[When my piece "Are the Bushites Bringing on Impeachment" appeared on another website yesterday, several comments on the thread expressed the same kind of derisive impatience with my even mentioning, in the piece's opening paragraph, the idea that the Democrats need to proceed with a degree of caution on the issue of impeachment. I responded to one of those and, in so doing, to the rest as well. Here's what I wrote, beginning with a quotation that indicates the thrust of what I was responding to.]
Are you interested in winning, or only in grand postures?
Re this: 'please spare me this drivel about how the Democrats should proceed cautiously with impeachment to avoid alienating this wretched "center of the American electorate." This is not a question of playing nice with fence sitters. This is about saving our country, and perhaps even the world.'
Do you think it would serve the cause of "saving our country, and perhaps even the world" if impeachment proceedings were launched but failed in the objective of removing the Bushites from office? If so, please explain how that would be a good thing?
If not, then just how do you envision impeachment succeeding when it takes a two-thirds vote in the Senate, and when the Democrats control at best (remember Lieberman) 51 votes? In other words, what gives you any reason to believe that there is now any possibility of getting the necessary more-than 1/3 of the Senate Republicans to vote to impeach their own president, whom they've been supporting and covering up for and kowtowing to for six years?
Maybe you're old enough to remember the removal of Richard Nixon from office, but in case you're not, you should know that when the process began, the Republicans were very far from supporting Nixon's impeachment or conviction. It was only the process of discovery by the entire nation --accomplished through the Watergate hearings which, incidentally, were not initiated as an "impeachment process"-- that created the political atmosphere in which Nixon's goose was cooked.
It was only after the whole country has seen the evidence of Nixonian misdeeds that the Republicans saw that Nixon was indefensible --that defending him was politically unviable-- and it was only then, with impeachment clearly on the horizon, that Barry Goldwater et al. made their famous visit to Nixon in the Oval Office to tell him that he had to go.
That's how it happened that time.
Do have some reason to believe that the impeachment of these Bushite thugs can succeed now, straight away, without our having to concern ourselves about such "drivel" as what the mainstream of the American people believe and want, and what they will reward and punish in the conduct of their representatives?
Or is it that you don't really care about the consequences of actions, but only about the purity and nobility of the postures and declarations we get to make on the road to defeat?
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.
Andy, I hope you can present a very much a fortified picture of that 'public opinion' you sooo many time refer to. Nobody argues your right to feel that Dems have to proceed with caution but when it comes to the 'public opinion' your guess is as good as mine or Bush's. You never know. Maybe the public will not like the proceedings. But in all fairness the public most likely would like the entertainment and that will distract the Congress from at least sending more cannon fodder to die. That would be good, right? Another thing is that moderation is not always a good thing but it can always be explained. There will be thousands of Andy's explaining to poor lefties( I am not the one, BTW, just in this case I understand them) on why these Dems can continue basking in money while doing nothing and why we have to be patient, consider the circumstances, etc. In all fairness, Andy, you do not know squat, sorry. When politics is played, expecially the US politics a lot depends on the desire to win and also on the skills of the players. Dems do not want to win. They do exactly what they want and they rely on guys like you who voluntarily, even without payment explain their behavior in a strategic way.
We had those encounters before and I still consider that you deserve a full credit for what you are doing, but please, do not pretend that you know more than anyone else here. You don't. Impeachment might succeed and it might not. But if a group of Dems would have enough guts to start the process, other swampy guys might smell the coffee and join and we really might save some real lives on the way. Of course, they will never do it. But please, let them make their excuses; do not do it for them.
by
Mark Sashine (50 articles, 19 quicklinks, 244 diaries, 3453 comments)
on Friday, January 19, 2007 at 3:04:02 PM
PLease note that your notion of our needing to be patient while the Dems do nothing is a straw man. Doing nothing is not what is called for. The process must be begun, the groundwork laid, in order to get to the destination. It will not just happen on its own.
But neither is charging straight at the enemy's stronghold a sensible strategy. Why do you suppose the Allies didn't march in Berlin in 1942? Was it a lack of will or courage, or was there a need for some other territory to be gained back in the meanwhile.
