Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Rationales to impeach George W. Bush (2nd nomination)

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This article is merely a soapbox for Wikipedia editors who want George W. Bush impeached. We already have an article called Movement to impeach George W. Bush, which in my opinion is informative and NPOV. It should also be of note that some editors who want this page here and are frequent editors to this page initiated a bad faith RfC against Merecat, who was trying to make the page conform to NPOV. BlueGoose 21:09, 2 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • A vile and very not good faith assertion. You are well aware Merecat kept deleting things that were well sourced material. To say the RFC was an attack is ridiculous. All he has to do is stop deleting sourced material, and start discussing!Holland Nomen Nescio

Prometheuspan 18:25, 3 May 2006 (UTC) Actually, merecat is the one who was operating in bad faith, and the RFC against him was founded on totally cogent grounds. Merecat was being abusive, was using ad hominem and straw man arguments, and was otherwise nitpicking over Alternet, despite the fact that Alternet is in this case and for these purposes a completely valid reference, due to its membership in the group of people at large who are making rationales for impeachment. Blue goose, you are just spewing bile ignorantly. You have made no edits, and are factually ignorant as far as i can tell about anything to do with the article. Your comments below to the effect that this is mostly from a "single book" are further evidence that you simply aren't paying attention and don't know what you are talking about. The facts are that millions of people think Bush should be impeached, and the article reflects a very broad set of citations to reflect this. Prometheuspan 18:25, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


  • Extremely and very ultimately strong keep, because voting to delete on the first chance you get without even having been part of any discussion is absolutely ridiculous. POV should be corrected, not delketed! Further, clearly there is no valid argument in wikipedia policy to delete. For those unfamiliar with the exact wording:
    • The use of biased sources is allowed, Reliable sources: Do they have an agenda or conflict of interest, strong views, or other bias which may color their report? Remember that conflicts of interest are not always explicitly exposed and bias is not always self-evident. However, that a source has strong views is not necessarily a reason not to use it, although editors should avoid using political groups with widely acknowledged extremist views, like Stormfront.org or the Socialist Workers Party.
    • Partisan sites are not excluded from use, Partisan websites: Partisan political and religious sources should be treated with caution, although political bias is not in itself a reason not to use a source.
    • The use of legal experts seems to be encouraged, Beware false authority: Use sources who have postgraduate degrees or demonstrable published expertise in the field they are discussing. The more reputable ones are affiliated with academic institutions.
    • It suports mentioning proponents and opponents of impeachment, WP:NPOV: The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these are fairly presented, but not asserted. All significant points of view are presented, not just the most popular one. It is not asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions.
    • Feel free to read about Controversial articles: An article about a controversial person or group should accurately describe their views, no matter how misguided or repugnant. Remember to ask the question, "How can this controversy best be described?" It is not our job to edit Wikipedia so that it reflects our own idiosyncratic views and then defend those edits against all comers; it is our job to be fair to all sides of a controversy.
    • Neutral language: When a fact is not common knowledge, or when the information being related is a subjective assessment, like the result of a particular poll, the information should be attributed and cited.
    • Policy suggest adding other views, not deleting that which you find POV, NPOV tutorial: An article can be written in neutral language and yet omit important points of view. Such an article should be considered an NPOV work in progress, not an irredeemable piece of propaganda. Often an author presents one POV because it's the only one that he or she knows well. The remedy is to add to the article—not to subtract from it.
    • If we look at the cited policies, it is evident I have shown that although a source may be POV, that is not enough to prohibit its use.
    • Having a second nomination on this short notice, on already proven invalid arguments, shows that the entire reasoning is an attempt to get rid of information that might be uncomfortable to Bush in stead of the article violating any wikipedia policy! This willingness to delete without even attempting to improve the perceived problems is not a good faith contribution and contrary to the spirit of Wikipedia.Holland Nomen Nescio 01:26, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


"Wikipedia is not a soapbox Wikipedia is not a soapbox, or a vehicle for propaganda and advertising. Therefore, Wikipedia articles are not:

Propaganda or advocacy of any kind. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to approach a neutral point of view. You might wish to go to Usenet or start a blog if you want to convince people of the merits of your favorite views. You can also use Wikinfo which promotes a "sympathetic point of view" for every article."

