Letters to the Editor
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Impeachment Forum
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
A revolutionary idea, indeed.
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Despair
Despair is what I feel whenever I read about the exceedingly small probability of impeaching Bush.
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Impeachment Versus Insurrection
The line at the end of the story about the likelyhood of a popular uprising to overthrow forcebly Bush tyranny may be the kind of thing I'd say after 5 or 10 beers, but no sober person believes this would happen in today's circumstances, let alone succeed, even if it were morally justifiable. We're not in Boston 1775, Paris 1789 or St. Petersburg 1917, where a few rabble-rousers could bring down an out-of-touch oligarchy. Yes, we are ruled by an out-of-touch oligarchy, but how is a peacenik like I going to defeat the U.S. military? Such idiotic statements completely undo the goal of the article and the forum it describes: to make a Bush impeachment seem plausible and responsible.
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Then what?
So the "pundits" are discussing impeachment? A few years too late, for my money. Maybe too late, period. Let's indulge in the fantasy that somewhere, somehow, articles of impeachment would be drawn up. Continue the fantasy that dumbya is expelled in disgrace, perhaps even imprisoned. Then what?
George W. Bush is not an anomaly, but the product of decades of political action. After the chimporer has been deposed, what do you do with the RedState goobers that are his fan base? This does not invalidate their creeping fascism but allows them the polite fiction that they chose the "wrong guy". Next time they might find the "right guy" and when that happens it will be due in great part to the failure of the Democratic Party, a collaboration through incompetence scenario.
I'm afraid the damage has been done. The chimporer's appointments to the Supreme Court will haunt us for decades. We have war without end, for the benefit of our patriotic defence contractors. We have a Senate where only 10 members voted against the extension of the PATRIOT Act. Getting rid of buschco is going to fix this????
Pardon me if I save my fantasies for something useful such as, I don't know, porn.
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Despair is a sin
So buck up, oldReader. More than half the country is on our side. Two thirds find Bush incompetent. There are multiple investigations of multiple crimes underway. Republican congressmen are being ousted for corruption and fleeing association with the president. And the evidence of Bush's lies -- from WMD, to global warming, to Katrina failures, to 9/11 -- is everywhere.
In short, the wheels are flying off the Rove-Mobile. And as the momentum shifts against them Dick, George, and friends will be in for a helluva ride. Impeachment is just the beginning!
P.S. Kudos to Salon for covering something other than liberal hand-wringing.
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But doesn't that gives us Cheney?
Good Lord, what's worse? Even if we were able to pull off impeachment, that would put Cheney with his finger firmly on every button (as if it isn't already). At least when Nixon was ousted, there was a reasonable and fairly uncontroversial fellow (Ford) to take the reins. Is anyone enough of a scholar of government workings to tell us if one can oust both a president and the vice president?
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Nixon vs Bush
Imagine that Republicans in Richard Nixon's day were as committed as today's GOP to partisan politics. They would have filibustered in the Senate and even shut down the governemt to prevent an impeachment of Nixon. Imagine what Nixon could have done if he knew he wouldn't be investigated much less impeached. Fortunately, back then members of both parties wouldn't stand for what Nixon did.
George W. Bush has committed, and even admitted to, acts that should be impeachable offenses. What will today's congress do? Probably make Bush's admitted illegal acts retroactively legal and refuse to investigate the rest while most of today's elected Democrats just sit and watch.
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At a forum in New York, pundits and politicians called for the impeachment of George W. Bush.
So? What a joke.
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Pleasuring themselves...
Yes, W. has thrown the gauntlet by admitting to trashing the separation of powers, to acts that he consequently claims are legal when most sound legal minds express serious doubts about his legal interpretations (given a veneer of professionalism by his toady Gonzales and his almost-but-not-quite-justice Miers), all offenses that are certainly of a more serious and more impeachable nature than having the bad taste of committing adultery in the Oval office.
Given how submissive and complicit to this president, the Republican party has been to all this, it would seem to me that the purpose of the NY meeting should have been discussing not whether these were impeachable offenses (and agreeing, a pre-established conclusion!) but how to arrive at an impeachment.
Unfortunately, from Michelle Goldberg's article, it seems that all those attending had a great time agreeing with themselves, raising a great head of righteous indignation. The I word for the next 3 years will continue being bandied around within the same groups and that will be it, all morally satisfied of being on the right side of things while W, can continue to run amok with our liberties, rights, economy, our standing in the world...
The differences between the liberals and the Republicans (and the conservatives in particular) is that when the Republicans put their mind to something they think about how to achieve it (however ruthlessly). Liberals seem to be better at pleasuring themselves: it may make them better company for a time but how long until the Republicans take away even that possibility?