Chuck Hagel states in an interview appearing in the April edition of Esquire that there are ways of making rogue Presidents accountable:
“The president says, ‘I don’t care.’ He’s not accountable anymore,” Hagel says, measuring his words by the syllable and his syllables almost by the letter. “He’s not accountable anymore, which isn’t totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don’t know. It depends how this goes.”
The conversation beaches itself for a moment on that word — impeachment — spoken by a conservative Republican from a safe Senate seat in a reddish state. It’s barely even whispered among the serious set in Washington, and it rings like a gong in the middle of the sentence, even though it flowed quite naturally out of the conversation he was having about how everybody had abandoned their responsibility to the country, and now there was a war going bad because of it.
“Congress abdicated its oversight responsibility,” he says. “The press abdicated its responsibility, and the American people abdicated their responsibilities. Terror was on the minds of everyone, and nobody questioned anything, quite frankly.”
Not for one minute do I believe he is serious about an actual impeachment trial in the Senate. Not yet, anyway. I think this is more posturing for a potential Presidential run where he can position himself as the foremost anti-Bush candidate. Or he may simply be like his good friend from across the aisle, Joe Biden, willing to say anything to keep his seat as a regular on the Sunday talk show circuit.
Nonetheless, I don’t think he will be the last Republican who will wave the “bloody shirt” of impeachment in the coming days. I predict that any GOP Senator or Congressperson whose election in 2008 may be imperiled will soon be weighing his or her options as to whether to bash Bush now before the rush. Because make no mistake: if a Republican candidate is in a tough race next year he or she will run away from the Bush administration as fast as they can. You can take that to the Bank.
Steve,
Hagel appeared on stephanopoulos yesterday and basically repeated what he said in Esquire.
Did Stephanopoulos fluff him as much as the Esquire reporter?
I don’t trust Hagel for a single second!
His blather has been followed up by loyally toeing the Pubbie line and voting for the Bush ideas right down the line.
If there is a “Ceausescu” in the Republican ranks, it is Hagel, dissident, but not so dissident.
I totally agree with you, which is why it’s really says something that HE’S saying it. I think we are still being way too mealy-mouthed when it comes to the crimes and lies of this administration.
Screw being nice or politic. We are in trouble. Bush is a dictator. Call it for what it is, already! When someone says to you that they will do what the freak they want to do, that’s what you are left with. Dems have got to stop being corralled into what’s “reasonable” and do what’s right. Forget Higher Broderism and Nagorney, too. Just because some so-called journalists are timid doesn’t mean that they should be, too.
Distance is the operative word here, and lots of it.
Is it just possible that Hagel is attempting to use impeachment as a way of manuvering himself into the Whie House?
I’m sure he’s taken that into consideration, bigtime as Cheney would say.
Talk is cheap. Find me a Democrat, besides Kuchinich, who says this, and maybe we’re finally getting serious about the crimes of this completely corrupt adminstration.