Note to Speaker Pelosi: Even The National Coalition of American Nuns is calling for impeachment. Who are we waiting for, the Pope?
As I've said before, I don't know what is possible. I don't know if we can impeach George W. Bush or Dick Cheney but I know we must try. Not holding our government accountable in the past allowed seasoned and skilled felons to continue in our government today. Men to whom our values are at best abstractions they can mentally wave away like so many flies -- habeas corpus, due process, international law, clean elections. The Salvador Option has migrated to Iraq. These career scofflaws are nothing if not catastrophically efficient.
Recently Mr. Conyers explained to Amy Goodman on her program, Democracy Now! that, with respect to impeachment, he had the Constitution in one hand and his calculator in that other. That while there was no doubt that the Bush Administration had committed impeachable offenses, we don't have the time or the votes to do it and, as the argument goes, the Democrats only have a nominal majority so putting the 2008 election in peril would be a grave error.
With all due respect to one of our most courageous and progressive Congressmen, Mr. Conyers, you are wrong. It is the job of Congressional Democrats to find both time and votes. Because your oath was to the Constitution, not to expediency. Your calculator is misleading you because it has no conscience.
Alexander Hamilton wrote: "The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law."
Note to Mr. Conyers: Mr. Hamilton did not qualify this statement with, "if we have the time, the votes and the go ahead from our suicidal political leadership."
The 2008 election is not only not a reason to forgo impeachment, it is the reason impeachment must go forward. If a certain Democratic frontrunner doesn't want the word "impeachment" wafting in the air during her campaign, then she might be a frontrunner but she is no leader. In fairness to Senator Clinton, her advisors may have made this call for her. I hope for her sake (and for ours) that this isn't the same group that advised Mr. Kerry to concede an election that wasn't his to give away. It was ours and it was stolen from us - there is no other construction that fits the facts of that election.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
