[Dialogue] {Spam?} Should Bush and Cheney be Impeached?

[AWOODEWM at aol.com]

Should Bush and Cheney be Impeached?
Anne Wood 
awoodewm at aol.com
305-971-7036

I attended a rally last Saturday at the Unitarian Church on Impeachment. The 
responce was wildly enthusiastic. I am forwarding the text of David Swanson's 
address. It was very powerful. Since it was lengthy I have highlighed some of 
the interesting points. I don't know if Dialogue ever uses color in the copy. 
Anyway, I'll give it a try. Anne

Published on AfterDowningStreet.org (http://www.afterdowningstreet.org)
Is Peace or Impeachment Possible?
By davidswanson
Created 2007-09-16 15:03
By David Swanson
[Remarks at September 15, 2007, impeachment rally in Miami, Fla., organized 
by www.floridaimpeach.org [1] ]
It's great to see such a crowd and so many groups represented. I especially 
want to thank Veterans for Peace. Dave Cline was a great leader and will be 
badly missed. We should all go out and do as much as he did with his admirable 
life.
On a lighter note, I went to a party yesterday in Washington, D.C. You might 
think we have very little to celebrate, but this was a party to say goodbye 
and good riddance to Alberto Gonzales!

You won’t hear much about it on the news, but a bill had been introduced in 
July to impeach Gonzales, and it was gaining support during the August recess. 
In fact a bunch of Congress Members added their names to the list of 
cosponsors this month even though Gonzales had already announced his resignation. This 
was not the first time that an effort to impeach helped force out an unjust 
attorney general. An effort to impeach Richard Nixon forced him out as well. An 
effort to impeach Harry Truman led to the Supreme Court checking his abuses of 
power. In fact the threat of impeachment is usually enough to restore a level 
of justice and democracy in Washington, D.C. A promise not to impeach, on the 
other hand, tends to encourage abuses of power and is itself an 
unconstitutional abuse of power.
I wanted to mention Gonzo's departure because it's the only good news I have. 
None of the policies that Gonzales advanced have been reversed, and we are 
unlikely to see an honest attorney general assume office anytime soon. Nine of 
the 10 articles of our Bill of Rights are in tatters. And they don't make us 
house soldiers in our homes (which is our tenth and sole remaining right) 
because they tax us to pay for barracks and bases in this country, plus dozens of 
permanent military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in fact about 1,000 
permanent bases in nations all over the world. We have lost the right not to be 
detained and held without charge, the right not to be tortured, and the right not 
to be spied on in our homes. We have lost the World Trade Center, a piece of 
the Pentagon, and the city of New Orleans. We have moved dangerously close to 
the point of no turning back on global warming. We have encouraged the 
proliferation of weapons around the world, driven much of the world to hate our 
nation, and watched a general this week brag to Congress about how many weapons we 
are selling to Iraq. But the term "we" now refers to the private companies that 
will profit from the weapons sales, the private companies that our 
grandchildren will pay for the reconstruction of Iraq that never happened, and the 
private companies we enrich every time we stop at a gas station. We have lost the 
right to organize a labor union, and we are rapidly losing the right to 
protest. We are penned into Orwellian free speech zones or arrested for holding a 
sign on a street corner. Should a catastrophe hit the US, everything is in place 
for martial law. And while it cannot find the decency to hold Bush 
administration outlaws in contempt, our Congress holds peace activists in contempt of 
Congress, when the Capitol Police don't tackle and beat them in the halls of 
Congress. Well, I've got news for you. Not only is there a huge march and civil 
disobedience action today in Washington for peace and impeachment, but we are 
ready to hold Congress in contempt of the citizens of the United States of 
America.
Yesterday a second study was published. There have now been two studies done 
of how many Iraqis have died violent deaths as a result of our invasion and 
occupation of their country. The first was done by Johns Hopkins over a year ago 
and has been updated by Just Foreign Policy. The second was done by a 
well-respected British organization. The results of each study fall within the margin 
of error of the other. We are responsible for the deaths of between 1.1 and 
1.3 million Iraqis. Another 4 million Iraqis out of a population of 25 million 
have been displaced from their homes, half of them to other countries. Most 
Iraqis lack adequate water and electricity. Half the nation needs emergency 
assistance. A quarter of the children are malnourished. And more than that number 
are traumatized and filled with hatred. A majority of Iraqis say things are 
getting worse and want the US occupation ended. The progress General Petraeus 
talks about not only is based on numbers he won't explain, not only is based on 
claims disputed by numerous other sources, but it's also progress that the 
Iraqi people haven't seen.
Make no mistake, the occupation is a bigger disaster for Iraqis, for our 
troops, and for our safety each year and each month that passes. We're dropping 
five times the bombs this year as last year, including 30 tons of cluster bombs 
in the first six months of 2007. If Bush and Cheney had unlimited troops, they 
would send another half million to Iraq. And the Iraqi people would still not 
be pacified. Bush is bringing a minimal
 number of troops home for only one reason. He has to. He has no more troops 
to send. This is not a victory for Petraeus or for Congress. This is a victory 
for the counter-recruitment movement. If you want to make a difference, go to 
schools and tell kids the truth about military service. Get a book called 
"Army of None."
Nothing in Iraq is getting better, and nothing is about to get better. 
Petraeus is arming one religious sect to kill another and measuring success by body 
counts. Every body he counts is 10 friends and relatives eager to kill the 
occupiers. This is not a war that can be won or lost. It is an occupation and a 
crime, and we must stop committing it! According to Republicans in Congress the 
real danger lies in people who would dare question the authority of a 
general. I set up a website called BetrayUsReport.com, so I must be part of the real 
problem. But then so must Petraeus's boss, Admiral Fallon, who calls him (and 
you'll have to excuse me, but these are his words), "an ass kissing little 
chicken shit."

