Poll: Lying on Iraq as an impeachable offense

Congress should consider impeaching President Bush if he lied about his reasons for going to war in Iraq, according to half of the Americans surveyed in a recent poll.

The poll, commissioned by the After Downing Street Coalition, a loose aggregation of antiwar, Democratic and progressive groups, was conducted by the nonpartisan firm Ipsos Public Affairs U.S.

Here's how the question was put: "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." Fifty percent of the 1,001 Americans surveyed agreed with that statement, while 44 percent disagreed; 6 percent said they didn't know or declined to answer. The breakdown was not entirely on partisan lines. Twenty percent of Republicans surveyed agreed with the statement, as did 72 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of independents.

Last June, a similar poll conducted by Zogby International found that 42 percent of those surveyed supported impeachment. As the death toll for American troops in Iraq approaches 2,000 and Bush's sorry approval ratings sag, maybe the "I" word can finally be spoken. Not that it's likely to be heeded in the Republican-controlled House and Senate, where not a single Democrat dares utter the word.

-- Katharine Mieszkowski, Salon