Kennedy won't back Bush impeachment

NBC Video: Politics

Clinton: Afghan exit date not a ‘drop-dead deadline’
Dec. 6: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates discuss the timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan with NBC’s David Gregory on “Meet the Press.”

Clinton on Pakistan’s terror fight

Gates: Failure not an option in Afghanistan

McCain on Afghan war, pullout date

McCain: ‘We need to get’ bin Laden

Week Ahead: Jobs, climate change

Liberal Blog Buzz: More on jobs #s

Conservative Blog Buzz: Behind the #s

Slideshow

The Week in Political Cartoons
Msnbc.com’s political cartoonists take a look back at the past week.

more photos

updated 9:38 a.m. ET June 17, 2004

WASHINGTON - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., appearing with law professors who want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush over the Iraqi prisoner abuse, declined to endorse the idea himself.

Instead, Kennedy opted for a political plug.

The best way to solve things “is to elect John Kerry,” said Kennedy, appearing beside two Harvard professors at a news conference upstairs from his Senate office.

Story continues below ↓

advertisement | your ad here

The professors presented a letter signed by more than 400 legal scholars urging members of the House and Senate to consider impeaching the president and any high level administration officials who approved the Iraqi prisoner abuses.

Kennedy said the administration must be held accountable for the abuses and any policies that condoned them, and no one — including the president — should be immune to answering questions about the abuse. But asked by reporters about impeachment, Kennedy referred the question to the professors, Henry J. Steiner and Christine Desan.

Among those signing the letter were former O.J. Simpson defender Alan Dershowitz and the Rev. Robert F. Drinan, a former Massachusetts congressman who teaches at Georgetown University.