The article is NOT a soap box, it is in fact a report about a factual movement, and that movements factual rationales. If it was a soap box, one or two persons and their socks would be writing it from their own heads. This is a factual article, regarding factual events, and factual rationales, generated by factual and noteworthy groups of people, who are demonstrated to be factually noteworthy for the purposes of wikipedia by means of the creation of the "movement to impeach" article.

This VFD is just more gaming the system, partisan obstructionism, and manipulations and con artistry, and that is all it is. Prometheuspan 02:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


    • BlueGoose wrote: This article is merely a soapbox for Wikipedia editors who want George W. Bush impeached. The same argument could say that any article on a politician is a soapbox for electing or reelecting that politician to office. We do not delete articles on Bush, Clinton, Clinton-Rodham, Kerry, Blair despite the fact that these articles, in some sense, constitute soapboxes. Instead, we NPOV individual sentences and the page structure, if needed, in order that we have NPOV presentation of externally documented, "verifiable", no-original-research facts.
    • My impression from the discussion page is that the people objecting to the article are unable or unwilling to find externally documented claims that individual "rationales" for impeaching Bush are false. Rather than deleting the page, i would suggest that people unhappy with the page do the work of finding externally documented facts such as, e.g., source X [reference] notes that the invasion of Iraq was legal under US law because it only consisted of "forceful operations" and did not legally constitute a "war" - (this is just a fictional example).
    • the Movement to impeach George W. Bush article is too long to include the rationales there - people involved in that movement may be morally and/or legally justified, they may be morally and/or legally wrong, but the fact is that they are active in the movement - splitting their reasons (rationales) into this article makes sense
    • NPOV title change: look for Ad 1 The title on the discussion page - IMHO the present title "rationales to impeach George W. Bush" could be interpreted to mean that the rationales are correct. IMHO the following two options should remove concerns that the subject may be POV:
      • Reasons cited for seeking George W. Bush's impeachment - reasons is a more common word than rationales, we're not doing neo-postmodernist-poststructuralist reading of hermeunistic narratives here
      • Purported impeachable offenses of George W. Bush - except that a simpler word than "purported" would be better, see previous point.
    • Both of these make it clear that wikipedia neither asserts that the rationales/reasons are valid nor that they are invalid, only that various people (listed in the "movement" article) have stated or cited these reasons. Boud 11:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with article

There are (2) major problems with this article:

  1. Too many links - violates WP:NOT
  2. Totally one-sided - the name of the page precludes the insertion of rebuttal material

Merecat 18:18, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prometheuspan 18:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC) I totally agree with number two. The point of my "obstruction" of the talk page was to begin a realistic npov balancing process. It is clear that a good defense echo is absent. However, that doesn't warrant deletion, it warrants the good faith participation of republicans.[reply]

As far as number one goes, the whole problem here is that while you are correct in general that some of these links are biased sites, this only ends up meaning that it is our responsibility on the prosecution side of the case to show that many different groups have the same or similar arguments.

It may be that the best way to handle this is to leave the longer and more detailed list on the talk page.

The biggest problem we have here is that you, merecat, are just using obstructionist noise, and you are not fullfilling your obligation to simply provide useful edits in the form of a defense. I don't envy the problem or the job of providing that defense. Most of these things are just about indefensible, and that is probably why you'd rather see it deleted. The second biggest problem is all of the people who are voting who haven't worked on the article, and who clearly aren't participating. This is a complicated issue, not a simple one, and involvement in the process should at least hinge upon actually reading the discussion pages, which it is apparent, for instance, that Blue Goose hasn't done.

