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Reading an article in the latest issue of The Economist magazine/newspaper, and saw this: "The father of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s leader from 2011 until she was impeached in August this year, was Bulgarian." On NPR this morning, they were reporting on the plane crash in Colombia involving Brazilians, and they pointed out that Brazil had had some bad times this year -- Pres. Rousseff had been impeached, being one.
Based on context, they are implying that to impeach is to remove from office. Surely, being ousted is worse than impeachment. Pre. Clinton was impeached, but was not kicked out of office.
When I was in high school, one of the things drummed into us was what impeach really meant.
I'll say that there is always that strong association in people's mind, but never enough of it to conflate impeachment and ousting in a general way. There will always be usages that leave open the possibility of conflation. But wherever it becomes matter enough, there will always arise in the popular media many expositions aimed to explain how the terms are not the same, and how exactly the legal processes work. Often, the issue of confusion is raised as a rhetorical tool to enliven the legal scholarship.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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