The Impeachment Moment

Three of the recent books on impeachment include as an impeachable offense Bush's use of signing statements to announce his refusal to obey hundreds of laws passed by Congress. The American Bar Association has found the practice unconstitutional. It is, in fact, an open threat to the rule of law.

An official censure by Congress would do nothing to compel the President to obey laws he chooses not to obey. Impeachment would do nothing. Only impeachment followed by removal from office will cure this cancer on the American political system. The current situation is exactly what the authors of the Constitution had in mind when they made impeachment and removal from office the means of protection against tyranny.

Holtzman includes in her roster of impeachable offenses the selective and misleading leaking of classified information, especially on supposed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (which Bush himself was directly involved in) to advance a dishonest case for war. Lindorff and Olshansky also include the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.

Conyers cites violations of the following related laws: 1) Federal requirements concerning the leaking and misuse of intelligence, including failing to enforce an executive order that requires the disciplining of those who leak classified information, whether intentionally or not; 2) Federal laws forbidding retaliation against whistle-blowers of various sorts, an example being the demotion of Bunnatine Greenhouse, the chief contracting officer at the Army Corps of Engineers, who exposed secret, no-bid contracts awarded to Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton; 3) Federal regulations and ethical requirements governing conflicts of interest, including the briefing of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft on an FBI investigation of possible misconduct by Karl Rove, even though Mr. Rove had previously received nearly $750,000 in fees for political work on Mr. Ashcroft's campaigns.

Loo and Phillips -- rightly I think -- bring up a number of offenses not found on most lists, including:

*"Usurping the American people's right to know the truth about governmental actions through the systematic use of propaganda and disinformation";

*"Overthrowing Haiti's democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and installing a highly repressive regime" in his place;

*Hiding government decisions from public and congressional view "by a willful subversion of the Freedom of Information Act."

I would add one item not yet found on anybody's list: the passage by Congress of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that retroactively and unconstitutionally legalizes various Bush administration acts involving torture and illegal detention, and the passage of other bills doing the same on a number of the crimes listed above. Impeachment is not a criminal process. Legalizing impeachable offenses does not make them less impeachable. But proposing and lobbying to legalize illegal impeachable offenses are themselves additional impeachable offenses.

What Would It Take for Impeachment to Happen?

Believe it or not, the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney is perfectly possible, although a number of factors will have to come together for it to happen. The public will is already there, and this is quite remarkable given the lack of action in Congress or mention in the mainstream media. The polling that has been done on impeachment is dramatic. The Washington Post finds that a third of the country wants Bush not just impeached but also removed from office. Zogby finds that, by a margin of 53% to 42%, Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq. When Americans were asked, "What 2 or 3 specific changes would have to take place in order to improve your trust in government today?" the winner by far was "personnel changes/impeachment proceedings." When Pennsylvanians were asked whether they would be likely to vote for a congressional candidate who "supports having impeachment proceedings against President Bush," 84.9% of Democrats said yes, while 7.0% said no. Among Independents, 49.3% said yes, while 40.6% said no.

The Republican National Committee got spooked this past summer and felt obliged to announce that impeachment would be good for Republicans in the coming elections. This claim is made without a shred of evidence, either in history or in present polling. Nothing excites non-Republicans today like impeachment, and "Vote for us or we'll go to jail" is a lousy slogan. The Democratic base is aching for Democrats in Congress to get some spine and stand up to the criminals who are throwing away one of the most brilliant creations of the eighteenth century: our Constitution. Instead, Leader Nancy Pelosi has ordered Democrats in Congress to stay away from impeachment -- though she did say that they would hold hearings and see where they went... if the Democrats win a majority in the House of Representatives.

To voters who are paying attention, the "let's hold investigations and see where they go" approach looks disingenuous, given how many impeachable offenses are already public knowledge. I've heard reports from dozens of Congressional representatives, in both parties, who refused to sign onto Conyers' bill for an investigation, and not once has anyone argued that there is too little evidence. The argument always focuses on the "extreme" nature of impeachment or the political agenda behind impeachment. As a result, the Democrats are, for the most part, steering clear even of talk of future investigations.

Quietly, however, Democrats do acknowledge that impeachment is coming. Following the triumphal 1972 election of Richard Nixon, had you raised the topic of impeachment, Democrats in Washington would have dismissed it as impossible. Today, on the other hand, they dismiss it as unacceptable -- at least pre-election. When former director of the NSA, Lt. Gen. William Odom, suggested impeaching Bush last week at a forum on Iraq organized by progressive Democratic Congress members, the ensuing silence and shuffling in seats suggested a strong desire by our representatives to dive under the table. They resisted that urge and changed the subject. They did not, however, argue against impeachment.

A lot of activists imagine that there is a conflict between working on impeachment and working on the upcoming elections. They fail to see raising impeachment as one way to win those elections. I would argue that holding a large rally for impeachment, as we did in Charlotte, North Carolina last Saturday, does more to help defeat Republicans than does funding the campaigns of any number of milquetoast Democrats who will use the money to run uninspiring ads that excite nobody. If Democrats could stop worrying for a minute about energizing the Republican base and converting Republicans, they might be able to look at the potential impeachment has to excite and turn out their own base. This is an off-year election. It will be won by turnout -- and by fighting suppression, fraud, and theft. To the extent that the elections are about something as significant as impeachment, candidates and citizens will be more likely to fight for stolen votes.

If the Democratic incumbents all stood for impeachment now, the Democrats would win a majority in a landslide. In fact, they might even persuade the necessary fifteen Republicans to join them and impeach Bush and Cheney pre-election. Rep. Ron Paul has spoken up for impeachment. Only fourteen more are needed, and there is no law that says Republicans can't put their country ahead of George W. Bush. That fact will become increasingly important if the Democrats do not win a majority or do not fight when their elections are stolen. For now, impeachment advocates find themselves in the situation of trying to push the Democrats to talk about impeachment for their own good.

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