Did Castle Vote to Impeach Bush?

The madness continues, as activists who support Christine O’Donnell in the Delaware Senate primary have stepped up their attacks on Mike Castle by alleging that he voted to impeach President Bush. That will come as a surprise to those who wonder how they missed such a vote, but Dan Riehl assures us that it is true. Not only that, he explicitly ties this claim to radio talk show host Mark Levin’s attack on us; he titles his post “Paging Powerline.” He says that he would “like to hear from Powerline as to why they are supporting someone who signed on to such ‘moonbattery’ and did such damage to our country.”
First of all, Riehl’s claim–which he says may have originated with Mark Levin–is absurd on its face. The House of Representatives never voted on whether to impeach President Bush. The vote that Riehl and other anti-Castle pundits refer to is this one, to refer Dennis Kucinich’s impeachment resolution to the House Judiciary Committee. That motion passed; obviously it was not an impeachment resolution, or we would have had an impeachment trial. Castle was one of 24 Republicans who voted for the referral resolution, along with conservative stalwarts like Peter King, Kevin Brady, Ralph Hall, and others.
Was a vote for this referral resolution tantamount to a vote to impeach President Bush, as Dan Riehl and, reportedly, Mark Levin claim? That certainly isn’t what left-wingers thought. Here is how the web site Impeach Bush covered the vote:

Q: Is it a good thing that it was referred to the Judiciary Committee?
A: Yes. The mainstream media is saying the resolution was “scuttled”. But referral to Judiciary Committee is the normal process for moving forward with an impeachment resolution. Now HRes 1258 can be fine tuned while we build support in Congress and with the public. But there is a danger. If we cannot convince John Conyers to schedule time for HRes 1258 then it could die.

Which, of course, is what happened. So Congressman Castle voted, as the media reported at the time, to “scuttle” Kucinich’s impeachment resolution. Here is more from Impeach Bush:

Q. How did our Reps vote and what does it mean?
A: Kucinich moved that HRes 1258 be referred to the Judiciary Committee. All of the Democrats and 24 Republicans voted “Aye” (yes). A yes vote could mean that the Representative supported the resolution and wanted to see it developed further in the Judiciary. Or it could mean they wanted to send it to committee for a slow death.

It is a reasonable supposition that the Republicans who voted for HRes 1258 did so in order that Kucinich’s impeachment drive could die “a slow death.”
Is that what Congressman Castle had in mind? Yes, it was. This left-wing web site sounded out Delaware’s representatives on their position on impeachment. The site’s author was bitterly disappointed by Congressman Castle’s response:

First I called Senator Carper and was told that they would not support Impeachment at this time. I also called Congressman Castle’s office and was completely shocked. I was told that the Congressman would not support Impeachment because they believed there weren’t any crimes committed by the Bush administration.

There you have it. Mike Castle never voted to impeach President Bush; no such vote ever occurred on the floor of the House. He did vote to commit goofball Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s impeachment resolution to the Judiciary Committee, where it died, as intended, a slow death. And Castle’s office said that it opposed impeachment because “they believed there weren’t any crimes committed by the Bush administration.”
Is Mike Castle as conservative as I am? No, I am sure he is not. On the other hand, he, like me, is a Republican, and he, unlike me, has an excellent chance to be elected to the Senate from Delaware. If some conservatives, like Mark Levin, prefer a different candidate, fine. There is a case to be made on both sides. But attacking the motivations of their fellow Republicans and fellow conservatives is stupid; and it is worse than stupid to misrepresent positions that have been taken by Mike Castle, or any other candidate. Such falsehoods are typical of the Left. We conservatives are better than that; or should be, anyway.

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