"Impeachment might succeed and it might not" --your assessment-- is not a responsible attitude to justify charging into battle straight at the equivalent of Berlin.
As for public opinion, "your guess is as good as mine" hardly will do either, will it? We're not so much in the dark about what the mainstream of the American public is thinking and feeling as that would suggest. And the politicians in Congress --both the Dems with their bold and their cautious moves, and the Repubs with where they are splitting from Bush-- are professional weather-vanes about such winds of opinion.
No, I don't know anything you don't know-- assuming you know that it takes a two-thirds vote in the Senate to convict, assuming you know that gaining such a super-majority would require more than a third of the Republicans to vote against Bush, and assuming you're not eager to have impeachment brought only to fail in the Senate.
I will again ask: is your goal to prevail over the BUshites or to get some kind of emotional satisfaction from calling for bold action that fails and strengthens the Bushites?
One more thing: it's not a matter of making excuses for the Dems, whose conduct may or may not warrant our praise or our condemnation. It's a matter of having the political maturity to understand what a wise strategy might look like, instead of indulging in mere fantasies that will do nothing to redeem this country from the evil forces still running the executive branch.
Without knowing what the path to victory over the BUshites might look like, how could we know whether to praise or condemn the path the Dems in Congress take?
by
Andrew Bard Schmookler (302 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 142 comments)
on Friday, January 19, 2007 at 3:38:58 PM
With Pelosi taking impeachment off the table prior to even seating a democratic Congress this whole conversation seems moot. Nevertheless one would expect investigations prior to impeachment proceedings, with lower level functionaries protecting their derrieres by ratting out those above them. Until, at last, we come to the office of the Veep...ahhh.
You seem to believe that even calling for impeachment is counter productive, just as I believe your automatic knee jerk opposition to those who decry your beloved party's ultimate uselessness is also nonproductive and somewhat blind. Have you read Steven Lendmen's excellent assessment of your party? You really should.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Friday, January 19, 2007 at 5:06:34 PM
Have you followed how the people in the corporate media talk about impeachment?
Here's a scene I reported from election night:
On MSNBC, as the evidence was growing that the Democrats were on course to take over at least the House, Chris Matthews was talking to presidential scholar Michael Beschloss about what the Dems might do with their power and, with obvious disdain, he brought up the matter of hearings.
Matthews framed the issue by recalling how, back in the early 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy had distracted the country for a couple of years with hearings which ended up netting only one communist. A waste of time. Were the Democrats now going to waste the American people's time with hearings, too?
Beschloss chimed in obligingly about how the Republicans, back in the 1990s, had invested so much in hounding Clinton with the Whitewater and Monica investigations. And that produced a pro-Clinton popular backlash against the Republicans. Were the Democrats likewise going to produce a pro-Bush popular backlash by hounding Bush with investigations?
Nonsense? Of course. But just denouncing it as nonsense is not enough. Here's what I wrote about it then:
How can they not see the absolutely essential difference between the investigations of the Bushites that are now required and those earlier instances?
How can they not see that McCarthy was engaged in a demagogic exercise regarding a mostly phony threat, whereas the Bushite lawlessness and mismanagement is the very kind of thing that CRIES OUT FOR INVESTIGATION?
How can they not see that the Republican hounding of Clinton was a vendetta conducted for purely political purposes –an intention to destroy a president that preceded any discovery of a basis to investigate the president–that eventually landed on a scandal that had nothing to do with Clinton's performance of his office, whereas the issues concerning the Bush presidency are about our most profound public concerns, e.g. the matter of war and peace and that of the rule of law and the integrity of our Constitution?
Why, when they talked about the possibility of hearings, were these two presumably centrist media pundits drawn to talk about those irrelevant precedents, and make no mention whatever of the hearings that are most pertinent to the present task, i.e. the Watergate hearings, which are generally recognized as among the Republic's finer moments?
Yes, outrage is called for when listening to such garbage and obfuscation as Matthews and Beschloss provided on Tuesday evening. But more important than indulging that outrage is taking a realistic look at what such blather implies about the challenge facing the Democrats.
It is in the context of that environment --and Matthews and Beschloss are not the worst of the lot by a long shot-- that something like Pelosi's taking impeachment "off the table" must be understood.
