Letters to the Editor
kovie
Published Letters: 632
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I want a pony too
[Read the article: Still more White House secrecy -- this time in the Tillman investigation]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But no one's going to give it to me and I'm not going to get one until I save up enough money to buy one myself.
To everyone who wants impeachement NOW, please explain to me how we get to conviction NOW--when we can't even get more than a handful of Repubs to vote with us on Iraq and nearly everything else--and how, if we don't convict, we aren't even worse off than we are now? Because if Dems try to impeach and fail to convict, they will have essentially validated the Bush/Cheney doctrine by having failed to hold its top leaders accountable for it. And where would we and the constitution be then?
Yes, I understand the desire for impeachment, and fully agree that on its merits it's absolutely merited, and has been for years now, and would LOVE to see them impeached and dragged out of the west wing. But to posit it as the ONLY possible remedy for our present and ongoing constitutional crisis (and the other crises that it's caused, e.g. Iraq, potentially Iran, resurgence of Al Qaida, politicization of DoJ, etc.) is to set us up for an all or nothing gamble that at present is all but SURE to fail. And if it does, where will we be then, having just futily fired off our most powerful gun without having first attempted less exciting but still quite potent ones, now rendered inoperable?
The vast majority of people supporting impeachment strike me as not having thought it through, dealing with it on an (understandable) emotional rather than rational level. Because without conviction, impeachment is not only futile, but quite likely dangerous. It is futile because what would a convictionless impeachment process accomplish in terms of discrediting and checking an out of control administration and its tyrannical claims to power? Nothing, I say, and I challenge anyone to explain how this is wrong. And it is dangerous because it will have essentially validated these tyrannical claims to power by having failed to check them.
I want impeachment as much as anyone does (and to anyone who claims otherwise just go ahead and read my many posts on this on DKos), but to me impeachment means CONVICTION, not merely trying to convict, with ANYTHING short of that being both futile and dangerous, for the reasons I've given.
So I ask everyone, how do we get to conviction when right NOW, there clearly aren't enough GOP votes to make that happen? Don't give me this "let's try anyway" nonsense, because anyone who says that has clearly not thought this process through and is not to be taken seriously. To proceed with impeacment without having thought the process through to conviction is more or less to mimic the administration's approach to attacking Iraq--how does this end well for us?
No ideas? Ok, here's how. Let congress continue to do what it has been doing (and anyone who claims that it hasn't been doing anything is just as unserious, because it's a batant and demonstrable lie), i.e. going after the administration in hearing after hearing, issuing subpoenas, and very soon I expect issuing contempt citations (be they criminal, civil or inherent, or all three if possible IMO).
This is bound, I believe, to force the administration to defy congress in such a blatant and egregious manner, and to make certain mistakes, that will make the case for conviction much stronger than it is now from a POLITICAL point of view (which is the only one that matters at this point, of course, since the legal one is pretty much open and shut). What we've seen so far are preliminary acts of contempt and defiance. Once congress holds the administration in actual contempt, the stakes will be legally upped if it continues to defy not just congress but the law and courts. We're not there yet. We soon will be, I believe.
Impeachment is a multistep process, not just a gun that you fire half-cocked. You have to first properly position and arm that gun, get the enemy in your sights, and have a clean shot, for it to succeed, and until you do, you do not shoot it. For congress to successfully impeach (i.e. convict, and as I've explained nothing short of that would be successful), it has to lay the necessary legal and political groundwork and take the necessary preliminary steps, which it has been doing and continues to do.
No, it hasn't been "sexy" or resulted in the desired result--taking down Bush, Cheney and Gonzo--but it has moved things forward, weakened the administration, and forced a number of high-level officials to resign. And I see no sign of this process having abated or stalled. It's just taking time, as all SUCCESSFUL processes tend to do, especially in the legal and political arenas. Ask any successful prosecuter. This isn't an overnight process. I don't know if this will ultimately get us to conviction--or even impeachment--or if Dems would have the nerve and courage to actually go for it. But I do believe that if we have ANY chance of actually impeaching (i.e. conviction), that following this process is the ONLY way to do it.
Anyone who disagrees is respectfully requested to explain why, and how we get to conviction without following this process, or what process they have in mind that they believe will lead to conviction, and is more likely to lead to it than the proscribed one that congress appears to be following at present.
We all want our pony. Some of us actually have a plan for getting one, though, beyond jumping up and down and yelling "I want my pony NOW, dammit!!!".