Why Did 9 Republicans Vote To Have The Judiciary Committee Start The Bush Impeachment Investigation?

There wasn't much of a commotion in the media this week when the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to refer Dennis Kucinich's stripped down resolution to impeach George Bush to the Judiaciary Committee. All the Democrats voted yes and almost all the Republicans voted no. Almost. 9 Republicans crossed the aisle and voted with the Democrats:

Kevin Brady (R-TX)
Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD)
Walter Jones (R-NC)
Donald Manzullo (R-IL)
Tim Murphy (R-PA)
Ron Paul (R-TX)
Dave Reichert (R-WA)
Chris Shays (R-CT)
Mike Turner (R-OH)

Reichert and Shays seem to be losing re-election bids, in both cases, based on their rubber stamp records. Apparently the two cowards felt that throwing Bush under the bus, now that he's a lame duck, would allow them to hoodwink their constituents into forgetting years and years of a zombie-like response to every request Bush and Cheney made.

Kevin Brady, is a unreconstructed Bush partisan and extremist maniac. He can't believe anyone could possibly consider anything Bush ever did to be less than heroic. He voted yes because he is certain that the Judiciary Committee will dispose of the resolution without further ad. “I believe the impeachment resolution is beyond ludicrous. Even the five minutes we spent on it were a waste of time,” said Brady. “I wanted it off the floor and dealt with.”

Manzullo, not as much a loon as Brady, but still a loon, had a similar reason for voting with the Democrats. “I did the constitutional thing, which is to send it to committee, where it will be killed. If it did not go to committee, it would have stayed on the floor and then we would have started impeaching the president... In no way would I ever vote to impeach President Bush." He may get his chance to vote against impeaching Bush. John Conyers, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has started theimpeachment investigation Turner helped authorize.

Jones and Paul oppose Bush's illegal occupation of Iraq and, like Gilchrest, feel he has wrecked the Republican Party. No one knows why Tim Murphy voted for impeachment but several people say he was drunk again and that his minder had stepped away.

Nancy Pelosi must be very, very frustrated. Yesterday she called Bush a "total failure," something most Americans would agree with her on but... what exactly does that make her? She steadfastly kept impeachment off the table in the face of the most blatantly impeachable offenses ever committed by a president. The controversy has ruined her own political legacy as the first woman to become Speaker of the House. More liberals would be howling for her head if her removal as Speaker wouldn't elevate the far worse Steny Hoyer or, worse yet, Rahm Emanuel.

"God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States -- a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject," Pelosi told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an exclusive interview... For him to be challenging Congress when we are trying to sweep up after his mess over and over and over again-- at the end of the day, Congress will have passed its responsibility to pass legislation... he has no ideas."