If she had trumpeted her hope for impeachment, she'd have served the Bushites more than threatened them.
What's off the table can readily be put back on. Let's show the country what gangsters and liars --what fascists-- these Bushites have been. When enough people are outraged enough, the public will move the politicians.
That's how it happened with Nixon. And it's the only way it can happen now.
The work toward impeachment has already begun along a half dozen paths. THe war is on --hearings, trials, etc.-- and the battlefields are strewn around the committees in Congress and in the courts.
How far this process gets depends on many factors-- the politicians, the media, the public, and whether the people who hate the BUshites --like those who come to this site-- squander their energies on fantasies completely devoid of strategic thought or whether they put their shoulder to the only wheels that can take us to our desired destination.
As for the "ultimate uselessness" of the Democratic Party, time will tell. Maybe you'll be proved right.
But one thing you seem not to recognize: there is no way to defeat these Bushite forces that does not rely upon the opposition party, whatever its defects.
If you've got some alternative plausible scenario for their defeat, let's hear it.
by
Andrew Bard Schmookler (302 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 142 comments)
on Friday, January 19, 2007 at 5:23:27 PM
in a basic and most fundamental way. The solutions to our serious and dire dilemmas lie not with any political party but with the real power, that of the people. Only when the people of this world realise that they have all the power will it be utilised to end the corruption of those in power, elephants and jackasses included.
By the by, you know full well that Nancy Pelosi stated that impeachment was "off the table" publicly and repeatedly.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 10:48:16 AM
Dear Ardee, I find it moving the read how you envision the world being saved from evil power. "The solutions to our serious and dire dilemmas lie not with any political party but with the real power, that of the people. Only when the people of this world realise that they have all the power..."
Would that it worked that way.
I don't know how old you are, or how much you've studied of the workings of power in the course of human history. As for me, it is 36 years since, at the age of 24, I got launched into the overall path my life has taken with a bone-shaking visionary insight into the ways in which the workings of power have warped the development of civilization since people first started emerging from their biologically evolved niche some 10,000 years ago.
I spent well over a decade researching and elaborating and articulating that vision. Ultimately, in 1984, it got published as my book THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES: THE PROBLEM OF POWER IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION.
The workings of power, in other words, is something I have devoted a great deal of time and energy and thought to understanding.
Maybe you have too, Ardee. I don't know anything about you other than what you've written here. But if you have, and if you envision the salvation of the world occurring as the above-quoted passage suggests, with things like the Democratic Party treated as dispensable irrelevancies, then you certainly must have encountered a different set of historical evidence than I, or at least drawn very different conclusions from the evidence.
One revealing place to look in history is at the fate of popular revolutions. It's interesting, for example, to contrast the American revolution (1775-1789, i.e. with the writing of the Constitution) with those of France (1789) and Russia (1917).
The latter two ended up in destructive tyrannies. The American one did not. The reasons for that difference are most interesting, and if you want I can try to dig up some excellent sources that illuminate those reasons.
BUt let me give you part of what I think the bottom line is. As profoundly imperfect as the Democratic Party is, it would be very, very difficult for "the people of the world" to get to the point where they had any better instrument for wielding power as a lever to mold the world into a form more in keeping with their greatest hopes, deepest desires, and most heart-felt values.
by
Andrew Bard Schmookler (302 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 142 comments)
on Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 1:10:54 PM
my age it means less. But if it any comfort to you I am a couple of years your senior.
We all process the same facts and they mean different things to us based upon our own experiential differences. You see an effective two party system, one in which there are these two, almost cartoonish, distinct and different entities battling for our souls, evil vs. good. I see corruption and the power of money exploiting the flaws within our rotten and corrupted system. I see some good folks, well meaning ( and usually damn rich), winning an election, one generally decided by the amount of money spent on it, and diving into this cesspool of corruption.
Sooner rather than later, these formerly well intentioned folks get dirty, succumb to the temptations around them , get seduced, at least in part because of the war chests necesary to ensure re-election, or focus upon a career in lobbying after public service. Either way they are forced to accede to the power that really rules this nation, the guys with the money.
