Article Calls for Impeaching Bush

This is a partial transcript from Hannity & Colmes, October 13, 2003, that has been edited for clarity.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: While inspectors in Iraq continue searching for weapons of mass destruction (search), some Americans are outraged at the president that so far no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Our next guest thinks that's grounds for impeachment.

We're joined by the publisher of Harper's magazine, John MacArthur, who's with us. And the author of the best selling book, Treason, Ann Coulter is with us.

It's not even really intellectually worth discussing. After reading your article, my first reaction is to bubble and fizz and get mad. My second reaction is this is beyond silly, you know, but you really believe this?

JOHN MACARTHUR, HARPER'S MAGAZINE: Why do you invite me to go on the show if you think it's beyond discussion?

HANNITY: Because Alan wanted you on. That's why.

MACARTHUR: OK. But clearly...

HANNITY: It wasn't my first choice.

MACARTHUR: Clearly, if the president of the United States has lied on a grand scale to Congress...

HANNITY: Name me one lie. Name me one lie.

MACARTHUR: Let me finish.

HANNITY: If you're going to call him a liar, back it up.

MACARTHUR: I will, yes. I'll talk about what he said to Bush…Blair at the press conference on September 7 at Camp David. He said…he cited a non-existent report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (search), saying that Saddam was six months away from developing a nuclear weapon and infamously said, "What more evidence do we need?" And from there...

HANNITY: We don't have time for a speech.

MACARTHUR: ... we moved on to aluminum tubes. We moved on to connections with Al Qaeda.

HANNITY: Did you call...

MACARTHUR: We talked about an atomic bomb threat that did not exist. Sean, this didn't exist. This didn't exist.

HANNITY: This isn't a speech time.

MACARTHUR: You need me to give you the facts.

HANNITY: I've got to ask you, did you call for the impeachment of Bill Clinton?

MACARTHUR: I wasn't interested in the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

HANNITY: You weren't interested? So you're only interested in the impeachment of Republicans?

MACARTHUR: No, no, no, no. I mean, it's…Listen, I can't stand Bill Clinton.

HANNITY: Did Bill Clinton lie to the American people?

MACARTHUR: Yes.

HANNITY: Why do you have one standard for him and another standard for a Republican?

MACARTHUR: I have the same standard for both of them.

HANNITY: No, you don't. Because you didn't write an article asking for his impeachment.

MACARTHUR: Actually, what I'm trying to tell you is that if you, as Senator Graham (search) put it a few months ago very intelligently, if you apply the same standard to Bush that was applied to Clinton, then it's impeachable. He should be impeached. Absolutely.

HANNITY: Ann...

MACARTHUR: Because as Alexander Hamilton (search) said in The Federalist Papers, this has to do with the immediate consequences and harm done to society. What could be greater harm than the deaths of American soldiers...

HANNITY: Excuse me. The immediate consequences…Sir, you have yet to...

MACARTHUR: ... in Iraq, who have been sent to Iraq on a fraudulent pretext, utterly...

HANNITY: My patience is really running thin.

MACARTHUR: ... and they're dying.

HANNITY: Could you please be quiet, because there are other people on the panel?

MACARTHUR: OK. Sure.

HANNITY: The idea here, he cannot give a specific example.

MACARTHUR: I did give a specific example.

HANNITY: He's full of crap.

MACARTHUR: I did give an example.

HANNITY: And this is just, hatred of George W. Bush now has become a sport for these guys.

Ann Coulter?

ANN COULTER, TREASON AUTHOR: First of all, I agree with you. I hate to treat this seriously by responding, but the particular lie that he cited as his leading, case in chief of the president lying, yes, Bush cited something like the Atomic Energy Commission (search). He misspoke.

HANNITY: Right.

COULTER: It was the International Institute for Strategic Studies or something. He misspoke about the name of the institute.

MACARTHUR: No, he didn't. He didn't.

COULTER: It's my turn now. You stop that.

MACARTHUR: OK.

