[Twodees]

No chance for a conviction? That's a handy excuse. Plenty of excuses are available. Nobody's excused, though. Clinton's removal from office would have been the death knell for the democrats, IMO. When you have a majority in both houses of Congress and you won't even try to get certain things passed because the president can veto it, then you haven't shown anyone any reason to vote for you (you means GOP congressmen, not you, VinnieT). Vote republican because they aren't democrats? That's not enough of a reason. The failure of the republican controlled Senate was a profound failure. The Senators who failed can't redeem themselves personally, they need to be replaced: Warner, Lott, Hatch, Spector and several others simply have to go. Until some real changes are made in the GOP's roster in DC, this sort of discussion is going to keep coming up. GOP faithful FReepers can call the rest of the conservatives here whatever names are convenient. The division will only deepen and conservatism will suffer for it.

[VinnyTex]

After the house voted to impeach on Dec 19, 1998, leading Democrat Senators told Lott they would never vote to convict. Not one Democrat Senator went to the evidence room to look at what the impeachment managers had. That's when Babs Boxer of California said, "We don't care if you have film of him raping a Nun, we're not going to vote to convict."

End of story. Republicans needed 12 Democrat Senators for removal. They didn't get one. I rest my case. You can blow smoke all want, but those are the facts.