"Suppose...":
Arguments For An Impeachment Resolution
By Bernard Weiner
30 September, 2005
The Crisis
Papers
Suppose
it could be proven that the integrity of the vote-counting in the 2004
election had been seriously compromised, and that Bush-Cheney probably
lost. What would you do about it?
Suppose it could
be proven that the Bush Administration told huge lies to get the U.S.
military into Iraq, thus leading to the deaths of thousands of American
soldiers, the maiming of tens of thousands of others, the deaths of
more than 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians? What would you do about
it?
Suppose it could
be proven that the Bush Administration effectively has turned over the
writing of pollution-control legislation to the corporations that create
much of the pollution? What would you do about it?
Suppose it could
be proven that the Bush inner circle knew that a huge terrorist attack
was about to go down in the Fall of 2001 and chose, for whatever reason,
to ignore the warnings. What would you do about it?
Suppose it could
be proven that high officials of the Bush Administration, for political
reasons, deliberately revealed the identity of a covert CIA officer,
and that of a CIA mole inside Osama bin Laden's inner circle? What would
you do about it?
Suppose it could
be proven that the Bush Administration concocted a legal philosophy
that would permit the President to ignore laws passed by Congress, and
has "disappeared" a number of American citizens into military-base
prisons away from public or legal scrutiny -- in effect, making the
President into a kind of dictator? What would you do about it?
Suppose it could
be proven that under rules devised by the Bush Administration, confidentiality
between lawyer and client no longer exists, federal agents can enter
your home and conduct a search without you being present or even being
told it happened ("sneak&peak," it's called), can hack
into your computer and read your private emails without you being informed,
can check what library books you're reading and prevent librarians from
telling you they've done that. What would you do about it?
Suppose it could
be proven that the Bush Administration devised legal rationales for
torture of suspected terrorist-prisoners in U.S. care -- with more than
100 dying while being interrogated -- and that key detainees are being
sent to U.S.-friendly countries where extreme torture methods are used?
What would you do about it?
Suppose it could
be proven that because of their incompetence and delay in responding
to the Gulf Coast Katrina catastrophe, more than a thousand innocent
American citizens drowned or starved to death? What would you do about
it?
Suppose it could
be proven that the Bush Administration, hostile to science, has denied
the reality of global warming and its effects on regional weather changes,
such as the increase in monster hurricanes like Katrina and Rita, and
thus devoted little or no attention to the deadly implications. What
would you do about it?
"WHAT DO I
CARE WHAT YOU THINK?"
Well, you get the
idea. You or I could continue this list forever -- civil liberties decimated,
church&state merging, humongous deficits, activist judges granting
more and more power to the central government, certain citizens (especially
women and gays) being discriminated against, etc. etc. And then we'd
always come back to the same closing question: "What would you
do about it?"
The reason I ask
is that the Bush Administration has been caught in the spotlight on
these issues for the past four-and-a-half years, with documented evidence
reported in the mainstream media. Scandal after scandal, corruption
after corruption, high crimes and misdemeanors -- and yet, nothing happens.
As Bush himself
once said about his critics, almost in these words: "So what, I'm
the President. What are you going to do about it? What do I care what
you think?" As long as Bush is in the White House, with all the
power at his command, with all his loyalist toadies keeping real-world
consequences away from him, he feels that he and his inner circle in
the bunker with him are untouchable.
And, to date, he
has been. So what are you, what are we, going to do about it?
ALMOST AT CRITICAL
MASS
I suggest that anti-Bush
critical mass is just about achieved in the body politic, especially
after the disgraceful, shameful neglect and bungling associated with
the Katrina scandal, which led to the deaths of so many American citizens.
Nearly two-thirds of those polled these days agree that the Iraq War
is a mistake, and the troops should be brought back home soon. Bush's
approval rating is now in the high-30% range. If and when in the next
few months indictments are unsealed against key Bush Administration
officials -- perhaps including not only Karl Rove and Scooter Libby
but John Bolton and, maybe as unindicted co-conspirators, Bush and Cheney
-- true critical mass could be achieved.
At that point, we
don't want to be just sitting there watching the unfolding of the Bush
Administration's self-destruction, or witnessing their last, dangerous,
martial-law death throes. We need to have protected ourselves, and helped
prepare the way for the moral/legal/political turnaround that is coming.
