The Case for Impeachment

At this point, we might say that practicality dictates impeachment charges not be brought against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Why? Because we do not have the votes in the House to approve articles of impeachment, or the 2/3 Senate vote to remove them from office.

US

Representative Maurice Hinchey, a one-time proponent of impeaching Bush, says only 150 of the House’s 435 members support moving forward with articles of impeachment. It is 68 votes short of the majority needed, 218 votes out of 435.

In the Senate nowhere near two-thirds of the Senate would vote to remove Bush or Cheney from office.

No president has ever been removed, though Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998 were impeached by the House. Of course, Richard Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment.

Nevertheless, John Nichols, the associate editor of The Capital Times, says, “Members of Congress do not swear an oath ‘to support and defend the Constitution of the
United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic ... except in election years.’"

This was Nichols pronouncement last month after Dennis Kucinich sent 35 articles of impeachment to the House panel where they have, in effect, died.

Following Nancy Pelosi’s lead of renouncing impeachment – after the 2006 midterm election, many Democrats tend to put politics above bringing Bush, Cheney and other administration criminals to justice.

This is an election year and getting re-elected takes precedence over protecting us and the Constitution from foreign and domestic threats. In this case the principles threats are Bush, Cheney and Rove.

Even now we wonder if House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers’ investigation into Karl Rove’s persecution of Alabama Democrat Don Siegelman will bear fruit. After all, Rove has escaped blame for thousands of dirty tricks and even more Machiavellian moves. Conyers, according to CBS, says, "We're closing in on Rove. Someone's got to kick his ass."

Meanwhile, John Nichols names seven members of the House who put principle above party: Kucinich, the maverick congressman; Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-chairs Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey plus Sam Farr, another Californian with a long track record of opposing the war in Iraq and presidential lawlessness; Florida Democrat Robert Wexler, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee; and progressive stalwart Maurine Hinchey, D-N.Y.; and Tammy Baldwin.

Whether it is practicality or the fear of rejection at the polls, delay and the failure to hold Bush administration criminals accountable can have very dire consequences for all of us.

The Bush regime has made it clear that the critical problem of global warming will not be addressed during the Bush term, and even six more months of obfuscation and delay could put us past the global warming tipping point.

Considering the headlines and the continuing incompetence of the Bush regime, we seem to be back to the summer of 2001, distracted and unprepared while the Taliban and bin Laden’s minions multiply in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and continue to plot against us.

The Bush regime is supplying plenty of fuel for the jihadist movement. Bush’s 2005 proclamation that “we do not torture” was long ago revealed as a lie. Antonio Taguba, the retired major general who investigated detainee abuse for the Army, determined there is no doubt that “war crimes were committed.”

And Red Cross investigators flatly told the C.I.A. last year that America was practicing torture and vulnerable to war-crimes charges.

Torture has prompted false coerced testimony and confessions, sending the American military on wild-goose chases. Snapshots of Abu Ghraib have been used as recruitment tools by jihadists.

With no impeachment, with no charges against Bush kingpins like Karl Rove, we will never get the full picture of their crimes. Precedence will favor the continuing defiling of the Constitution. Future administrations will feel free to rationalize the immorality of torture in the name of national security, saying that torture can easily fix the terrorist threat.

And why not?

If Bush’s crimes don’t warrant impeachment, then future administrations can freely thwart the law in the name of national security.

Besides Bush has assured that we will still have Iraq and the Jihadist movement it foments, thus assuring future terrorist attacks by inflamed Islamic radicals with an increasingly global front. This will work in the favor of the neo-conservatives.

Thus the dire consequences for us can be many-fold: global warming will reach a critical tipping point before anything is done; the economy will continue to worsen with the profligate spending of the Bush regime for the war and cold war weapons we don’t need and a continued de-regulated greed-fest; jihadists will exploit the Bush war crimes and realize that another 9/11-type attack could prolong neocon rule; the Constitution will continue to be tattered; and precedent will favor the Machiavellian ways of Rove-Bush.

Supporting and defending the Constitution is not even a case brought to the American people by the majority in Congress, and little effort is being made to sell impeachment, least of all from the media.

The cause of re-election and the excuse of practicality continue to trump their oath of office: “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”