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.
