[Mb-civic] Americans Favor Bush's Impeachment If He Lied about Iraq

[Mha Atma Khalsa]

Poll: Americans Want Bush Impeached
by David Swanson
Tue Oct 11, 2005 at 02:10:40 PM PDT

Poll: Americans Favor Bush's Impeachment If He Lied
about Iraq

By a margin of 50% to 44%, Americans want Congress to
consider impeaching President Bush if he lied about
the war in Iraq, according to a new poll commissioned
by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that
supports a Congressional investigation of President
Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

    * David Swanson's diary :: ::
*

The poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, the
highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll
interviewed 1,001 U.S. adults on October 6-9.

The poll found that 50% agreed with the statement:

"If President Bush did not tell the truth about his
reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should
consider holding him accountable by impeaching him."

44% disagreed, and 6% said they didn't know or
declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 3.1% margin of
error.

Among those who felt strongly either way, 39% strongly
agreed, while 30% strongly disagreed.

"The results of this poll are truly astonishing," said
AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik. "Bush's
record-low approval ratings tell just half of the
story, which is how much Americans oppose Bush's
policies on Iraq and other issues. But this poll tells
the other half of the story - that a solid plurality
of Americans want Congress to consider removing Bush
from the White House."

Impeachment Supported by Majorities of Many Groups

Responses varied by political party affiliation: 72%
of Democrats favored impeachment, compared to 56% of
Independents and 20% of Republicans.

Responses also varied by age and income. Solid
majorities of those under age 55 (54%), as well as
those with household incomes below $50,000 (57%),
support impeachment.

Majorities favored impeachment in the Northeast (53%),
West (51%), and even the South (50%).

Support for Impeachment Surged Since June

The Ipsos poll shows a dramatic transformation in
support for Bush's impeachment since late June.  (This
is only the second poll that has asked Americans about
their support for impeaching Bush in 2005, despite his
record-low approval ratings.) The Zogby poll conducted
June 27-29 of 905 likely voters found that 42% agreed
and 50% disagreed with a statement virtually identical
to the one used by Ipsos Public Affairs. (see footnote
below)

 
	Ipsos 10/8-9
	Zogby 6/27-29
	Net Change
Support Impeachment
	50%
	42%
	+8%
Oppose Impeachment
	44%
	50%
	+6%
Impeachment Margin
	+6%
	-8%
	+14%

After the June poll, pollster John Zogby told the
Washington Post that support for impeachment "was much
higher than I expected." At the time, impeachment
supporters trailed opponents by 8%. Now supporters
outnumber opponents by 6%, a remarkable shift of 14%.

Support for Clinton Impeachment Was Much Lower

In August and September of 1998, 16 major polls asked
about impeaching President Clinton
(http://democrats.com/clinton-impeachment-polls). Only
36% supported hearings to consider impeachment, and
only 26% supported actual impeachment and removal.
Even so, the impeachment debate dominated the news for
months, and the Republican Congress impeached Clinton
despite overwhelming public opposition.

Impeachment Support is Closely Related to Belief that
Bush Lied about Iraq

Both the Ipsos and Zogby polls asked about support for
impeachment if Bush lied about the reasons for war,
rather than asking simply about support for
impeachment.  Pollsters predict that asking simply
about impeachment without any context would produce a
large number of "I don't know" responses. However,
this may understate the percentage of Americans who
favor Bush's impeachment for other reasons, such as
his slow response to Hurricane Katrina, his policy on
torture, soaring gasoline prices, or other concerns. 

Other polls show a majority of U.S. adults believe
that Bush did in fact lie about the reasons for war. A
June 23-26 ABC/Washington Post poll found 52% of
Americans believe the Bush administration
"deliberately misled the public before the war," and
57% say the Bush administration "intentionally
exaggerated its evidence that pre-war Iraq possessed
nuclear, chemical or biological weapons."

Support for the war has dropped significantly since
June, which suggests that the percentage of Americans
who believe Bush lied about the war has increased.

Passion for Impeachment is Major Unreported Story

The strong support for impeachment found in this poll
is especially surprising because the views of
impeachment supporters are entirely absent from the
broadcast and print media, and can only be found on
the Internet and in street protests, including the
large anti-war rally in Washington on September 24.

The lack of coverage of impeachment support is due in
part to the fact that not a single Democrat in
Congress has called for impeachment, despite
considerable grassroots activism by groups like
Democrats.com (http://democrats.com/impeach).

"We will, no doubt, see an increase in activism
following this poll," said David Swanson, co-founder
of AfterDowningStreet.org.  "But will we see an
increase in media coverage? The media are waiting for
action in Congress.  Apparently it's easier to find
and interview one of the 535 members of Congress than
it is to locate a representative of the half of the
country that wants the President impeached if he lied
about the war.  The media already accepts that Bush
did lie about the war.  We know this because so many
editors and pundits told us that the Downing Street
Memo was 'old news.'  What we need now is journalism
befitting a democracy, journalism that goes out and
asks people what they really think about their
government, especially George Bush."

The passion of impeachment supporters is directly
responsible for the new poll commissioned by
AfterDowningStreet. After the Zogby poll in June,
activists led by Democrats.com urged all of the major
polling organizations to include an impeachment
question in their upcoming polls. But none of the
polling organizations were willing to do so for free,
so on September 30, AfterDowningStreet.org posted a
request for donations to fund paid polls
(http://afterdowningstreet.org/polling). As of October
10, 330 individuals had contributed $8,919 in small
donations averaging $27 each.

AfterDowningStreet.org has commissioned a second poll
which is expected soon, and will continue to urge all
polling organizations to include the impeachment
question in their regular polls. If they do not,
AfterDowningStreet.org will continue to commission
regular impeachment polls.

Footnotes:

1. AfterDowningStreet.org is a rapidly growing
coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and
political activist groups that was created on May 26,
2005, following the publication of the Downing Street
Memos in London's Sunday Times on May 1. The coalition
is urging Congress to begin a formal investigation
into whether President Bush committed impeachable
offenses in connection with the Iraq war.

2.Here are the complete tables from the Ipsos Public
Affairs poll, plus the definitions of regions used by
Ipsos and the U.S. Census Bureau.

3. Zogby asked: "If President Bush did not tell the
truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq,
Congress should consider holding him accountable
<strike>by impeaching him</strike> through
impeachment."

4. Pollsters have offered various reasons for refusing
to poll on impeachment. For example, Gallup said it
would do so "if, and when, there is some discussion of
that possibility by congressional leaders, and/or if
commentators begin discussing it in the news media."






		
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