Impeach Bush and Cheney Now

I am not a person who endorses tit for tat petty politics. I always advocated following the higher road of common interest rather than the quick, easy and often misleading path of partisan politics. I hated the fact that Bill Clinton was impeached and our nation’s resources and attention were given over to a matter that I (like the majority of Americans) felt was ridiculous. Clinton was (no matter how one frames it, impeached for the high crime of lying about sex.) What he had done was obviously wrong but certainly not a matter that put our nation in peril. With that in mind, I had strongly been opposed to the prospect of impeaching President George W. Bush. Despite the fact that I could not stand his views, his lack of interest in important issues and a condescending attitude of governance, I did not want to see him removed from office for political reasons. I respected the electoral process too much. But things have changed. This administration has consistently showed a dangerous lack of respect for the rule of law. This administration is dangerous. (I will not even mention the preemptive war in Iraq in the rest of this piece.) They, in the administration, have taken for themselves the unprecedented power to seize people (foreigners as well as American citizens) anywhere in the world, use “hard interrogation techniques” (a thinly veiled euphemism for torture) either here in America or use rendition to allow a sympathetic but less monitored foreign regime do the torturing. This administration had opened secret prisons. This administration has lied repeatedly and then invoked “executive privilege” to silence and criticisms when caught in a lie. This administration has been ruthless against its opponents, implying that they are not supporting the troops or “hate America”. This administration has even gone to the point of publicly outing a CIA agent in reprisal for her husband’s open criticism of George W. Bush’s lies in his state of the union address. This administration is using signing statements to circumvent enforcement of laws passed by congress or to work contrary to their spirit. This administration even claims that the Vice President’s office is not part of the executive branch and therefore does not have to hand over documents as stated in the law. The attorney general Alberto Gonzales is obviously lying about his role in the firing of the U.S. attorneys for political reasons. White House Counsel Harriet Myers is refusing to appear before congress despite a subpoena to do so, and other administration officials are refusing to testify because they have taken an oath to defend (not the constitution) but the President. We are in dangerous waters. This is not simply a President and administration with a different interpretation of the law, this is one who seems to have no regard for the law, the constitution or our civil liberties. Last night I watched Bill Moyer’s Journal on PBS. There two scholars, one from the left and one from the right (who had advocated the impeachment of Bill Clinton) and they were both in agreement about the need for impeaching both the President and the Vice President. From the left there was concern for our civil rights and from the right the concern was the flagrant disregard of the Constitution by the administration and the dangerous precedents that eroded the systems of checks and balances. One very important point was made on the program. When the next President is sworn into office in January 2009, they will possess unprecedented power handed over by the Bush administration, and people seldom give up power willingly. This is the slow path to true Empire, giving the executive more and more power until the legislature is sidelined as irrelevant. Impeachment would be the needed check on the current abuses of power and would help ensure that future Presidents could not begin their terms where the current administration left off. Besides, our nation cannot afford to wait the nearly 18 months before Bush and Cheney are scheduled to leave office. We cannot afford to sit out and wait for the storm to pass – who knows what other ills this administration would release upon the nation and the world. We must act now to impeach both the President and the Vice President.