COULTER: Point two, as you know, I'm something of an authority on the grounds for impeachment. And this is precisely the sort of thing that impeachment is not for. I mean, it's not for policy disagreements. It's certainly not for something that is in the president's prerogative, such as waging war, for example.

To take a decision that I think is appalling, but is not grounds for impeachment. Bill Clinton sending a small Cuban boy back to a Bolshevik monster in Cuba. That is not grounds for impeachment, because that is part of the president's authority.

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Ann...

COULTER: You don't impeach for disagreements over policy. It is for misbehavior; that is what misdemeanor means. It's for bad decorum.

COLMES: Ann, we didn't let Rick make a speech. You can't make a speech, either.

COULTER: Well, actually, you did.

COLMES: I know it's hard, but if you look to your left, I know that's difficult.

Look, I don't think he should be impeached. I disagree with Rick about that.

COULTER: That's very big of you.

COLMES: Thank you. I think I'd rather put our time and effort toward 2004, and just like I don't think Bill Clinton should have been impeached, I don't.

But I understand Rick's point. There are many Americans who increasingly seem to feel that we were not leveled with, for whatever reason, whether it was Bush who did it or people in his administration who gave him false information.

He did say the IAEA reported that Iraq was six months away from a nuclear capability, which turned out not to be true. It's a scare tactic.

COULTER: He got the name of the institute wrong.

COLMES: Saying "I misspoke," and they said they misspoke about a number of things. Misspoke about uranium. They misspoke about tubes, misspoke about how many things.

MACARTHUR: Right.

COLMES: Misspoke lets him off the hook?

COULTER: No. Liberals don't want to fight terrorism. You want there to be lots of 9/11's.

MACARTHUR: It's not a question how to fight terrorism. It's a question of whether...

COULTER: We'll see how the American people, whether they agree with you or not, in the next election.

MACARTHUR: No. It's a question of whether the president lied or not.

COULTER: Wait a minute, that really was a question for me. That really was a question for me.

MACARTHUR: OK.

COLMES: Let the other guest speak.

COULTER: No.

COLMES: You don't want her to get a speech.

COULTER: That was a question for me.

As Sean said, Democrats keep wanting to impeach Republicans. Now we have, when we had a Democrat, "No, no, no. No impeachment there."

Here, this misspeaking business, the idea that that is grounds for impeachment, you opposed a recall in California. It's a constitutional crisis.

COLMES: And Dick Cheney on Meet the Press said recently, "I misspoke" when confronted with other things that were not true.

Rick, I know you'd like to respond to what Ann said.

MACARTHUR: Well, I'm just saying that there's a pattern of lying that goes back to September 6 and 7, which, by the way, is magnified, amplified by your friends in the liberal media at The New York Times. New York Times did more to help spread the propagandistic lies...

COULTER: Yes, they did.

MACARTHUR: ... than any other newspaper, Judith Miller, your friend on the weapons of mass destruction.

COULTER: Now there are lies about there being lies. Yes, they are good propaganda people.

MACARTHUR: And one reason I think impeachment is necessary or advisable is because the propaganda campaign has been so successful, and the liberal media has so little interest in going back over the record and correcting it.

COULTER: No, they're really very favorable to George Bush.

MACARTHUR: They're not interesting. No, no. The Times is very much against going back and looking at their own record.

COULTER: I think they'll be endorsing George Bush. Would you like to take a bet on that?

MACARTHUR: They could pull another rabbit out of their hat, and people could be conned again. And this has to be taken seriously, because Americans are being killed...

HANNITY: In the final seconds, Ann Coulter.

MACARTHUR: ... on this fraudulent pretext.

HANNITY: Final 10.

COULTER: This is a choice for the American people. You have these chattering mad monkeys blabbering about impeachment, because President Bush and his administration is fighting the war on terrorism.

MACARTHUR: There are people dying in Iraq.

COULTER: They do not want to fight the war on terrorism.

MACARTHUR: It's not true. It's not true.

HANNITY: We've got to take a break. Thank you both for being with us.

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