Impeachment

Why is it so difficult to persuade Democrats that the impeachment of Bush, Cheney and now Gonzalez is necessary? Why do only "extreme" left-wingers like Kucinich seem to think it feasible? There are more than ample grounds for impeaching all three of them (detailed below), and no other appropriate response. Bush will not bow to pressure, and will continue to carry on his illegal war regardless of election results and Congressional action. He actively supports Gonzalez and any other administration official in their resistance to honest testimony.

Impeachment is a quasi-judicial Constitutional power given exclusively to Congress. It is a political power intended to hold the executive responsible. Bush, Cheney and Gonzalez clearly evade all attempts at Congressional oversight, or popular control; they wield the executive as if it were a personal monarchy, precisely the kind of abuses of power that Art. II, Section 4 in the Constitution was intended to prevent.

Democrats need to think for a moment like Karl Rove. Given the facts on the ground impeachment would be politically advantageous: an increasingly unpopular war that the government initiated illegally; the wide variety of illegal actions even admitted to by Bush, Cheney and now Gonzalez; the huge popular support for bringing our troops home and the opposition, really, of only two principles that prevent withdrawal. Further, Democrats should overcome their timidity and realize that historical precedents favor them: the Congressional majority in each previous case won the subsequent presidential and congressional elections, even though the grounds for impeaching were probably only justified in the case of Nixon (not in the cases of Andrew Johnson or Clinton). The case for impeaching Bush, Cheney and Gonzalez now is much more justifiable than any of previous cases in history.

Impeachment is also Constitutionally necessary. Without it, the illegal actions of Bush, Cheney and Gonzalez gain a quasi legality; they establish precedents for an imperial presidency which negates democracy as we knew it. Congressional resolutions of disapproval are like swatting at flies. The wholesale expansion of presidential power was central to Cheney's project from the time he saw Nixon resign and Nixon's Imperial Presidency cut down to size. Only impeachment will cut it back down to size.

Negotiating with Bush over what he will accept for a war funding resolution is like negotiating with a terrorist. Senators and Congressmen should realize: Bush will not back down; he is determined that the war go on, that Iraq be reduced to an American colony, regardless of the cost, that the "permanent" bases he built there will remain in American hands, and that American oil companies will control Iraqi oil. Further, he is determined to negate any independent Congressional power.

Democrats may be able to come to an agreement with Bush, but to do so they will have to become complicit in this illegal, disastrous, bankrupting war. Then, what will they stand for? They will have negotiated away the only credibility they had: that they were elected to get us out of the war.

Congress's ultimate power is impeachment. Bush has demonstrated that nothing else will make any difference. Short of impeachment, or unmitigated disaster in Iraq (we have become inured to day-to-day disasters), Bush will hold Congress hostage. Either Congress funds "the troops" or, Bush and his supporters will claim Democrats are stabbing them in the back. If they do fund the troops, and continue the war with no further attempts at enforcing withdrawal, then it becomes their illegal war as well.

Politically, impeachment would break the logjam created by Bush's vetoes. He might continue to threaten to veto, but once House impeachment proceedings demonstrate that the charges are legitimate, I doubt that there will be enough Republican votes in either house of Congress to sustain them.

To impeach all three office-holders is the most appropriate response: Gonzalez (already responsible for advocating illegal torture techniques and for ignoring the Geneva Convention) lied to Congress under oath when he testified that there was no disagreement within the administration over NSA wiretaps (he tried to coerce his predecessor AG, Ashcroft, to "find" the taps legal when the latter was ill in the hospital; Ashcroft didn't go along).

The President insists on supporting Gonzalez, and insists that a proposed Senate "no confidence" motion on Gonzalez will make no difference. So, there is no alternative to Gonzalez's impeachment. Gonzalez's crimes pale in comparison to those of Cheney's (he should be impeached on the Plame scandal; he clearly was behind it, and the plot to falsify information driving the US to war in Iraq). Bush is not only responsible for all the crimes of his administration, he has openly admitted breaking the laws on wiretaps. There is also clear proof that he was behind "fixing intelligence" around the intention to go to war, and signed off on or advocated the use of torture, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, black prisons, etc.

Therefore, the House should initiate a handy-dandy impeach 'em all resolution.

What Congressional Democrats should realize is that they face a criminal enterprise of unprecedented proportions, and only impeachment is appropriate to dealing with the enormity of it. With impeachment proceedings, the law is on Congress's side. As the proceedings establish their cases, decent Republicans will join Democrats, and Bush's veto power will be neutralized--even if the case to impeach does not go to trial in the Senate.

Even if the Senate's trial does not reach a conclusion, what will matter is that President Bush and his minions will be stopped, the war will be stopped, and the extraordinary expansion of an imperial Executive will be stopped as well. Hopefully, it will be reversed, as it was after Nixon stepped down (note: Nixon did so at the first indication that the House would impeach; he did not wait for an actual vote).

One other aspect of this case that should be mentioned: In fifth century Rome, there was no power to impeach, not legally. Rulers who fell afoul of the ruling elite, however, usually were killed (one "retired" to a monastery). One particular Emperor comes to mind as the reverse of the present case: Majorian (457-461) was the one competent Emperor who attempted to rule in the interest of the Empire and its people, not just the wealthy landowners. In 461 he was tricked into dismissing most of his army and then was ambushed and killed by forces led by Ricimer, the supreme commander (magister militem utriusque militiae), who had "elected" him in the first place.

No competent ruler ever ruled the Western Roman Empire again, which just goes to show: impeachment, in whatever form, is an effective political tool, perhaps the most effective when a polity reaches the kind of political crisis we have now reached.