Rather than continue with silly obstructionist noise, why don't we work to make the admitedly currently one sided article balanced? That is the fair thing to do, as far as I am concerned. Prometheuspan 18:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prometheus, this is an encyclopedia, not the United States Senate. Nobody is "obstructing" anybody and nobody cares who voted for who when. The sole issue here is whether Rationales to Impeach George W. Bush is a valid article to be on an online encyclopedia. 20 people currently think no, 13 people think yes. Potentially, the noes and the ayes can find a middle ground consensus, but I don't know what that middle ground is. I am interested by the idea of renaming the article, but I want to see what others think about that. BlueGoose 18:45, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prometheuspan 19:53, 3 May 2006 (UTC) Renaming the article would do little to solve the problems the article faces to become npov. What is really needed is a defense echo per paragraph or accusation. I am not opposed to renaming the article and inserting an appropriate qualifier. However, that seems a petty and small nitpicking sort of way to go about fixing the bias problem, when what we really need is about a dozen new defense paragraphs to follow up on the prosecution paragraphs. Prometheuspan 19:53, 3 May 2006 (UTC) I disagree 100% with your notion that a non-editor of an article is not qualified to participate in the deletion process of that article. But that's neither here nor there. BlueGoose 18:47, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prometheuspan 19:53, 3 May 2006 (UTC) My notion is that people who vote should make themselves something other than ignorant. Voting without bothering to actually read the materials is just the insertion of ones own personal knee jerk bias. If I was going to have a knee jerk reaction to the article and was ignorant about the LARGE number of people who have formed over the issues and who are prosecuting impeachment, i might even agree with the idea that this was a soap box, or that its not a topic worthy for an encyclopedia. There are special conditions here which DO warrant an article. If this was a soap box where a few malcontent pov pushers were personally inventing rationales to impeach, that would be a different story. However, as stated, this is a REPORT about the opinions and accusations generated by at least thousands, if not millions of people, and as such, is newsworthy, and noteworthy for an article here.[reply]

ced]] 19:45, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Attempt at synthesis so far.

It seems to me that there would probably be consensus that:

    • Reasons cited for seeking George W. Bush's impeachment or Purported impeachable offenses of George W. Bush is a subject which should be somewhere as part of a wikipedia article, provided that it is written in an NPOV way and properly referenced to external sources.
    • some people suggest that relevant content from this article should be salvaged and merged into Movement to impeach George W. Bush
    • some people suggest merging into George W. Bush's second term as President of the United States or similar
    • A necessary criterion for merging into another page is page length - but the present page source text is 42 kbytes long right now (according to mediawiki), so would require removing a huge amount of material, especially since there would also be the material of the page into which this would be merged. i don't see any easy NPOV way of condensing the article by such a big factor.
    • Given such a sensitive subject - after all Bush is the president of the world's most powerful military State - surely any claims of reasons why Bush should be impeached need to be referenced, so removing the references - which are a big part of the article source text - would be dangerous for any chance of consensing on NPOV.
    • Movement to impeach George W. Bush mostly concentrates on the people and groups or organisations who are trying to impeach Bush - dividing this up from the actual reasons they allege are valid to impeach Bush seems reasonable to me - i don't see any other obvious solution
    • pages like George W. Bush's second term as President of the United States are bound to get longer in the future since (even if an impeachment process gets going) he's going to be president for quite some time yet - i don't see how there's room to fit in an extra 42 kbytes somehow thinned out without removing relevant material.
    • So maybe it's worth asking these questions to both "keepers" and "deleters" and people not-so-easy-to-classify:
      • Does anyone claim that Reasons cited for seeking George W. Bush's impeachment or Purported impeachable offenses of George W. Bush should not be documented in any wikipedia article?
      • Can anyone explain (with some level of detail) how Reasons cited for seeking George W. Bush's impeachment or Purported impeachable offenses of George W. Bush can be merged into another article without removing relevant content and state which other article that is?
      • Does anyone object to renaming the present article to Reasons cited for seeking George W. Bush's impeachment or Purported impeachable offenses of George W. Bush?
    • Personal additional comment modifying my earlier comment - i think that some of the article needs to be more NPOV-ed - there are some statements that are POV or borderline POV. But this is not a reason for deleting the article, it's a reason for making small appropriate edits, doing things step-by-step and discussing them on the discussion page if there's any chance that they'll be controversial. And it's something which can probably happen more constructively if there's agreement on an NPOV title of the article. Boud 22:08, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

