The I-Word Is Gaining Ground
In the late 1990s, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, currently under indictment on corruption charges, proclaimed: "This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law.... The other road is the path of least resistance" in which "we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us...[and] close our eyes to the potential lawbreaking...and tear an unfixable hole in our legal system." That arbiter of moral politics, Tom DeLay, was incensed about the danger of letting Bill Clinton escape unpunished for his "crimes"--lying about sex.
Fast-forward to December 2005. Nobody in the entire Bush administration has been fired, not to mention impeached, for shedding of American blood in Iraq or for shredding of our Constitution at home.
As Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter put it--hours after The New York Times reported that Bush had authorized NSA wiretapping of U.S. citizens without a warrant-- this President has committed a real transgression that "goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power."In these last months, several organizations have formed to urge Bush's impeachment. AfterDowningStreet, Impeach Central and ImpeachPAC.org are some of the best known. But until very recently, their views were virtually absent from the broadcast and print media, and could only be found on the Internet and in street protests.
But the times they are a-changin’. The I-word has moved from the marginal to the mainstream....
(For more on this)
(also see): Our "war president," his favorite title, says he can do anything to anyone at any time to "protect" the American people. No restraints. No checks and balances. No accountability. Congress has no role, and the people mean nothing.
The New York Observer's Joe Conason spoke to Bruce Fein, a conservative legal scholar and former Ronald Reagan aide, about the implications of Bush's wild claims of authority.
"If President Bush is totally unapologetic and says 'I continue to maintain that as a wartime President I can do anything I want -- I don't need to consult any other branches,' that is an impeachable offense. It is more dangerous than Clinton's lying under oath, because it jeopardizes our democratic dispensation and civil liberties for ages. It would set a precedent that ... would lie around like a loaded gun, able to be used indefinitely for any future occupant," said Fein.
(and see): U.S. Rep. John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who was a critical player in the Watergate and Iran-Contra investigations into presidential wrongdoing, has introduced a package of resolutions that would censure President Bush and Vice President Cheney and create a select committee to investigate the administration's possible crimes and make recommendations regarding grounds for impeachment.
(Also) What sense does it make that some of the same Washington media and political leaders who countenanced the Clinton impeachment over a semen-stained dress, somberly intoning about the "rule of law," consider impeaching Bush beyond the pale?
No sense at all.
The question about impeaching Bush has nothing to do with legal grounds, and everything to do with politics.
But in the last few weeks, the political climate has been changing, so that more people are seriously considering whether Bush has committed one or more impeachable offenses. The revelations about Bush's spying on Americans through the NSA helped change things a bit.
Representatives Johns Conyers and John Lewis and Senator Barbara Boxer are talking, in public, about impeachment now.
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