Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

by Davids Wanson

New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support
Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping

By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to
consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped
American citizens without a judge’s approval, 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.

The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the
highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll
interviewed 1,216 U.S. adults from January 9-12.

The poll found that 52% agreed with the statement:

"If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without
the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that
Congress should consider holding him accountable
through impeachment."

43% disagreed, and 6% said they didn’t know or declined
to answer. The poll has a +/- 2.9% margin of error.

"The American people are not buying Bush’s outrageous
claim that he has the power to wiretap American
citizens without a warrant. Americans believe terrorism
can be fought without turning our own government into
Big Brother," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder
Bob Fertik.

Recently White House spokesman Scott McClellan cited a
Rasmussen poll that found 64% believe the NSA "should
be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between
terrorism suspects." Of course, that is exactly what
Congress authorized when it created the FISA courts to
issue special expedited secret warrants for terrorism
suspects. But Bush defied the FISA law and authorized
warrantless wiretaps of Americans, which has outraged
Americans to the point that a majority believe Congress
should consider Bush’s impeachment.

"Bush admits he ordered illegal warantless wiretapping,
but says it began in response to 9/11 and was limited
to a small number of calls to or from Al Qaeda," Fertik
said. "But recent reports suggest wiretapping affected
a much larger number of Americans, and a report in
Friday’s Truthout says the wiretapping began before
9/11."

"The upcoming Senate hearings on White House
wiretapping could be as dramatic as the Watergate
hearings in 1973. A majority of Americans have already
believe Congress should look into grounds for
impeachment, yet we have only seen the tip of the
iceberg in the Corporate Media. If Bush ordered
warrantless wiretapping long before the terrorist
attack on 9/11, then Americans will realize that George
Bush came into office determined to shred the
Constitution and take away our rights," Fertik said.

Impeachment Supported by Majorities of Many Groups

Responses to the Zogby poll varied by political party
affiliation: 66% of Democrats favored impeachment, as
did 59% of Independents, and even 23% of Republicans.
By ideology, impeachment was supported by Progressives
(90%), Libertarians (71%), Liberals (65%), and
Moderates (58%), but not by Conservatives (33%) or Very
Conservatives (28%).

Responses also varied by age, sex, race, and religion.
74% of those 18-29 favored impeachment, 47% of those
31-49, 49% of those 50-64, and 40% of those over 65.
55% of women favored impeachment, compared to 49% of
men. Among African Americans, 75% favored impeachment,
as did 56% of Hispanics and 47% of whites. Majorities
of Catholics, Jews, and Others favored impeachment,
while 44% of Protestants and 38% of Born Again
Christians did so.

Majorities favored impeachment in every region: the
East (54%), South (53%) and West (52%), and Central
states (50%). In large cities, 56% support impeachment;
in small cities, 58%; in suburbs, 46%; in rural areas,
46%.

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.

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. 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).

The passion of impeachment supporters is directly
responsible for the four polls commissioned by After
Downing Street. 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). People
responded with small donations (on average $27) which
quickly added up to over $10,000. After Downing Street
has spent a portion of that money on the Ipsos Poll and
the two Zogby 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
Memo 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. The Ipsos Public Affairs poll and the new Zogby poll
results cited above refer to surveys of U.S. adults.
The June 2005 Zogby results are from a survey of likely
voters. The new Zogby poll produced results for both
adults and likely voters: 1/06 Zogby: Adults and Likely
Voters 11/05 Zogby: Adults and Likely Voters. 10/05
Ipsos: Adults and definitions of regions. 6/05 Zogby:
Likely Voters. 3. The original impeachment question was
written by Zogby for their own poll in June 2005.
Subsequent questions were written jointly by
AfterDowningStreet.org and the pollsters. Obviously
there are many ways to word polling questions, and
wording has an effect on the results. The range of
possible questions can be seen in the 1998 polls on
impeaching President Clinton. That is why, in July
2005, we began asking the Corporate Media pollsters to
conduct their own polls, using their own wording. We
also support the efforts of MyDD’s Chris Bowers to
conduct an in-depth poll on impeachment, which should
be completed soon. <25>

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/6796