The answer is not convincing them that impeachable offenses have been committed. They know it. Thirty-nine Congress Members in early 2006 signed onto House Resolution 635 to create an investigation into impeachment. At least one new freshman member was elected campaigning on impeachment, and many campaigning on accountability. They want impeachment. They know their duty. But Pelosi and the media are against it, with only the public for it. Who wins this struggle is a question of how active the public becomes and how smart we are.
We need to pressure Pelosi directly, but also indirectly. We need to raise hell until the media polls Americans on their support for impeaching Cheney and Bush. Or we need to raise funds to pay for state-level or national polls. We need to take those results to our Congress Members' offices and put them in their hands. There will be a majority for impeaching Bush and two-thirds for Cheney. I guarantee it.
We need to meet with editorial boards and persuade them to take a position for or against Dick Cheney. We need to demand that the media cover our events, or we need to hold our events in their lobbies and offices. Isn't there a newspaper near here? If they're not here with us, we should ALL go pay them a visit when we're done.
What Democrats in Congress need to feel is immediate public pressure painting them as defenders of Dick Cheney. And what they need to be told is that impeachment is good for elections. It is. The Democrats held Nixon to account and won, and let Reagan off easy and lost. The Republicans went after Truman and won. They went after Clinton despite public opposition and still held onto power and began expanding it. If the Democrats do not act, the public will see Iraq as their war and Bush as their president long before November 2008, and when election day comes, voters will stay home.
Democrats in Congress also have to be told that impeachment is not a distraction from ending the war or anything else worthwhile, but rather the way to achieve those goals. Four months of avoiding impeachment has accomplished virtually nothing. Anything that is accomplished will be vetoed or signing statemented. In contrast, during Nixon's impeachment, Congress raised the minimum wage, created the Endangered Species Act, and ended a war. And it was the pressure of impeachment that made those things possible. And, as my friend and fellow agitator John Nichols points out, in 1973 the Speaker of the House Carl Albert said impeachment was off the table. The Speaker clearly does not get the final word, because the table belongs to us.
Of course, it's worse when the Speaker is taking her talking points from the White House. That's what Pelosi did a year ago when the Republican National Committee announced with no evidence the absurd fantasy that talk of impeachment would be good for Republicans in the 2006 elections. Pelosi immediately made the same announcement. This bit of recent history needs to be made known, because what popular support the Democrats have comes from their opposing, not obeying, Bush.
In at least 16 states, the state Democratic Party has passed a resolution asking for impeachment. The California Democratic Party is expected to pass such a resolution tomorrow, and when Pelosi hosts the dinner tonight, delegates plan to dramatically put impeachment on the table. I got a phone call from San Diego, where they say they've spelled IMPEACH on the beach, and no one can get into the Democratic Convention without being greeted by impeachment advocates. The right-wing San Diego Union Tribune has even run a story about it, featuring a photo of impeachment advocates Marcy Winograd and Cindy Asner, the wife of impeachment advocate and actor Ed Asner.
Ultimately, all we want from Pelosi is neutrality. If she won't lead or follow, she should step out of the way. The minute she does, John Conyers will lead.
"I have a choice," Conyers said last year. "I can either stand by and lead my constituents to believe I do not care that the president apparently no longer believes he is bound by any law or code of decency. Or I can act."
We need to remind John Conyers of this choice every day until he does act. If he acts, he will be remembered as a hero. If he does not act, some future Emerson will write of him words like those Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of Webster:
Why did all manly gifts in Webster fail?
He wrote on Nature's grandest brow For Sale.
John Conyers' legacy deserves better than that. For his own sake, we must pressure him to do what he knows is right. I'm convinced that he wants us to pressure him. I'm confident we will do so. And I'm certain that Bush and Cheney will be impeached and removed from office before the end of their terms.
But if someone asks you whether impeachment is likely of unlikely, guaranteed or impossible, tell them that you are not a spectator, you're a citizen, and impeachment will happen because you're going to make it happen. In two days it will be four years since Mission Accomplished was declared, and two years since the Downing Street Minutes were published. We have our own mission to accomplish. With no fear, no hesitation, and no sleep till impeachment.
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