Somehow the Bush White House seems to attract an unfair share of ass kissing 
little chicken shits. I watched Bush's speech the other night on ABC, in which 
Bush admitted, as his report yesterday effectively admitted, that none of the 
so-called benchmarks had been met. Senator Reed gave a good but vague and 
non-committal Democratic response. And then George Stephanopoulos of ABC, 
something of an ass-kissing little chicken shit himself, came on and immediately 
explained what it all meant. He didn't remind anyone of all the promises Bush had 
made back in January. Instead he announced that the Democrats can talk about 
ending the so-called war but cannot do anything about it because they don't 
have 67 Democrats in the Senate.
Let's get one thing straight: that is a lie. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid can 
announce tomorrow and could have announced nine months, several hundred 
troops, and tens of thousands of Iraqis ago, that they will not bring up any more 
bills to fund the occupation. A Republican proposal to fund the occupation could 
be blocked by 41, not 67, Senators. The Democrats could also pass bills 
ending the occupation or funding only the withdrawal and have them vetoed and pass 
them again and again. This is no secret and there is no dispute that Congress 
has this power. Senator Feingold held hearings at the start of the year at 
which experts overwhelmingly agreed that Congress can simply stop providing 
funding. Bush has plenty of money to bring the troops home, and Congress can 
provide new money for that purpose.
Congress can provide funds for the reconstruction of Iraq by Iraqis. Congress 
can encourage the United Nations and the Arab League to organize transition 
efforts. Congress can ban the use of any funds for an attack on Iran. It's only 
a question of will.
There's no question of where the public stands. Democrats.com which I work 
for commissioned a polling company this week to ask the public what it wanted.
Forty percent said they wanted all troops home in 6 months, using existing 
fund to do it.
Another 14 percent want them home in 6 months and will pay $50 billion to 
make it happen.
Another 19 percent want them home in a year and will pay $200 billion for it.
And 13 percent want what Congress is considering doing, giving Bush another 
$200 billion with no strings attached.
Seventy-nine Congress members, including only two Floridians, Corrine Brown 
and Alcee Hastings, have signed a letter saying they won't vote for more money 
unless it "redeploys" the troops by January 2009. This effort is led by 
Progressive Caucus chairs Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey. Woolsey is getting a lot of 
heat in DC right now because someone published the transcript of a private 
conference call on which she advocated pushing primary challenges to pro-war 
Democrats. But Lynn is not only right morally. Hers is a pro-Democratic Party 
position. Primaries are good for a party as well as a country. And the leadership 
of the Democratic Party is in very bad shape right now. They have made clear 
that their goal is to keep the occupation of Iraq and Bush and Cheney around 
until November 2008, believing that will help them win elections. Rahm Emanuel 
has told the Washington Post this, and Congressional staffers tell me this 
frequently. And the occupation and impeachment fit together, not just because 
there are so many impeachable offenses related to the occupation, but also because 
trying to end the occupation would lead to impeachment.

