Impeaching Cheney

What if Deadeye Dick winds up with a manslaughter or reckless endagerment charge? If we didn't live in FoxWorld now, it seems like it would be pretty straightforward if the victim dies that the VP would step down.

But, seriously, this is Dick Cheney. And given his history, he might decide to tough it out and not resign even in that case. He might even welcome a Constitutional fight over whether a Vice President can be tried for a felony or go to prison while he's still in office.

So should Congress impeach him? It may not be quite such a clear answer for Democrats as it might seem at first glance. Obviously, if impeachment of Bush looks like a real possibility, Democrats would want Cheney removed either before or at the same time Bush was removed. How would Democrats vote to remove Bush if that meant making Deadeye Dick, the Dark Lord of torture, President?

How does impeachment look to the Republicans in the case of a criminal charge or conviction for Cheney? It sounds ugly to say it. But it may be true that a lot of Republicans would find even a manslaughter killing by the VP less cause for impeachment than a sad love affair involving oral sex. On the other hand, you would have to be a seriously devout Republican to not think it's a bad idea for someone who had carelessly killed a man with a shotgun to be next in line for the Presidency.


But what happens if the Reps press for Cheney's impeachment? Oops! Once articles of impeachment are considered, that opens up the field to other embarassing problems for the Veep: the Valerie Plame outing and Scooter's complicity; the torture policy; the secret prisons; kidnapping and "rendition" of terrorist suspects; fradulent claims about WMDs and Iraqi links to Al Qaeda; the leaking of signals intelligence to Iran. Even if they're desperate to get Cheney out of office to distance themselves from the political stench, are they going to be willing to open that cabinet of horrors?

So the Reps offer the Democrats a deal. We'll support impeachment of Cheney and removal from office if you'll agree to limit the charges to the shooting incident.

What does that give the Dems? This could be a Harriet Myers/Alito deal. One unqualified person is rejected, then a Scalia clone is approved in her place. For the Democrats, putting a John McCain in the Vice President's chair to set him up for a 2008 run for President with Brother Jeb as his running mate doesn't look like such a good deal.

It's hard to picture, I know, the Democrats hunkering down and being hardnosed and smart in dealing with this. But they did stop Bush's Social Security phase-out proposal last year. That was a real success.

So the Democrats could refuse to support Cheney's impeachment unless the other charges were included in the articles of impeachment. If the Republicans refuse, the Dems should just hold out and vote no until they can go for a package deal, Bush and Cheney outsted at the same time. That would force the Reps to gather basically all their votes to support impeaching the VP of their own party. And the Democrats could make a fight against it and use the fight to highlight the security and secrecy issues.

It would be a fight worth having.

It also gets to the issues that Lisa and Neil raise in the comments to an earlier post of mine today on this. As bad as a reckless endangerment or even an involuntary manslaughter charge would be, there's no indication that the shooting itself was anything other than an accident. A private act with bad, maybe even fatal consequences, but an accident.

Would the Republicans impeach the VP for a private accident and refuse to even consider questions of illegal actions involving the lives of tens of thousands?

A fight worth having.

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