You are herecontent / Midwest Voices: Still time to impeach President Bush
Midwest Voices: Still time to impeach President Bush
By Bob Sommer, Kansas City Star
The year is 2019. It’s Sunday evening. Eighty-eight-year-old Morley Safer’s special guest on “60 Minutes” is an expert on national security, an elder statesman.
The image of former President George W. Bush fills the screen. His hunched shoulders quiver in a chuckle as Morley asks whether he’s finally cleared the last of the brush from his ranch.
Bush’s wartime presidential expertise is needed. War rages from the Mediterranean to the Himalayas, while newly drafted U.S. troops mass along the Canadian border.
Now in her second term, President Sarah Palin never blinked when she stared down the Canadian prime minister, who muttered in French, something about moose poaching.
It’s war.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge came up short of oil (though Sandals has rehabilitated it as a tropical resort). America’s mission is to liberate Canadians from their socialist health care system.
Revenue from tar-sand oil will pay for the invasion. Palin can see Canada from America.
OK, that was fiction.
But the prospect of Bush morphing into a sage elder statesman is realistic and disturbing.
As a former president, Richard Nixon successfully remade himself despite disgrace in office and a near-miss with impeachment — for true “high crimes and misdemeanors,” not your garden-variety lying about an affair with an intern.
If President Gerald Ford hadn’t pardoned Nixon, perhaps the Bush administration would have been less eager to flout the Constitution.
Instead, Bush apparently took Nixon’s infamous 1977 remark to David Frost for his personal motto: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
Bush’s 2001 declaration, “You are either with us or you are with the terrorists,” inaugurated a dark age of smear and fear. The Constitution became an obstacle to conducting state business under the aegis of the “war on terror.”
Sober and presumably educated people debated whether torturing human beings and spying on citizens were acceptable. The possibility that the Constitution could withstand, indeed guide us through, times of crisis was a nonstarter with this administration.
The arguments for impeaching Bush and Dick Cheney are exhaustive: the fraudulent sale of the Iraq war to the American people, the illegal invasion of that country, violation of the Geneva Conventions, illegal domestic surveillance, arbitrary detentions, torture, disinformation, and gross negligence after Hurricane Katrina.
On June 9, Rep. Dennis Kucinich stood tirelessly on the House floor for nearly five hours to read an array of 35 articles of impeachment. (http://impeachment.kucinich.us/)
Rep. Jim McDermott agonized before supporting the measure.
“America cannot regain its moral leadership in the world,” he said, “if America cannot hold its leaders accountable for their actions at home.”
Apologists for Bush need only ask themselves if impeachment would be in order for a Democratic president with his identical record. Notable conservatives like constitutional scholar Bruce Fein and former Congressman Bob Barr favor impeachment.
The question isn’t whether impeachment is warranted, but Why now? Hurricane W has blown through. We have enough to worry about with the cleanup.
I asked that question of David Swanson, the press secretary for Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign and co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org.
“The point is to establish that presidents have to obey laws,” he responded. “There is no better way to do that than to impeach Bush and Cheney, and that will remain true until someone even worse occupies the White House.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took impeachment off the table because she and many Democrats believed it wouldn’t succeed and would be divisive.
But what of the law and the precedents set by Bush?
Presidential “signing statements” now mean the law doesn’t apply to the president. Politics trumps justice in the Justice Department. Habeas corpus is a quaint Latin phrase.
Torture is routine. Science means whatever you want it to mean. Endless war will consolidate power in the presidency.
Impeachment would also lay the groundwork for possible criminal action; impeachment hearings uncovered Nixon’s secret Oval Office tapes.
Bush was charged to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” His record tells otherwise, which is more than sufficient cause to begin impeachment hearings.
Bob Sommer’s novel, “Where the Wind Blew,” was released in June by The Wessex Collective. He lives in Overland Park. To reach Midwest Voices columnists, write to the author c/o Editorial Page, The Kansas City Star, 1729 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108. Or send e-mail to oped@kcstar.com
- Login to post comments
-
- Email this page
- Printer-friendly version
I have been using the following as a comment on as many impeachment related news articles as I can find on newspaper websites across the country. Use it if you want, jk
THE CRIMES OF THE CHENEY/BUSH ADMINISTRATION
ARE FAR MORE SERIOUS THAN YOU REALIZE.
The following links and quotes
Expose the '
SMOKING GUN Of CHENEY's LIE TO THE GOP HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER
PLEASE: Take the time to understand
the serious nature of Cheney's Lie.
See article: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20080919.html
Vice President Dick Cheney's Incredible and Deadly Lie: By Deceiving a Congressional Leader, Cheney Sent Us to War on False Pretenses And Violated the Separation of Powers - as Well as the Criminal Law By JOHN W. DEAN Friday, Sept. 19, 2008 on findlaw.com
Quotes from Dean: "the most deadly - lie Dick Cheney has yet told, which was reported earlier this week". "Last year, Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman and Jo Baker, now of the New York Times, did an extensive series for the Post on Cheney. Now, Gellman has done some more digging, and published the result in a book he released this week: Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. The book reveals a lie told to a high-ranking fellow Republican, and the difference that lie made. "
"Cheney turned Armey around on the war issue. Cheney did so by telling the House Majority Leader that he was giving him information that the Administration could not tell the public -- namely (according to Armey), that Iraq had the "'ability to miniaturize weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear,' which had been 'substantially refined since the first Gulf War,' and would soon result in 'packages that could be moved even by ground personnel.'