Congressman Brad Sherman asked Petraeus what he would do if Congress ended 
the occupation but Bush illegally kept it going. Petraeus said he'd have to ask 
his lawyer. But Sherman was right to assume that Bush will not end the 
occupation as long as impeachment is off the table, which is one more reason the 
Democrats will avoid a serious effort to end the occupation unless we force them 
to act. The thinking on the Hill right now is that if enough Democrats sign 
that letter and stand firm, Pelosi will go with a bill to please Republicans and 
win their votes. Pelosi operates in accordance with George Stephanopoulos's 
myth that she simply must pass a bill, any bill. In fact, when you get away from 
the topic of war, on every other issue this Congress can address, the 
consensus among Democrats is that they have two choices. One is to pass atrocities 
like the Protect America Act, which Bush will sign. That was the bill that 
erased the fourth amendment and legalized unconstitutional spying. When they get 
around to the "Love, Harmony, and Joy" Act, you can be sure we're all about to 
be killed.
The second option, as they see it, is to pass bills and have them vetoed. Of 
course they know in advance that it's all theater, that their bills are 
destined to be vetoed, but they view their whole job as an election campaign, and 
they don't think the public will catch on to what they're doing.
I think there's a third option. Impeach Bush and Cheney, remove them from 
office, and then pass bills that mean something.
With Bush and Cheney in office, even bills that are signed into law are 
altered or reversed with signing statements. And these are not just empty 
statements. The Government Accountability Office studied a sample of Bush's signing 
statements and found that in 30 percent of them, his administration has proceeded 
to violate the laws that he announced he had the right to violate. So, while 
I applaud groups like the ACLU again and again pushing to redundantly 
recriminalize torture, I long for the ACLU of 1973 that had the decency to stand for 
impeachment.
Depicting Pelosi and Reid as sheep in ads is all very good, but not if we're 
sheep too, not if we go along with the removal of impeachment from the 
Constitution which leaves Congress with nothing to be other than sheep.
The purpose of impeachment is not just to take back control of our 
government, not just to end an occupation, not just to prevent an attack on Iran. The 
purpose of impeachment is to inform future presidents that they must obey laws. 
But this is not something that concerns many Congress members. Their chief 
concern tends to be whether the next president will belong to their party.
Twenty Congress members have signed onto H Res 333, Dennis Kucinich's bill to 
impeach Cheney. Many more signed onto the Gonzales bill or signed on during 
the last Congress to the Conyers bill for a preliminary impeachment 
investigation. And others have said publicly or privately that they favor impeachment. 
But these members have not signed onto Kucinich's bill on Cheney and have not 
introduced their own on Cheney or Bush. I've spoken to a lot of them and their 
staff and to constituents who've spoken to them. 

They have about 15 excuses, most of which are very easily rejected, a few of 
which it is going to be very hard but not impossible for us to get around.

Excuse #1: You can't judge articles of impeachment prior to a committee 
investigation. 
That gets the process out of order:This is a complaint with Kucinich's bill, 
which lays out three specific charges against Cheney. Inslee's bill on 
Gonzales got around this by simply proposing that the Judiciary Committee investigate 
whether Gonzales had committed impeachable offenses. A new bill could do the 
same for Bush and Cheney and would not have to be wholly devoid of content. It 
could suggest the area or areas of inquiry.


Excuse #2. We don't have all the facts we need in order to impeach.
Well, of course that's what an impeachment investigation is for. But in fact 
we do have the facts. The Judiciary Committee passed an article of impeachment 
against Nixon for refusing to comply with subpoenas. Bush and Cheney and Rice 
have indisputably refused to comply with subpoenas. That one is an instant 
impeachment. Just add backbone. The signing statements is another instant 
impeachment. So is Bush's confessed violation of FISA, although it is complicated 
politically by Congress's recent legalization of this crime. Bush is on 
videotape being warned about Hurricane Katrina and on videotape claiming he wasn't. He 
and Cheney are on videotape lying about the reasons for war, and the evidence 
that they knew they were lying is overwhelming. That is the impeachable 
offense our founding fathers most worried about. James Madison and George Mason 
both argued as well at the Constitutional Convention that impeachment would be 
needed if a president ever pardoned a crime that he himself was involved in. The 
commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence (another notable ass-kissing little 
chicken shit) is another obvious impeachment. The list is endless. Congressman 
Conyers has published a lengthy book documenting many of the felonies and 
abuses of power.

Excuse #3: Impeachment would take too long.
Nixon took 3 months. Clinton took 2. They've spent 9 thus far avoiding it, 
and with very little to show for it. Impeachment for refusal to comply with 
subpoenas would take one day.

Excuse #4: Impeachment would distract from other things.
Yeah? Like what? Since when is restoring the Bill of Rights a distraction? A 
distraction from funding wars and legalizing spying is fine with me. A 
distraction from passing bills that will be vetoed does not worry me.

