An Argument for Impeachment

Nancy Pelosi is continuing to reach out to the Bush administration and has asserted that Democrats will not seek revenge against the administration by attempting to start impeachment hearings. Nor, it appears, is she willing to deviate substantially from the administration’s current failed policy in Iraq. "We're not about wanting to get even," Nancy Pelosi told CNN's "The Situation Room." "What we want to do is help the American people get ahead." CNN reports Pelosi saying that Congress will not cut funding for the Iraq war to send a message to the administration.

"Our troops are in harm's way, she said. "They have been sent there, whether you agree with the policy or not -- and I certainly did not agree with the resolution to go to war."

How about sending a message to the American people that the Democrats acknowledge that they were elected precisely because the country was sick of the war in Iraq? Taking impeachment off the table is mystifying to me when impeachable offenses have clearly been committed. Journalist David Lindorff puts it much more eloquently than I can in an article in Counterpunch. The reasons for impeachment are legion and transcend partisan politics:

"...there are crimes and constitutional violations that even Republicans should agree call for his impeachment (and in some cases Cheney's). Among these are:

* Lying the country into a deadly, costly and interminable war in Iraq. It is clear now that Bush knew the uranium ore story, the aluminum tubes story, the Saddam links to Al Qaeda story and the germ weapons story, were all lies. It is clear that Bush had plans to invade Iraq from before he even assumed office in 2001, that 9/11 was just a pretext to do it, and that his claims to the American people and to Congress that he wanted a "diplomatic solution" to Iraq's alleged WMD threat was a lie and a fraud. He must be impeached for this bloody travesty.

* The signing statements, in which Bush claims that as commander in chief he does not need to accept or enforce laws passed by the Congress. This is such an egregious abuse of power and undermining of the Constitution that if it is allowed to continue, with future presidents continuing the practice and citing Bush as precedent, Congress will cease to have any real constitutional function.

* The NSA warrantless spying. Democrats need to take a leadership role and demand to know what this program is all about. Clearly it's not about spying on suspected terrorists, as Bush claims, because the secret Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court judges would have no problem approving warrants for that. It has to be something so outrageous that Bush is afraid to present it to those famously accommodating judges. The case needs to be made that this is a flat-out felony and a breach of the Fourth Amendment, and that it has already been so ruled by a federal judge.

* The outing of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame and the selective release of the Iraq National Intelligence Estimate in an effort to damage a critic--Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. This was exactly the kind of abuse of government power that led to an impeachment article being voted in the House Judiciary Committee against President Richard Nixon. Moreover, Democrats need to make the case that this attack on Wilson was motivated by a darker goal: the need to discredit someone who was exposing one of the Bush administration's gravest crimes--namely faking evidence of an active Iraqi nuclear weapons program.


* Obstruction and lying to the Congress and the 9-11 Commission. The president, in what is an abuse of power and possibly even an act of treason, refused to provide testimony and evidence demanded by the Senate Intelligence Committee and by the 9-11 Commission, and himself refused to testify under oath or with any record being made of his answers, and had members of his administration lie to both bodies. This willful obstruction has put the nation in jeopardy, since without knowing what went wrong or even what went on before and on 9-11, there is no way to prevent another such attack. This is a clear impeachable crime.

* The Loss of New Orleans. Bush's disastrous inaction as Katrina headed for New Orleans, and his even worse inaction after the disaster was apparent, is a classic violation of the presidential oath to "take care" that the laws are faithfully administered. The president had a duty to initiate drastic emergency action that only he could authorize, and instead he campaigned, played golf and guitar, and entertained Sen. John McCain, while over a thousand Americans were allowed to die and a major US city drowned. That is a clear impeachable offense. (Election Postmortem, Counterpunch, November 8, 2006)

If I were a Democrat in Congress, my principal concern would be addressing the Constitutional crisis created by the President as he consolidates power in the executive branch and side-steps the Congress. Congressional hearings would expose this administration’s illegal acts to the nation and would force the nation to confront Bush’s imperial presidency. It is perhaps too early to tell whether Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have the strength to hold the administration accountable for its evisceration of the Constitution, but the signs are not encouraging.