authorize that a committee begin an inquiry, and that has not taken place yet.”

Undeterred, Kucinich, who maintains a special impeachment Web site relished his victory in getting this far. “Americans have been waiting for Congress to hold the President accountable for his long list of misdeeds and misrepresentations. This hearing is a long overdue first step,” Kucinich said in a statement.