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I think I can safely say
that George W. Bush is not a very popular president. According to CBS’s
latest poll (April 5-9, 2006), only 37% of the people interviewed approve
of the President, which isn’t good news for Bush. The President has been
heavily criticized for, among other things, his handling of the economy,
the War in Iraq, and his policy on immigration. Some people have even
created organizations to get Bush impeached (just Google “impeach Bush” to
get an idea of how many of these organizations there are out there). I
personally do not like the President, nor do I support most of the
Republican Party’s positions. In fact, at first, impeachment of Bush seems
like a pretty good idea to me. But, once you think about it, you realize
it’s simply not practical.
For one thing, if you
impeach Bush you get Dick Cheney. Even though Bush’s approval rating is
only a measly 37%, Cheney’s is even lower at 30% (according to the March
Harris Poll). But why is Cheney’s approval rating even lower than Bush’s?
Well, for one, he shot a man in the face last month. He also is a major
supporter of the death penalty, which kind of frightens some
people. Cheney is also considered to be a large part of the brains behind
the Bush Administration, making him mostly responsible for the War in
Iraq. Also, Cheney is disliked for his ties to the Texas construction and
energy services company Halliburton, which he was CEO of until 2000.
Halliburton has received some lucrative contracts in Iraq and has been
accused of price-gouging, among other things.
So, if Cheney is that
unpopular now, imagine what would happen if he became President? Being
President requires certain traits that Cheney does not possess, including
charisma and being able to connect to the people. Bush at least has these
traits.
Another major reason for
not impeaching Bush is that people lose faith in the Executive Branch
after impeachment or near impeachment. Loss of faith in the Executive
Branch means giving more power to Congress, which disrupts the balance of
government. After Nixon’s resignation in 1974, many people lost a lot of
faith in the Executive Branch. Without the people on his (and, probably in
the future, her) side, a president loses a lot of power. And Nixon wasn’t
even impeached! In fact, only two U.S. presidents were ever impeached,
Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson, and they didn’t even get voted out of
office, so imagine the chaos that would ensue if for the first time ever a
U.S. president was impeached and voted out of office. Impeaching
Bush and throwing him out of office would disrupt balance in our country
and make us look even worse to the rest of the world than we
already do.
Personally, I don’t like
Bush the slightest bit. I think that he’s doing a terrible job as
President and he should leave office as soon as possible. Even so, I do
not believe impeachment is the right way to do that. Should we impeach
Bush, the country would actually be in worse shape than it is now because
Cheney will become president and the country will be unstable because of
lack of faith in the Executive Branch. |
