Newfie wrote:JFK - quite likely riggged the 1960 election in Chicago and for sure employed many “dirty tricks” in his campaign. Then there is the Bay Of Pigs fiasco. Not to mention close ties with the mob, high levels of medication and numerous affairs.
LBJ - lies to the American Public about Vietnam, and cocked up at least part of the Gulf of Tonkin. He would wag his dick in public, conducted meetings while defecating (with ladies present), and espoused very racist attitudes. Not to mention his many sexual exploits, although he mentioned them quite frequently. Lady Bird was resigned to this behavior.
Nixon - The whole Watergate and tape affair aside committed treason when he employed Lady Chenualt to convince the South Vietnamese to walk out of the peace negotiations during the 1968 election. Also secret and illegal operations in Cambodian and Thailand.
Regan - Iran Contra, Grenada invasion.
Bill Clinton - serial womanizer, Lewinsky.
GEORGE II - Invaded Iraq, a sovereign country, on the baloney premise of WMD.
Obama - attacked a sovereign country (Libia) and ordered the execution US citizens by drone attack.
Every one of the above Presidents committed impeachable offenses. I probably missed a whole bunch, not trying to be inclusive.
In that time frame 3 Presidents don’t have quite such an obvious record of impeachable offenses:
Ford, Carter, GEORGE I - and all of them were voted out of office.
Great post Newfie, keeping things in perspective. The issue of Trump is not the severity of the Ukraine fiasco. Probably this is even minor compared to some of the examples you gave.
I see this current impeachment as likely to fail but the origins of it have to do with Trumps failure of building any kind of coalition. His administration is imploding, many republicans hate but fear him, the democrats of course can't stand him, and perhaps most importantly Trump has chosen to make war with law enforcement, CIA, FBI , etc. and exclude them while sending his personal lawyer around the world on security matters. This alienates the official security apparatus within the US and Trump has succeeded in radicalizing his base into believing that this is part of the deep state etc.
Trump is isolating himself more and more as time passes, this has less to do with democrats hating him and more to do with his own messianic narcissism.
Go ahead and consider another scenario where Trump had built a coalition, reached across the isle on a few social issues, kept his administration intact etc., not tried to discredit thee CIA and FBI, if that had been the case up until now, this Ukraine phone call would not be resulting in an impeachment inquiry. It would fall under the category of normal slime politics as the examples you pointed out Newfie.
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