+ ****BD's suggestion of Rationales provided by advocates of the impeachment of George W. Bush seems like a good idea too - long, but clearly NPOV. Boud 22:14, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

merecat - i didn't realise earlier that this talk page about the AfD page existed - so you have my apologies for my comment accompanying my revert on the AfD page which suggests that you had not really shifted my comments (i looked on the talk page of the article itself). In fact, you did put a copy on this present page. Boud 22:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prometheuspan 23:00, 3 May 2006 (UTC) I have noted that the name of the article has been reasonably changed, and, I sincerely appreciate the efforts to find a solution that works for everybody. Thanks for your help and time in making this process work. Prometheuspan 23:00, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Premature vote close

Cyde Weys has just unilaterally closed the vote after only 24 hours, and just ten minutes after he himself voted to "kill this AfD." The vote must be reopened. I'd do it myself had Cyde not protected the page. This is a case of an admin acting as an editor if I've ever seen one. 172 | Talk 23:51, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you 100%. Please seek the aid of someone who can reverse Cyde on this. He was totally out of whack for doing this. He should have recused himself based on his personal bias against the AfD. Merecat 23:56, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, the AfD should be resumed. See: WP:DP#Early closure. EricR 23:59, 3 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Prometheuspan 00:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC) I can think of a few good reasons to drop the vote early. Namely that nobody had ever given a cogent reason to delete, and that the entire vfd was a partisan manipulation of the system.[reply]

Early Closure was a good call - this from an editor who would have voted Delete; it was going nowhere very quickly. However, the AfD was not a manipulaiton of the system, and drew attention to a very POV title and established a mandate for a rename. --Mmx1 00:34, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. Cyde was out of line with this. Please see this Wikipedia:Deletion review#Rationales_to_impeach_George_W._Bush. Merecat 00:40, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

regarding "soapbox"

several different persons have called this a "soap box". Thats a flagrant misrepresentation. To proove my point, the facts as now standing are that three states, Both California, and Illinois, and Vermont have legal efforts now under way to impeach.


Vermonters deliver impeachment resolutions to Congress [1] Here, what we have is six towns who have now managed to get together and demand impeachment. Their demands are legally binding because they have sufficient signatures.


Bush Impeachment - The Illinois State Legislature is Preparing to Drop a Bombshell ![2] Here, they are using a loophole which allows a state to bring charges for impeachment which MUST then be acted upon by congress and the Senate.


Prometheuspan 01:26, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

California Becomes Second State to Introduce Bush Impeachment

California is also shooting for Cheneys hide, and are using similar tactics to force impeachment process to begin using State Powers.

So anybody who "thinks" that this is a "soapbox" is just living in denial with their heads in the sand. This is Current events, this is real, and the rationales for impeachment are for the most part impeccable. If we don't write this article now, it will get written eventually as a historical footnote.

Prometheuspan 02:03, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are you people aware that all these state initiatives have no legal effect whatever? Impeachment is strictly a congressional function. State legislatures and referenda can express a sense of the state, but are a simple attempt to create a bandwagon effect and give bloggers and Wikipedians a thrill. -- Cecropia 05:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Those are not "legal efforts", those are petitions. Please read the articles you cite. States have no power to impeach. Citizens of individual states have the ability to push their legislators in Congress to begin impeachment hearings but have no authority to actually impeach. Impeachment is a matter undertaken at only the very highest federal levels of government in the legislative branch as a check on the power of the executive. You seem to never have even taken a grade school civics class. You should read a book on how the U.S. federal system works - it's a good thing for every citizen to have at least some familiarity with it.

--Strothra 05:10, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Closing and protecting