Outside of this corrupt and horrific charicature of what the Founders really wished to build, are the people. The vast majority for whom public service is supposed to serve but doesnt. It is the most fundamental understanding to note that we are almost three hundred million and they aint even close to a few hundreds at the most wild statistical guess. So who, Andrew, really has the power?
All power resides in the people, all government supposedly serves the people and , in the words of Alice Waters, my dear neighbor to the north, "the only way people give up their power is by thinking that they have none".
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Sunday, January 21, 2007 at 8:59:17 AM
respectfully. You just like what Dems are doing, that appeals to your psyche and the way of life, so you are eager to throw everything into the argument for them (if only they knew, they should give you a medal): Berlin, Mccarthy, Mathews... whatever. In 1942 Allies could not 'march on Berlin' because they were not even on the European soil. But they did start to bomb Berlin in 1942 and that helped at least a little for the Russians to defeat the Germans at Stalingrad and really 'march on Berlin'. You seem to forget who won that war. Mathews is a hired dog and his manipulations are not worth the time spent. McCarthy did not work alone- it was a deliberate, sinister campaign and to compare it to Bush impeachment is stupid, sorry. Mathews did not care, obviously. You should, though.
And why the Hell do we have to deliver alternatives? We pay them! We have all the right in the world to be mad and demand action. And if they sellout on every corner we have to point it out.
Andy, for goodness sake. People you rebuff so vehemently are your allies. You are not the only strategist in this game. A little humility helps. You can take your Dems and eat them with the sour sause. They would risk absolutely nothing if they open a proceedings of impeachment, nothing at all. Surely, they might risk some discomfort but otherwise WE RISK MUCH MORE and if they eventually win when we are not alive.... I don't care for that victory.
Have a nice weekend.
by
Mark Sashine (50 articles, 19 quicklinks, 244 diaries, 3453 comments)
on Friday, January 19, 2007 at 6:17:54 PM
As defined a path as one has in running a fast break
You write: "A little humility helps. You can take your Dems and eat them with the sour sause. They would risk absolutely nothing if they open a proceedings of impeachment, nothing at all."
You sound pretty certain about their risking nothing by opening impeachment proceedings. I'll leave aside the question of how such absolute certainty jibes with your call for humility, and just ask:
Are you saying that there would be no cost if most of the American people were persuaded that the Dems were pursuing a partisan, non-constructive agenda instead of doing the people's business? Or are you just sure that the public would not so regard it if they launched such proceedings right now?
Are you saying that having impeachment hearings that result, predictably enough, in no conviction or removal from office would not involve costs for the anti-Bushite forces? Or do you have some certainty that, somehow, 2/3 of the Senate would vote to convict?
I'm not sure whether I like what the Dems are doing or not.
But as for my having a "defined path," or not, I'd say it depends on what you mean by having a defined path. I'd say I have a defined path in mind in the same way that I used to have a path in mind when running a fast break in basketball. Which is very different from the defined path of calling a play in football.
The difference is that in a fast break one has some general principles in mind --take the ball down the center, head toward the basket, move the ball to the open guy once the defense commits-- but how the play will actually proceed depends on seeing how things unfold.
SImilarly, the general principles that seem most likely to take us to our goal are along these lines: expose to the American public as much of the criminality and mendacity of the BUshites as possible, peel the Republicans in Congress away from the BUshites, prod and shame the media into doing their job, pursue legal and legislative strategies that will back the Bushites into a corner, escalate the attack on the Bushites more and more as public opinion becomes increasingly hostile to this presidency, seize every opportunity that comes to wrest power (by impeachment or by any other means) and to discredit the forces behind this administration.
What I have been arguing is that it is the Congress and the Courts that have the power to check this fascist regime, and that strategy is necessary to maximize the chances of victory.
Just how the battles will develop is not predictable. As I wrote earlier this week, it may be that Congress will move toward impeachment not because of the high crimes and misdemeanors and the need to defend the Constitution --which are what I regard as the most important reason-- but as the best available means to stop this regime from escalating and expanding its war.
