WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Tuesday beat back a Republican attempt to force them to vote on a divisive resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney for "fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" to justify the war in Iraq.
The 218-194 party-line vote waylaying the measure by sending it to the judiciary committee capped a remarkable afternoon in which Republicans tried to outfox Democrats, switching their votes in a strategy that could have triggered an immediate vote.
"We're going to help them out," explained Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas). "We're going to give them their day in court."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and her lieutenants maneuvered to avoid a bruising floor fight. Such a clash would have forced Democrats to choose between their liberal base, which might cheer a Cheney impeachment, and a broader electorate, which might view the resolution as a partisan game in a time of war.
With the vote technically slated to last 15 minutes, she held voting open for more than an hour and finally forced the measure to an uncertain future in the committee.
That referral effectively shelved the issue for now, but not before the resolution's sponsor, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, a far-left Ohio Democrat running for president, had a chance to read into the record three articles of impeachment against the vice president.
"Impeachment is not on our agenda," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). "We have some major priorities. We need to focus on those."
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) agreed that it was not in Pelosi's interest to advance the articles of impeachment. "If she were to let this thing out of the box, considering the number of legislative issues we have pending . . . it could create a split that could affect our productivity for the rest of the Congress," Conyers told Fox News.
The resolution said that Cheney, "in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of vice president," had "purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the U.S. Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests."