One way to lay the
necessary foundations is to get the citizenry talking seriously about
the possibility of impeachment. Now. And, in addition to raising the
issue amid the chattering class, perhaps the best way of getting the
word out more widely is for an impeachment resolution to be introduced
in the House. Now.
As I see it, such
a resolution will have no chance of success if it is introduced only
by a single, and easily dismissable, Member of Congress. No, this impeachment
resolution -- calling for hearings into the alleged high crimes and
misdemeanors of Bush and Cheney -- ideally should be introduced by a
huge number of Representatives, including whatever courageous Republicans
can be convinced to join.
There also is strength
in numbers, perhaps giving members courage to take the giant step in
the company of many of their peers. Who will start the process by talking
along these lines to their fellow Members of Congress? My guess is that
if someone with the stature of John Conyers and Jim Leach began talking
up the idea of an impeachment resolution, others might well consider
signing on. Even better would be if anti-war Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
were to bite the bullet and join in. I'd say a minimum of 40 names would
be necessary to break through into the major media as a "serious"
movement afoot.
WHY MANY REPUBS
MIGHT JOIN IN
Why would Republicans
want to abandon the Bush cabal that helped turn them into the majority
party in Congress? Well, for one thing, they want to get re-elected
and Bush could well be an embarrassing and politically radioactive albatross
around their necks in 2006. If Bush and Cheney were to go, they could
run campaigns devoid of their association with that pair, and might
well return to their seats of power in the Congress.
Likewise, CEOs and
other business types, including Stock Market brokers and economic powers
that be, see the damage being inflicted on the budget, on deficit financing,
on the economy, and so on, and might well believe that three more years
of this bumbling, ideologically-driven administration could well take
the country down with it. Better to cut their losses now by abandoning
Bush&Co. to the retribution of the public for four-plus years of
reckless rule, and then stabilize things and get the country back on
track.
So many retired
military leaders and traditional Republicans, conservatives all (in
the pre-Bush meaning of that term), already have cut themselves loose
from a party kidnapped by far-right extremists. It's not outside the
realm of possibility that these GOP forces might coalesce into a movement
that sees the forced eviction of Bush&Co. from the White House as
in the best interests of themselves, their party, the economy, and the
American people in general.
Now, introducing
such a resolution calling for impeachment hearings could well fail when
it comes up for a vote. But Bush& Co. may have gone so far over
the acceptable edge, it's not outside the realm of possibility that
such a bill could pass. (Members of Congress were talking about the
impeachment of President Nixon in the early-'70s and, though no such
resolutions passed, they helped set the stage for Nixon's resignation
later as the Watergate scandal unfolded.)
In any event, discussing
the reasons for impeachment outside the fringes of internet discourse
-- actual governmental officials talking about it -- would significantly
alter the respectability of the topic being raised in the public sphere.
Suddenly, it would be a serious issue being discussed seriously, both
out on the street (where there would have to be unrelenting rallies
and civil disobedience) and in the corridors of industry and political
power.
NO SEX BUT PLENTY
OF DEAD BODIES
The basis for impeachment
of Bush-Cheney would not be a personal indiscretion a la Clinton --
extremely bad judgment, but a private sexual act between consenting
adults -- but crimes and misdemeanors that have resulted, and continue
to result, in the death and destruction of American citizens and their
property, both abroad and at home.
As for the wording
of such a resolution, my guess is that the experts in such things will
opt for a simple, all-inclusive indictment rather than a laundry-list
of specific offenses, which will come later. For example, Bush and Cheney
took their oaths of office swearing to "preserve, protect and defend"
the Constitution and, by implication, the citizens of the United States.
They have done neither.
The Constitutional
protections designed to shield citizens from an overbearing federal
government are in shreds; citizens are being killed in a war based on
lies; we Americans are less secure than we were before the invasion
of Iraq; and monster storms have become more deadly because of unfeeling
incompetence and a denial of scientific realities.
It is long since
time to take corrective action. Many progressives and Democrats have
been moving in that direction for a long time, but the time may be ripe
for significant factions of the Republican Party to join in the movement
to pry the grasping fingers of Bush&Co. from the levers of power.
Introducing a resolution
calling for impeachment hearings is the first serious step along that
road back to political sanity and moral accountability for our country.
Let's demand that our Representatives in Congress do it, and if they
won't, we will elect those who will.
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D. in government & international relations,
has taught at various universities, worked as a writer/editor for the
San Francisco Chronicle, and currently co-edits The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org).
Copyright 2005,
by Bernard Weiner