Kucinich’s Impeachment Quest May Hurt Obama’s White House Bid

By Anthony Leone

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush. But his quest to remove the President from office may hurt presumed Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s own quest to win the 2008 election.

What was the reaction by his fellow Democrats? They pretty much opposed the former presidential candidate’s futile efforts. In fact, Democratic leaders are expected to table the resolution by referring it to the Judiciary Committee, where they hope it will be buried and forgotten.

The articles deals with such things as the Iraq war, global warming, allegedly holding American citizens and “foreign captives” (let’s call them terrorists) illegally, voting rights, and President Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, just to name a few. But let’s focus on the Iraq war.

Now, let’s forget a few things about why the impeachment will fail, such as how the U.N. never enforced its own resolutions against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, so no one knew if he really had his weapons of mass destruction. Or that the U.N. voted in agreement to the resolution that Saddam still had WMD.

Or how former President Bill Clinton ordered Operation Desert Fox to deal with Saddam’s weapons programs, after Iraq failed, again, to provide U.N. weapons inspectors with an honest account of them. Or how there were reports that Saddam shipped his WMD to Syria before the 2003 war.

But let’s remember that a great number of Democrats who said many times during the buildup of the war that Saddam was a danger to America and the world with his deadly weapons. Did they lie too? They saw the same information that the President saw. So, does that mean there will be an impeachment for Bush and the Democrats?

And more importantly, this will not only shatter Obama’s chances for the White House, but the Democrat’s as well. Why?

Obama was strongly against going into Iraq from the very start. And here is a speech he gave in October 2002 at an anti-war rally that will probably come back to haunt him:

“(Saddam) has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him,” the possible future president said nearly six years ago.

Now, if Kucinich’s goal is to get rid of President Bush from the White House, it could also rid the Democrats’ goal from getting into it.

This is why House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and fellow Democrat and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have said that they would not pursue impeachment charges against the President. Because not only will it air the Democrat’s dirty laundry that a good number of them voted to give President Bush the power to go to war, but it will show how they are not unified if their presumed nominee was against going to war.

And more importantly, Obama’s speech is a huge weapon against him. He said that Saddam had WMD and knew that Saddam was a threat to the world and that U.N. resolutions were useless against the bloody dictator. But he didn’t think removing him was important enough for America’s safety.

Wow. What a thing to say. Because the Republicans can highlight this speech and point to Obama’s global inexperience and how he should not be the one to answer the phone about a national security threat at 3 a.m.

Granted, I believe the President should have handled the war better. He should have given the U.N. weapons inspectors a lot more time before considering military use. His administration should not have allowed retired generals and other former military leaders to sell the war to TV networks. But it still boils down to one thing: At the time, we found ourselves in a global terror war and we needed to know once and for all whether or not Saddam had those weapons. And because Kucinich opened up this can of worms, the Democrats are going to have a hard time putting the lid back on.

Kucinich is the little engine that shouldn’t. He either does not realize or care that he is sabotaging his party’s chances for the White House. And Kucinich is showing how ineffective Obama will be as a Commander-In-Chief.

Kucinich’s impeachment crusade is like Don Quixote’s battle with the windmill: There is nothing there that warrants these charges.