Impeachment? It's not just for Kucinich anymore

A new poll has 39 percent of Americans favoring the impeachment of both Bush and Cheney.

Published May 9, 2007 1:00PM (EDT)

Dennis Kucinich's articles of impeachment for Dick Cheney are going exactly nowhere -- he has found all of two cosponsors so far -- but that's not because the idea isn't popular with the American people.

In a poll taken by Insider Advantage/Majority Opinion, 39 percent of Americans say they would favor the impeachment of both Cheney and his boss, George W. Bush. It's not just those crazy, far-left, America-hating Democrats, either; 42 percent of the independents polled said they, too, would favor impeaching Cheney and Bush.

Matt Towery, who ran Newt Gingrich's PAC before taking the helm at Insider Advantage/Majority Opinion, was so startled by the poll results that he sought some explanation from Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman who initiated an "inquiry of impeachment" against Bill Clinton in 1997. Barr's take: "This indicates the surprising depth of dissatisfaction with Bush," he tells Towery. "I'm not sure we ever really had hard polling numbers in favor of impeachment that were this high when we were in the midst of the process. Perhaps, but I don't recall it."

Actually, the numbers were pretty similar: Polls taken around the time of the House vote on Clinton's impeachment showed that about 40 percent of the public supported it. The difference? The views of those 40 percent were taken seriously by members of Congress, who, for better or for worse, actually did something about them.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

MORE FROM Tim Grieve


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Dennis Kucinich D-ohio Dick Cheney George W. Bush