Some thoughts on impeachment
We've had a few days of the impeachment circus so far, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. For sure, impeachment is always a political process, so it's divisive and disrupts the national dialog whether we like it or not. So I'm writing this piece mostly to try and wrap my head around what I've learned from the witnesses so far. For background, I'm looking at the current proceedings in the broader historical context of impeachment. We've only done impeached 2 presidents in the last 250 years, so it's kind of a big deal. Nixon left office before Congress actually had a chance to impeach him, though they almost certainly would have. So what is the "standard" for impeachment as it has been applied in these other cases: Andrew Johnson defied Congress. The "radical Republicans," as they were called at that time, wanted to punish the southern states and the Confederacy. Johnson disagreed, as he basically thought that approa...