I won’t pretend that I don’t hope to see a Dem in the presidency in 2008. But that’s not why I think we need to impeach Bush and Cheney (et al). After all, I don’t think there’s much difference between Dems and Pubs. When you come right down to it, both parties are in the pocket of the corporatocracy, or – more specifically – in the pocket of the military/industrial/complex. Right now, the Democrats are just as busy as the GOP at greasing the wheels for war with Iran. On both sides of the aisle, the money comes from those who benefit from Empire and from War. Barring a massive rise up by the citizenry (not a moment too soon), that won’t change in 2008.
But what we CAN change in 2007 is this: we can roll back the precedents for tyranical presidential power established by W, with considerable help from his recent predecessors. By impeaching the Bush administration, we can establish new precedent. We can affirm that
lying the Nation into war is intolerable;
war of aggression is intolerable;
shoving aside Genava is intolerable;
sanctioning torture is intolerable;
shoving aside UN agreements is intolerable;
imprisonment without due process is intolerable;
warrantless domestic spying is intolerable;
politicization of the justice department is intolerable;
politicization of other federal departments is intolerable;
defying Congress through signing statements is intolerable;
defying Congressional subpeonas is intolerable;
lying to Congress is intolerable;
denying the explicit powers given to Congress by the Constitution is intolerable;
outing a CIA agent for political purposes is intolerable;
covering up such an outrage is intolerable;
I believe that if Paine, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Madison and Lincoln could come to us today and speak to us, they would tell us that repudiating the lawless regime that currently claims power over us is more important today than it was in their time. They would, I think, tell us that we have, in the Constitution, the means we need to restore the Republic/Democracy they gave us.
As Franklin said, ‘you have a Republic, if you can keep it’.
I would rather have a failure like Giuliani, or an egomaniac like McCain, or a Machiavelli like Romney, or even an second rate gipper like Thompson in the Oval Office in 2008, if the authority of the President were reined in through impeachment, as it should be, than Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich, if it weren’t.
And is there anyone in the country, on either side of the aisle, who doesn’t tremble at the thought of Hillary Clinton as President, given the near dictatorial powers Bush has taken on? Imagine someone with the same general outlook as W about the imperial uses of the US military and with the same commitment to aggressively pro-business and anti-human globalization processes, and with the same love for the potential for social control that could be weilded by the state, and with the same commitment to privatization of public functions and spaces – all that with Bush’s dictatorial powers and more smarts.
The issue has never been who actually sits in the oval office, though of course the better the President the better off the country will be. The real issue has ALWAYS been that whoever sits in the oval office must respect the fetters, the checks and balances of our system. The worst president is preferable to the best dictator.
that the institutions are, in a very real sense, more important than the human beings who animate them.
No one can disagree with you that the reasons for impeachment proceedings are there. But it is not going to happen. The Republicans, much stronger than the Democrats today, made fools of themselves in the 1990s attempting to get Clinton booted. The public was against it.
Instead, we should be focusing on where our own candidates would take us after 2008. Hillary is a scary one to me in the manner she discusses Iran, and her apparent readiness to take America further down the abyss. DLC hasn’t come to mean Republican Lite for nothing.
of themselves and the public WAS against it. But the public is now tilting heavily towards impeachment, with over half in favor of impeaching Cheney and a little less than half, Bush. The situations are not comparable. Clinton still had strong approval. Bush’s ratings are in the toilet. That we haven’t impeached these criminals is a travesty. Congress is winking and nodding at utter lawlessness. Fucking embarrassing.
There must be good reasons why Bush-Cheney are still not in front of a Senate impeachment hearing. I can’t say I know them all, but failure to get the votes is likely the best reason. Suppose Bush-Cheney interpret that as it must mean they still have “political capital to spend?”
Even though I’m with you on impeachment and your list of intolerables, when you wrote:
you came accross as a troll to me.
You’re argument is specious: imperial Presidency is bad because Democrats may be President someday. The three most serious attacks on our Constitution have come from Republicans Nixon and Dubya or those who are now the constituency for Republicans (the secessionist South). Democratic Presidents have not been a threat to the Constitution and the Republic because they believe in it whether a Republican or Democrat is President. Not so with Republicans since Eisenhower. They have defined America as only those who agree with them.
Finally, your Nader-like equation of the two parties as equally owned by corporate America is simply empirically wrong. Does any rational American believe that the country would look like it currently does had the Supreme Court not stolen the 2000 election for Bush?
I simply will not swear fealty to the Democratic party and I think it IS part of the problem. The FAQ supports your attack on me. So I will simply leave.
I wil point out that a FAQ that defines as troll anyone who does not fetishize electing Democrats is itself, I suspect, the work of a troll.
As for “specious”, not only is that an insult, but it’s a blatant straw person argument. I never claimed that we wouldn’t be better off if Gore had been elected in 2000. Obviously, I believe we would, since I stated that I would like to see a Dem elected in 2008. That said, it’s absurd to claim that Dems have done nothing to contribute to the expansion of the expropriated powers of the executive branch. FDR was virtually the Godfather of expansion of executive powers and Truman, FDR and Clinton all added to this. Even since Bush came to power, the Dems have all too often gone along, at least in signifigant numbers, with his power grabs (such as the Patriot Act, the Iraq War Authorization, the Tribunals Act, the near declarations of war on Iran, etc..
You have chosen to insult me, both my intellect and my integrity. There is simply no civil way to respond to that. I will leave it alone as I have had enough of flame wars.
But what I will say is that you, in your vile and vicious hatefulness, competely missed the thrust of my message, which was strongly pro-Democrat, but more strongly pro impeachment. If YOU cannot put aside your accursed partisan blinkers long enough to see that the founders never intended for partisan concerns to trump loyalty to the constitution, because the limitations we place on power MATTER more than the actual weilder of the power, then I call you guilty of treason against our Constitution.
AS for Nixon, it was a Democratic Congress that let him get away with his crimes, so that he could be pardoned, so that the country could be ‘healed”. WE SEE TODAY HOW WELL THE C0UNTRY WAS HEALED.
nothing in my FAQ supports you leaving. I only ban right-wing talking points, and you’re not spewing them.
Bye.