First the American people spoke in overwhelming numbers on November 7, soundly repudiating current policy, with ENDING the Iraq war/occupation at the top of their list. The Bush administration heard nothing. Then the Iraq Study Group delivered its report, which despite its timid recommendations on actual troop withdrawal again sent the message that something had to change immediately. The Bush administration did not get it. Instead we are told that Bush is on a "listening" tour, apparently desperately trying to find some half-credible person somewhere who will tell him what he wants to hear, that no fundamental change of course is necessary.
We are told that Bush is asking all the "tough questions." We are told that Cheney is taking "copious notes." One has to wonder how intelligent decisions could have been made by any other previously insular method. But at the same time we hear that Bush is "resolutely defiant," and in fact plans on sending even MORE troops to Iraq. So what we are witnessing is yet another Karl Rove photo-op, a dog and pony show of attentiveness, with absolutely no intention of taking any advice they would not have given themselves in the first place.
When our founders drafted our Constitution, the thing they feared most was that a despot would arise to arrogate dictatorial power, which is why they made repeated references to the procedure of impeachment as the ultimate check and balance. Most of all they sought to guard against the kind of abusive, absolutist power that they had fought a revolutionary war to escape. And what Bush and Cheney have given us if a textbook example of what they strove so mightily to ensure against as our heritage.
All the particular violations of law of the Bush Administration which have become public knowledge already, the illegal wiretaps, the authorization at the highest level of torture, preemptive attacks on other countries on flimsy and mendacious justification, these are just the inevitable symptoms of the root cause. The highest constitutional crime of all is to act as a king. And the confession to that crime was the exclamation, "I'm the decider." The instant charade of intense "listening" is nothing more than an attempt to lull, to stall, to buy time, and ultimately to defy the other two branches of government and the people of the United States ourselves, while every day up to ten or more of our troops die for nothing in an illegal war of hubris.
We no longer have any choice whether or not to press for impeachment. There is no other democratic way left for us to stop the runaway train of seized power. To NOT act as mandated by the Constitution is to toss that revered document into the same trash basket as Bush and Cheney have, smirking as they did all the way. No matter what the disastrous consequences of their actions they will never give up an iota of the power they have stolen without being directly confronted with impeachment. They would not hear any other message. THAT is the message we must send most urgently now.
internet activist with the mission of generating as many policy messages to Congress as possible
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