Without actually viewing polls on impeachment, Blankley "would guess that something less than 10 percent" of Americans would support impeachment

Summary: After admitting he had not seen any polls on public support for the impeachment of President Bush, The Washington Times' Tony Blankley nonetheless suggested that "something less than 10 percent of the American voting public would look forward to seeing" impeachment proceedings brought against Bush. In fact, two recent Zogby polls have found that a majority of Americans think Congress should consider impeaching the president.

Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley admitted in his February 2 Washington Times column that he had not viewed polls on public support for the impeachment of President Bush, but nonetheless suggested that "something less than 10 percent of the American voting public would look forward to seeing the last two years of the Bush presidency consumed with a Democratic Party-controlled Congress trying to impeach the president during a time of war." In fact, as Media Matters for America has previously noted, two recent Zogby International polls have found that a majority of Americans think Congress should consider impeaching Bush either "[i]f President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq" (November 2005, 53 percent); or ""[i]f President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge" (January 16, 2006, 51.7 percent).

And while a more recent survey found less support than the Zogby polls indicated for impeachment, it nonetheless found that a percentage almost four times greater than the one cited by Blankley would consider evidence of lawbreaking by Bush in his domestic spying program to be "an impeachable offense." The January 22-25 Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll (page 18) found that "[i]f a congressional investigation finds that George W. Bush broke the law when he authorized government agencies to use electronic surveillance to monitor American citizens without a court warrant," 39 percent of Americans would consider that "an impeachable offense," while 52 percent would not. According to the same poll, 57 percent of Americans (including 54 percent of independents) said that Congress should "hold hearings to investigate the legality of George W. Bush's authorization of electronic surveillance to monitor American citizens without a court warrant."

From Blankley's February 2 column:

But not satisfied to be a head-in-the-sand, reflexively negative opposition party, an increasing number of Democrats and their supporters in the leftish fever swamps have started calling for President Bush's impeachment.

While I haven't seen any polls yet on the subject, I would guess that something less than 10 percent of the American voting public would look forward to seeing the last two years of the Bush presidency consumed with a Democratic Party-controlled Congress trying to impeach the president during a time of war.

Somehow the Democratic Party -- for 180 years the most electorally successful political party on the planet -- has now almost completely mutated into a party too loathsome to be seen in public, and too nihilistic to be trusted with control of even a single branch of government.

—R.S.K.