Excuse #5: We need to focus on ending the war. 
OK, but if you focus on ending the war for two full years and don't actually 
end it, I wish you luck getting people to turn out next November. When 
Congress moved toward impeachment of Nixon, it found the nerve to end a war, and he 
backed off on his veto threats. Congress passed a menu of progressive 
legislation in part because of, not despite, the impeachment threat hanging over Nixon. 
And ultimately of course impeachment is going to be needed to end the current 
occupation of Iraq.

Excuse #6: Impeachment would be divisive.
Actually that's not true among Democrats. Eighty percent favor impeachment. 
But as far as bipartisan harmony on Capitol Hill goes, the dangers of creating 
divisiveness is sort of like the danger of violence breaking out if we leave 
Iraq. It's too late already! And it's too late because the Republicans never 
give a damn for bipartisan harmony. Were they in the majority with a Democratic 
president holding the all-time record for unpopularity, they would long ago 
have impeached him and forced every Democratic Congress member to either defend 
him or run away from their own party. Does anybody remember Al Gore picking 
Joe Lieberman as a running mate and pretending he'd never met Bill Clinton? That 
was the result of an impeachment without a Senate conviction. (John Nichols 
says: impeachment is not a constitutional crisis. It's the cure for the one 
we're in. Aspirin is not a headache crisis. Impeachment is not a constitutional 
crisis.)

Excuse #7: We don't have the votes in the House to impeach.
Well, you would if Pelosi whipped on it. And Congress members back bills all 
the time that are not predicted to pass. If their colleagues fail to join 
them, that's between their colleagues and their colleagues' constituents. And 
again, impeachment usually does its work without getting all the way to 
impeachment. A move to impeach for refusal to comply with subpoenas, for example, might 
result in compliance with subpoenas. And it is the only thing that might. 
Holding people in contempt through the courts will take forever and probably fail. 
Inherent contempt is a tool Congress doesn't have the backbone for. And 
Congress is not about to use either type of contempt against Bush or Cheney.

Excuse #8: We don't have the votes in the Senate to convict.
Well, you might if you put the crimes on television and if the house 
impeached. But you would do good for the nation and Democrats would do good for their 
party even with a Senate acquittal. Nothing would better identify for the 
public the Senators who need to be thrown out of office. And impeachment even 
without conviction would reverse the public perception of Democrats as having no 
spine. They may hold even in the next election without impeaching anyone or 
getting us out of Iraq, but if they want to win new seats, and if they want to 
win the White House with a large enough margin to not have the election stolen, 
they will reverse their current position and act!

Excuse #9: I won't sign onto Kucinich's bill because he hasn't asked me to, 
and he's a liberal, and he's running for president.
Well, yes, dear Congressman or Congresswoman, but this is the government of 
the world's largest and most powerful empire. This isn't high school. We expect 
you to sign onto a bill based on the merits of it, or to introduce your own.
Excuse #10: You can't impeach over policy differences because you don't like 
war. You have to impeach for a crime.
Well, Kucinich's bill charges Cheney with the felony that involves misleading 
Congress and with the crime of threatening war on Iran. Cheney is on 
videotape doing so. Conyers' book lists lots of felonies. But in fact, not every crime 
is an impeachable offense and not every impeachable offense is a crime. When 
Nixon cheated on his taxes or Clinton cheated on his wife and lied about it 
under oath, no impeachable offenses were committed. When Nixon lied to the 
public or when Bush ignored warnings prior to 9/11, no crimes were committed, but 
the offenses were impeachable.

Excuse #11: If I backed impeachment, the media would be mean to me.
Yes, Congressman; Yes, Congresswoman. And if you don't people will die. Which 
is worse? A majority backs impeachment now for Cheney and a majority or close 
to it for Bush. Those numbers will go up, not down, if you act, regardless of 
what the media says. You know those 18 percent of Americans who approve of 
the job you're doing? Even they don't like the media. No campaign email raises 
more money than one that begins, "Fox News just attacked me."


That's 11 excuses so far. I think those 11 can be refuted. The next four are 
harder to get around.