It was not clear in November that BUsh would respond to the election and the Iraq Study Group report by going in just the opposite direction, with his colossal obstinacy and arrogance. But when this happens, then new lines of attack open up.
The fast break unfolds.
by
Andrew Bard Schmookler (302 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 142 comments)
on Friday, January 19, 2007 at 10:29:27 PM
This is my personal opinion. I could be wrong. But I believe I'm still entitled to my opinion. My political predictions and analyses have a pretty good track record of turning out to be correct, so I can risk having one or two turn out to be wrong. Unlike the Democrats, I don't have very much to lose. So here goes:
Back when Bill Kristol went on national TV predicting a Democratic landslide in '06 and saying that it would be the best thing that could happen for the Republicans, I was not the only one who thought that the fix was in.
The Republicans own the voting machines. They allowed the Dems a majority in the Senate so slim that they only have to anthrax a single Senator to change it. And every Democratic Senator knows it. They allowed a greater majority in the lower house, as it has no real power to do anything without Senate agreement, and in any case Bush still holds the veto. But in order to get their majority, and the bigger share of corporation campaign money that comes with it, the Democrats must have had to make some concessions.
As soon as Pelosi said that impeachment was off the table, many of us said, "Oh, so that's the concession they had to make in order for the Republicans to let them win."
They also, apparently, have to stall for two years and continue the war for another two years, in order for the Republicans to allow a "Democratic" President in '08, who in return for being allowed to "win" that rigged election, will probabley have to agree beforehand to issue blanket pardons to Bush, Cheney and all the other war criminals who need them.
That may explain why the Democrats are pushing so hard for the Holt Bill HR550, and Velvet Revolution's call for paper ballots, both of which would retain the easily hacked and totally unverifiable optical scan machines and central tabulators that allow the Republicans to rig elections easily, instead of supporting Dennis Kucinich's HR6200 which calls for hand-counted paper ballots at the precincts and no machines at all.
Bob Ney, one of the authors of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was just sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. HAVA, which forced machines into elections, was not a law, it was a crime, written by a criminal, and a violation of our Constitutional right to elect our representatives and our right to free and fair elections. It should be repealed, not amended.
But in order for the Republicans to enable the Democrats to "win" in '08, the Democrats have to make sure that the voting machines are retained, and that if there are paper ballots they do not have to be counted on election night. After election night you can count them all you want, and prove all the fraud you want, but it won't change the election - we know there was fraud in 2000 and 2004, but Bush is still in office.
And in order for the Republicans to permit a Democratic "win" in '08, the Democrats also have to keep the war going for another two years, keep Bush and Cheney in office for another two years, and maintain the status quo. If they don't, they are likely to lose their Senate majority and any chance of a Democratic "win" in '08.
So right or wrong, that's what I think the situation is, and if I happen to be right, the Democrats have an awful lot to lose, including, but not limited to, a larger share of corporate donations, their Senate majority, and the '08 Presidency.
--Mark
by
Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments)
on Friday, January 19, 2007 at 11:58:48 PM
and it provides better perspective for Andy's argument, and strategy. I am not a Politician, but this is what stands out for me...what I am seeing in the picture.
The Democrats have nothing to lose that belongs to them. What they have most to lose are the Republicans, because that is all they have, and also all they have to work with. It's bad, but it is at least something.
Our situation, and which expands way beyond Politics, or political control, is catastrophic. We are a disaster, and that is all, both we, and the combined parties, really have.
Stopping the Iraq war will have no curative effects...whatsoever. It will merely shine greater light onto the disaster by taking away a distraction. Otherwise, stopping the war may, or may not prevent additional harm.
The Democrats need the Republicans; they are dependent on them, and they have been...and with it they are also guilty of every sin, and crime that has been committed during the Bush administration, as they followed the orders, and participated, and even enabled all of the crime, and for that matter, everything we have to show for, and are today.
As much as America is critical of the Democrats, the little hope and faith they have in the 'lesser evil', is really nothing more than an expectation from them.
This, in turn, does not mean that every Democrat, and all of the party is fundamentally evil. They are more like 'high class prostitutes', and they can go in any direction, and they surely would prefer to do better, and change for the better, and they may even care...and care more, and succeed better in doing good with each step of improvement, success, power and stabilization.
