Panel to review Bush’s actions

WASHINGTON — Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich’s single article of impeachment will get a committee hearing -- but not on removing President Bush from office.

The House on Tuesday voted 238 to 180 to send his impeachment article -- for Bush’s reasoning in taking the country to war in Iraq -- to the Judiciary Committee, which buried Kucinich’s previous 35-article effort in June.

This time, the panel will open hearings, possibly as soon as next week. But House Democratic leaders said the proceedings would not be about Bush’s impeachment, a first step in the Constitution’s process of a removing a president from office.

Instead, the panel will conduct an election-year review -- possibly televised -- of anything Democrats consider to be Bush’s abuse of power. Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, is likely to testify. So will several scholars and administration critics, Democrats said.

The hearing is a modest gesture by House Democratic leaders to members like Kucinich who insist that Bush’s reasons for going to war meet the standard for impeachment.

Kucinich had said that if his impeachment article was tabled he would simply propose another one. In June, he spent four hours on the House floor reading his longer resolution into the record, only to see it buried in committee.