From AfterDowningStreet.org:
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.