But the truth of the matter is , that there is nothing to work with at this time, independently. Impeachment, even if it worked out, would leave the Democrats with an unmanagable disaster. They are helpless not only to deal with it alone, but if they do, they carry even more, if not most of the responsibility for the Bush crimes, as impeachment would be equivalent of setting the worst criminals, and their secrets along with it, free...and gone with the wind.
I will stop here. I would very much appreciate some feedback, because this is how I best understand Andy's train of thought, and they make a lot more sense...with Mark's help.
This is not a problem we can just get rid off, and by throwing it in the garbage. Not the greatest politicians at this point would be wise to surgically extract the cancer, because it is just too engrained in what's left. Surgery, at this point, would pose a greater risk than delaying it. If not much, waiting, and delaying will provide extra time and space to sort out, organize, clean up, and find, copy, and prepare records of what's scattered all over the place...if indeed, on 'borrowed time'.
by
Katrin R. (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 514 comments)
on Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 2:38:00 AM
"We really want to stop the war, but the anti-war candidates can't win, so we have no choice but to vote for one of the pro-war candidates. We're choosing the one who is less avidly pro-war, because they're the lesser evil and might somebody be convinced to be anti-war."
and:
"We'd really like to impeach Bush and Cheney, but we're not sure if we have the votes, and the Republicans wouldn't like it, so we've taken it off the table."
Andy's title question, whether we're interested in winning or only in making grand postures, is answered by the Democrats this way:
"We know that by taking impeachment off the table, all we can do is make grand postures, because Bush has the veto, but we're more concerning about winning in '08 than about saving our country or doing what's right."
The only problem is that when the Democrats do win, they either concede to their Republican opponent, support the Republican agenda, or, at best, claim that by continuing to vote for and fund the Republican agenda, and by refusing to oppose it, they are actually opposing it, and it is just we common folk, ignorant of political realities and strategies, who mistakenly think that by voting for something, they are supporting it, when it is only part of their secret, subtle plan to actually someday oppose it, but in order to win they have to wait until another half a million innocent people have been tortured and killed.
What we have here, in my opinion, is people who have no conscience and who believe that they have no choice, trying to limit the choices and corrupt the consciences of everyone else.
--Mark
by
Mark E. Smith (21 articles, 30 quicklinks, 100 diaries, 1325 comments)
on Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 7:30:38 AM
Do you think it would serve the cause of "saving our country, and perhaps even the world" if impeachment proceedings were launched but failed in the objective of removing the Bushites from office? If so, please explain how that would be a good thing?
If not, then just how do you envision impeachment succeeding when it takes a two-thirds vote in the Senate, and when the Democrats control at best (remember Lieberman) 51 votes? In other words, what gives you any reason to believe that there is now any possibility of getting the necessary more-than 1/3 of the Senate Republicans to vote to impeach their own president, whom they've been supporting and covering up for and kowtowing to for six years?"
Andy's premise, stated above, is convincing to me. In fact, it has dampered my initial anger at Pelosi for "taking impeachment off the table." If you begin impeachment proceedings and fail to convict, you have GREATLY strengthened the enemy and all but killed yourself in the process.
And if procedurally you need to gather the broad support for impeachment, in a snowballing effect, you have no choice but to start teasing apart the whole fabric of lunacy one strand at a time. I am pleased to see that the Dems appear to be setting up committees for investigations. We all know GB should be locked up for life, but there is a huge risk of enormous backfire if he slips away unscathed due to the natural bent (i.e., maximum stupidity and sheepishness) of the Republicans.
Operating from principles is the only realistic way to move forward, in any endeavor that I can think of. The principle here is to build the case with the tools at hand, one brick at a time. There just is no other way.
Nancy may well be shrewder than I thought, in this light. "We are taking impeachment off the table," yes, but we are proceeding with investigations that may lead directly to it.
Time will tell, but meanwhile, we cannot afford to shoot and miss--we have but one bullet, and it had best land between the eyes of the monster.
by
Daniel Geery (26 articles, 58 quicklinks, 121 diaries, 690 comments)
on Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 11:40:24 AM
A deed may not succeed if it is not first attempted. Taking impeachment off the table prior to holding any hearings, prior to seeing where pending and promised investigations will lead is not my idea of serving justice.