In addition, Cheney linked that threat to Saddam's alleged personal ties to al Qaeda, explaining that 'we now know they have the ability to develop these weapons in a very portable fashion, and they have a delivery system in their relationship with organizations such as al Qaeda.'"
"The Post story continues, "Armey has asked: "Did Dick Cheney ... purposely tell me things he knew to be untrue?" His answer: "I seriously feel that may be the case...
Had I known or believed then what I believe now, I would have publicly opposed [the war] resolution right to the bitter end, and I believe I might have stopped it from happening."
"In short, it was this lie that sealed the nation's fate, and sent us to war in Iraq. By lying to such an influential figure in Congress, Cheney not only may have changed the course of history, but also corrupted the separation of powers with their inherent checks and balances."
"Cheney's monumental dishonesty, the news of which has been buried under the current meltdown of the nation's economy did not strike me as a topic for a Constitution Day speech." "Cheney's great lie can be viewed not only as a great immorality and violation of the criminal code, but also and more fundamentally as the significant breach of his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution that it is. "
"If Armey is right, Dick Cheney has not only behaved improperly, but also criminally: In addition, when lying to Armey, Cheney clearly committed a "high crime or misdemeanor" in his blocking the Constitution's checks and balances from stopping our march into Iraq."
"During the debates that took place during the Constitution's ratification conventions, it was specifically stated that lying to Congress about matters of war would be an impeachable offense. Congress has also made it a crime."
"Yet in lying even to those in his own party, about reasons to go to war, he has sunk to a low level few have reached, and it is no hyperbole to call his actions treasonousto the structure and spirit of the Republic." John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former counsel to the president. (and a Republican)
See also:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR200809...
Where Cheney is exposed as having lied to the GOP House Majority Leader Armey to get Armey to change his vote to invade Iraq.
See also:
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_10467936
Poll: Public opposes increased presidential power
See video of Bush and Cheney's statements on WMD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePj55jICxHY
It will make you sick with worry for the future of our country.
See also:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/8/we_need_to_remind_people_that
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Calls for Impeachment.
Quotes from the article: "John Dean, as you know, was the counselor to President Nixon during the Watergate scandal. And Dean said to me—Dean went to prison for his participation in the cover-up. And he said, “You know, we eavesdropped illegally on one office, and I went to jail for four months, and my boss was impeached and then forced to resign.” And he said, “These people have illegally eavesdropped on hundreds of thousands of Americans.” And he said, “Where’s the impeachment? Where are the convictions? Where’s the imprisonment? Where’s the jail term? Where is the American press? Where is the indignation?” and
"You know, there’s no doubt that they committed a crime. Everybody admits it. When it was FISA, when they—you know, when they illegally eavesdropped, there’s no justification for that. It is a crime, and it’s a high crime. And it’s a high crime that’s prescribed, you know, for—as the basis for impeachment. And they ought to be impeached, just so that nobody does it again. We can’t just keep—you know, if somebody is murdered. You just don’t say, “Well, let it go, and move on. Nobody really wants to deal with a trial and all that problem.” It’s our responsibility as a generation to impeach these people now as a showcase, to show future presidents of the United States that the Bill of Rights is not something that can be trifled with, that the Bill of Rights is not just a luxury that we can no longer afford."
Incumbent House Democrats are at a defining moment
hey have in their hands the power to end the Bush war of terror against our US Constitution and put Obama in the White House.
The incumbent House Democrats took their Oath OF Office on the Holy Bible and made a pledge to protect Our US Constitution Against All Enemies including those "domestic", Bush and Cheney. The incumbent House Democrats must not be let off the hook on this holy responsibility.
I oppose the re-election of incumbent Democrats who refuse to protect the US Constitution and the power of Congress against Bush and Cheney. I believe that congressmen and congresswomen who cover up for an obviously corrupt President and Vice President are perhaps themselves corrupt.
I will vote for Obama and Biden because I see McCain and Palin as a continuation of the disastrous policies of Cheney and Bush.
I will "Blank Vote" Incumbent Democratic Congressmen who refuse to call Cheney/Bush accountable by calling for immediate impeachment hearings.
I will just leave that part of the ballot "blank" not entering a vote for either the Democratic or Republican candidate.
John H Kennedy, Denver, CO
43 yr Democratic voter,
Obama delegate to the Denver County Convention
If you want the incumbent House Democrats to change their behaviour
you must do something
to make them fear you the voter
more than you
the voter fear the Republicans.
THE GRAVES of over 4,160 US Soldiers killed in Iraq
CRY OUT
WMD LIES "ARE" IMPEACHABLE
..
..