Now we know that this is exactly what Pelosi and her colleagues in the Democratic Party leadership had in mind all along.
It’s not really that she doesn’t think Congress couldn’t succeed in impeaching Bush and/or Cheney. It’s that trying to do that would interfere with her only real goal—getting herself and her Democratic colleagues re-elected.
My own view, and it is being borne out by the amazing collapse in public support that Democrats have suffered over the course of Pelosi’s and Sen. Harry Reid’s five months in control of Congress (a fall from 65 percent support to under 20 percent!), is that the Democratic leadership’s political strategy is all wrong: they could win big in 2008 by standing up forcefully on the issues of ending the war and defending the Constitution, and they are likely to lose by taking this minimalist, self-serving approach.
But even if they were right, and they could gain seats and perhaps the White House by doing nothing of consequence and by avoiding taking any serious confrontational stances for two years, it is unconscionable that they would allow more Americans and innocent Iraqis to die in a pointless, illegal war, and that they would allow the Constitution to be raped and plundered by a criminal administration, simply for their own narrow political gain.
Yet now we have it from the speaker’s own mouth. She isn’t about defending the Constitution. It’s just not worth it.
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DAVE LINDORFF, a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist, is author, most recently, of “The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now in paperback), co-authored by Barbara Olshansky. Lindorff’s work can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net
It’s not really that she doesn’t think Congress couldn’t succeed in impeaching Bush and/or Cheney. It’s that trying to do that would interfere with her only real goal—getting herself and her Democratic colleagues re-elected.
My own view, and it is being borne out by the amazing collapse in public support that Democrats have suffered over the course of Pelosi’s and Sen. Harry Reid’s five months in control of Congress (a fall from 65 percent support to under 20 percent!), is that the Democratic leadership’s political strategy is all wrong: they could win big in 2008 by standing up forcefully on the issues of ending the war and defending the Constitution, and they are likely to lose by taking this minimalist, self-serving approach.
But even if they were right, and they could gain seats and perhaps the White House by doing nothing of consequence and by avoiding taking any serious confrontational stances for two years, it is unconscionable that they would allow more Americans and innocent Iraqis to die in a pointless, illegal war, and that they would allow the Constitution to be raped and plundered by a criminal administration, simply for their own narrow political gain.
-----------------
DAVE LINDORFF, a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist, is author, most recently, of “The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now in paperback), co-authored by Barbara Olshansky. Lindorff’s work can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net
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