Excuse #12: Impeachment would make Bush and Cheney sympathetic and rally 
people around them.
The idea of making Cheney in particular an object of sympathy may seem 
ludicrous. But then so did the idea that Saddam Hussein was about to attack us with 
unmanned aerial vehicles. Common sense is not enough in Washington. We need 
hard numbers. I think Congress should start with Cheney and watch as Republicans 
are forced to abandon him. The Republicans would have done this to the 
Democrats years ago. The idea that impeachment would help Bush and Cheney originated 
in Republican National Committee talking points published in May 2006. Pelosi 
immediately adopted the idea as her own. It flies in the face of the 
historical record. When the Republicans have moved impeachment, as against Truman for 
example, they've benefited at the polls. When the Democrats tried to impeach 
Nixon, who was popular compared to Cheney or Bush, they won huge victories. 
When they promised not to impeach Reagan, they lost in the next elections. The 
exceptional case is the Clinton impeachment which was uniquely unpopular. 
Nonetheless, the Republicans hung onto both houses of Congress and the White House. 
In fact, they lost very few seats, fewer than is the norm at that point in the 
tenure of a majority in Congress. The Democrats may be risking more by not 
impeaching than they would be by doing it. But unless we can get polls done in 
swing districts that show overwhelmingly that the Democrats will lose seats by 
not impeaching, they are unlikely to act. This is what their staffers tell me. 
And polls showing they'd gain seats by impeaching may not be enough, if they 
think they'd do OK without it. And we'll have to show that Republicans save 
their seats by backing impeachment if we want any Republicans to act. Of course 
this is all utterly disgusting. Human life and the future of democracy are not 
concerns that even come up. It's all about elections.
Excuse #13: Impeachment would remind people of Bill Clinton.
Well, would that be so horrible? I was no fan of Bill Clinton, but compared 
to Bush and Cheney he looks like a saint.

Excuse #14: Nancy Pelosi opposes impeachment.

Excuse #15: Hillary Clinton opposes impeachment.
The way we bring them around is to show that the Democrats have a better 
chance at the White House as the party with backbone and integrity than as the 
party that just isn't the Republicans.
So, what can we do?
Raise your hand if to get rid of Bush you'd do for him what Monica did for 
Bill.
Nine patriotic Americans! Thank you!
OK. May not be needed. There's a saying that goes like this: let's save our 
pessimism for better times.
We cannot afford the luxury of pessimism. While there are things Congress 
refuses to even consider, like ending the occupation or impeaching Cheney or 
Bush, there are also things that we as citizens have a responsibility to consider 
but rarely do. We can shut down our Congress members' offices with endless 
repeated sit-ins. We can make it impossible for them to work. That changes the 
whole calculation. We can shut down the city of Washington. The next big march 
is on the 29th, following a camp in front of the Capitol from the 22nd to the 
29th. If we bring a million people and on the 29th refuse to leave, if we block 
the streets and fill the jails, all bets and probably all wars are off.
Whether we can manage such feats or not, if we keep building and pushing an 
impeachment movement, not only do we communicate to the world our good 
intentions, but we are prepared should some new event help trigger a pulse in the 
corpse of Congress. And let us hope that event is not an attack on Iran.
We can also organize in and do polling in swing districts to try to show the 
electoral advantage to be gained from doing the right thing.
We can also keep pressuring key Congress members like Congressman Wexler and 
Congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz. We can do this through local media activism, 
PR, letters to editors, calls to shows, through visits, phone calls, emails, 
faxes, letters, post cards, posters, billboards, through honk-to-impeach events 
where you hold posters saying "Honk to Impeach" at the side of the street 
outside their offices, and through events where we sit in and read the 
Constitution aloud, refusing to leave.
We can also take our demands directly to the people Congress listens to: the 
media. The fact is that if we had had Fox News and if the other outlets had 
been in 1974 what they are now, Nixon would never have resigned. Today, the 
media do not cover the crimes, the evidence, or the public outrage, and do not 
poll the public's opinions on impeachment. We forced the Downing Street minutes 
into the news two-and-a-half years ago by flooding the media with phone calls, 
emails, and protests in their lobbies. That needs to continue.
Taking the all-consuming focus off the elections that are over a year away 
would give us a healthier democracy, but we also need to think in terms of 
electoral threats, or we are taking our power off the table the same way Congress 
has. We should promote primary challengers who use the issue of impeachment. We 
should promote third party general election challengers who use the issue of 
impeachment. Many are already doing so. To refuse to make these challenges is 
to fail to grasp the gravity of our situation. In terms of the presidential 
race, there is something we've not considered. If every person who likes Dennis 
Kucinich but believes he can't win were to send him $100, he would win quite 
easily and influence Congress immediately.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
No sleep till impeachment.
Thank You.
Source URL:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=possible
Links:
[1] http://www.floridaimpeach.org


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