About a month ago, I was talking to my roommate from India about Bush. He looked at me and said, “Why is he still your president?”
Essentially, that’s the question we all have to ask ourselves. It should be the bumper sticker phrase that we see on cars all over America: “Why is Bush Still President?”
The answer is not a simple one. The answer is quite complex. But part of the answer is undoubtedly that he is still president because we allowed him to take power.
We allowed him to take power in 2000. We allowed him to assume it again in 2004. And we are allowing him to leave power in 2008 knowing full well records of his presidency will be kept secret in Washington, D.C. or his presidential library while he retires at Crawford Ranch, a place he has gone repeatedly during his presidency to hide from the public.
The leader of an administration that has demolished the rule of law should not be allowed to retreat and be free from accountability. The time is up on Bush’s presidency is scarcely a good reason to not impeach but rather why it is essential that action be taken now.
Indictment and prosecution should be on the tips of the tongues of all Americans and yet we can barely bring ourselves to push the Democratic candidates to be more daring when it comes to challenging Bush and Cheney.
Obama and Clinton have refused to support impeachment claiming it to be partisan or politics of the past or that it would squander a mandate won in 2006 when Democrats took control of the House and Senate or that not enough crimes have been committed yet to warrant impeachment.
Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic Leadership, despite their attempts to keep this issue off the table, have not been able to keep it off the table because more and more Americans are recognizing that at this point in history impeachment is required if American democracy wishes to continue.
A group of patriots---people like you who read pieces like this on a daily basis---are keeping the beacon of light that is democracy and freedom lit.
But, how far are you willing to go?
When candidates who provide alternatives to spineless, hapless, gutless Democrats like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton emerge like Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney who in her final days in Congress in 2006 issued Articles of Impeachment for George Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, like Independent candidate Ralph Nader who has said Bush is a “recidivist war criminal” and Bush and Cheney are “the most impeachable duo in American history”, or Libertarian presidential nominee Mike Gravel who says on his Gravel2008.US website:
“…Without Impeachment before we choose the next Administration, we as a Nation will be setting a legal precedent. We will be saying yes to the systematic destruction of the Constitution and Bill of Rights engineered by Vice President Cheney and President Bush, and will be formally agreeing to the end of American Democracy. We, as Americans, will be giving our approval and consent to the idea that the Vice President and President are indeed above the law, that they are in fact a law unto themselves…”
We who support impeachment fervently dismiss them as impossible candidacies. It is a dismissal that is issued on terribly erroneous grounds.
That Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, or Mike Gravel cannot run for president because Obama/Clinton/McCain have more money, more media support, more public exposure, etc. are not reasons for us to shirk from supporting their intrepid candidacies. On the contrary, those reasons are why we should support all three of their candidacies in any way we can as vigorously as possible.
Impeachment should be the litmus test for those wishing to run this country.
Regardless of how much money, media support, or public exposure a candidate has garnered, not having the utmost respect for the Constitution or the rule of law (whether it be internationally, nationally, statewide, or citywide) should disqualify any candidate who wishes to run this country.
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