Closed AfDs are not protected, and I have no idea why this one was, so I was unprotected it. I also find Cyde's decision incomprehensible. Consensus to delete was more than 2/3, which has been the rough guideline for deletion for as long as I can remember. -- Cecropia 03:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've tried to assume good faith on this, but it is increasingly looking like Cyde may have closed the AfD because he didn't like the direction it was heading. He had already voted Kill this AfD, then he did exactly that. He killed the AfD. It is improper for him first to vote and then to effect closure. Closure should be done by a disinterested party. Johntex\talk 03:27, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt it would have stayed such, but upon further review I am growing increasingly concerned about Cyde's behavior. --Mmx1 03:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's another extraordinary acrion on Cyde's part. Where is there policy to kill an AfD once started and decide the results on 27 hours' voting? I'm not big on RfCs, but I have asked for an explanation on Cyde's talk page. If anyone brings an RfC against him for this behavior, I will certify. -- Cecropia 03:32, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Let me clarify. I didn't close the Afd so much as I canceled it. And the only reason the votes were running as they were was because a huge amount of Delete vote-stacking had been going on (the Keep vote-stacking was just starting). It's lunacy to try and decide these issues by a sheer show of which side can get the most numbers to show up. You're welcome to start another Afd if you want - we better stay really on top of it, though, to make sure nothing untoward is happening. A lot of discussion has been going on at WP:ANI. Of course, if you really want to, you can file an RfC. Good timing too, my last one just ended! --Cyde Weys 04:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You weren't closing, you were cancelling? Where is the policy on cancelling a running vote? On what authority? Are you saying that closing the vote is impermissible, but you think an admin can just decide a vote can be thrown out? We have a lot of arguments (on the losing side) that "it isn't just the votes." OK. Then you believe that any admin is a God who can determine consensus by what subjective standard? You have some 'splaining to do, Lucy. -- Cecropia 04:54, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vote stacking should be a consideration in determining consensus, and should either trump or carry more weight than simplistic vote counts. The standard applied by Cyde makes sense, but contradicts the conclusion reached under similar circumstances for the Bush Crimes Commission article. Ombudsman 04:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Someone enlighten me. When did we grant admins this broad discretion? I never had any such discretion at RfA and I was argued with early and often for decisions I went to some lengths to explain. -- Cecropia 04:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can we keep discussion to the talk page?

Probably a bit late; I was not a fan of reopening the discussion, but can we restrict discussion to the talk page only so the votes are easier to track? Isn't there a template that says as much? --Mmx1 03:42, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

more denial ignorant lies and falsehoods

Delete Speculative article that amounts to heavily POV original research on a non-event. -- Cecropia 03:29, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope, thats not true, none of it. this is not speculative in the least, its not pov actually, and it is not original research. It IS a noteworthy event. bogus lies and misinformation. Prometheuspan 03:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Delete, per above; this article is pure unencyclopedic speculation. --Aquillion 03:38, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Nothing here is speculation, everything is sourced. You are probably just spewing ignorantly en totalia, and haven't even looked at the article to say that. Prometheuspan 03:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Keep and Rename --waffle iron talk 03:41, 4 May 2006 (UTC) Retrieved

just got renamed, what would you like to name it? Prometheuspan 03:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Delete All this is is Nescio, Kevin and Ryan's ramblings/blog/rants about Bush. Not encyclopedic, should've been deleted long ago. Morton devonshire 17:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Prometheuspan 03:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC) Factually untrue, this is from literally thousands of persons and at least 3 current legal impeachment efforts have made it to congress or the senate.[reply]

delete What can I say that hasn't already been said? — 

nathanrdotcom (T • C • W) 05:10, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

No cogent reason to delete. Prometheuspan 03:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Strong Delete POV soapbox. POV fork. Not encyclopedic. --Tbeatty 05:39, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

not true. Prometheuspan 03:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Delete. See Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. The problem is not fixable by editing: this is an essay, not an encyclopedia entry. -- Curps 05:43, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

again, provide a real reason. This IS a factual and fact based entry. sorry, try again. Prometheuspan 03:57, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What are you doing to this talk page?--IworkforNASA 04:03, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea, but I warned him against it. Hopefully he will listen and follow my advice. --Cyde Weys 04:08, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vote and content deletion

There has been at least some vote deletion and deletion of content off of the AfD page. In this edit User:Cecropia deleted two votes (including my own, which is why I noticed), along with another user's comments. There may have been other such vote/comment deletions, so whoever closes this AfD may want to look carefully through the edit history for more of the same. -- noosphere 05:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I will restore the votes and content to that page presently. -- noosphere 05:17, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As I explained to Noosphere, I have no idea how the deletion occurred. I made two edits in the same server minute: the second was only supposed to be the addition of a "?" to a query. Anyway, I told Noosphere that this was accidental and he accepted that. I'm not into stealth vote-rigging ;-) -- Cecropia 06:51, 4 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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