Andrew may very well be correct in his opinion that we cannot hope for a two thirds vote for impeachment AT THIS MOMENT IN HISTORY ( excuse the volume). But who knows what investigations will reveal, who can say what minds will be changed by the confessions of guilt to avoid prosecution, the giving up of the leadership for lighter sentencing?
I understand that I interpret Pelosi's statement as another in a longish list of collusory actions by Democratic leadership. I further understand that others do not. Yet the scenario I have played out above is not so very far fetched now, is it?
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Sunday, January 21, 2007 at 4:00:09 PM
We may have had this conversation once before. I'm not sure. In any event, Andy, I think yours is a very weak argument. If we only fought to uphold the law when we were sure of winning, most of the civil rights progress we have made since the civil war would have come to nothing. We still have a ways to go, but some fights need to fought and some truths need to be told even when there is no guarantee to a win. The truth is, having the courage to stand up for your rights is a win in and of itself. Bush and his cronies are criminals. It is the job of every citizen but particularly every elected official to stand up to the treason and call it what it is. As a practical matter, having those in the public eye stand up to this treason is the only way we will ever get the public educated on what is going on. One word from any of those who have declared their candidacy for president, that Bush deserves to be impeached with a full accounting of why this is so, is the only way that the mainstream press will publish the arguments. It's the only way average Americans will every open their eyes to see if those arguments have any merit. Your argument gives them all cover and that's a bit tragic in my view. I understand your argument, but we've had that all along. That's an argument for the status quo.
by
Mark A. Goldman (81 articles, 2 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 243 comments)
on Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 12:17:21 PM
What's wrong with Democrats? Why can't they be bold and absolutely principled? After all, they can count on liberals, like the one above who says they're "more like high class prostitutes." Democrats should have no problem sticking their necks out, since they have such a mighty foundation behind them with liberals, like the ones above, who say they are "basking in money while doing nothing" (even after the accomplishment of a 100-hour agenda), who speak of their "ultimate uselessness," who refer to the two parties as "elephants and jackasses," clearly castigating them more than Republicans.
Rank-and-file conservatives are, in my view, mostly dupes, so their stalwart support of Republicans requires little compromise, at least until recently. But rank-and-file liberals must find a way to embolden the Democrats, even if only because it is the Democrats believe their avenue to power is through benefiting working people.
Why would someone entering politics choose the Democratic party over the Republican? If that person cares for nothing but wealth and power, is the Democrat party their best choice? Sure Democrats are less than pure, but it is they who supported the civil rights movement, the Marshall plan, the GI bill, women's suffrage, workplace safety rules, minimum wage increases, etc., all over conservative opposition. So please stop with the "no difference between the parties" nonsense!
The Democrats exist in an environment of media-driven a hostility, and that they need to acquire some genuine popularity in order to get things done? "Reliable Sources" recently questioned why the media has been mostly silent about the accomplishment of the 100-hour agenda, but that's about par for the course. Even the liberals on TV never have a single solitary word of praise for Democrats. Ultra-liberal Bill Press recently defended Dems against a charge of political manipulation by saying, "I only wish; the Democrats couldn't organize a bake sale." Liberal commentators and entertainers say things like "but the Democrats will probably blow it," and gripe endlessly about their timidity.
Liberals, myself included, are filled with fear (of fascism) and anger, so I don't blame anyone for reacting emotionally. But it's still a mistake. Dr. Schmookler is right, and should actually go further in calling for all on the left to flood the media with demands that Democrats get every bit credit they deserve.
If we empower no one, then the administration of government will be filled by those empowered by others, and the privileged classes seem to have no qualms about empowering people like George Bush and Tom Delay.
by
SamGruen (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 17 comments)
on Saturday, January 20, 2007 at 7:32:32 PM
and when I call the democrats 'High Class Prostitutes', that is not a judgement of their personality, or potential, but more one of the position they are in. I think it is absolutely essential to put oneself into the position of this part in the context of what is happening, and try to understand them, and how/why they are proceeding the wa
