There is nothing else for Congress to do that impeachment could distract from. All good bills are vetoed and all partially good bills are signing statemented.
Impeachment in this case could be very quick because of the overwhelming evidence.
If your preference is to focus on the next election, think about how that election would look were John McCain forced to choose between the Constitution and Dick Cheney.
Most impeachments happen late. The movements to impeach Truman and Hoover, and the impeachment of Johnson, happened later than where we are now.
Most impeachment movements achieve useful results in restoring the rule of law without getting all the way to impeachment, much less removal from office.
If there is time for endless hours of grilling steroid-popping baseball players, there is time for impeachment.
If Congress is sincere about wanting Bush and Cheney to obey its laws and comply with its subpoenas it will impeach. If it does not impeach, it is not sincere, and no non-impeachment investigations will get anywhere.
But isn't this all beside the point when we should not dare to impeach a president during a time of war? No, I side with the last great Republican president on this one: Abraham Lincoln. When a president takes us into an unnecessary war, and people are dying for no good reason, that is the most important time to challenge the president. And this current so-called war, we are told, will last for decades or forever. If announcing eternal war provides immunity from impeachment, can you guess what percentage of presidents will make that announcement? James Madison saw war as the tool through which a president might seize inappropriate powers. "War," he said, "is the true wet-nurse of executive aggrandizement."
Remember, we are borrowing from China to spend our grandchildren's hard-earned pay to fund an illegal occupation of a distant land, an operation that our own intelligence agencies say is boosting terrorist recruitment, an operation opposed by about 80 percent of Americans, 90 percent of Iraqis, and 70 percent of active-duty US troops. If we can't challenge THAT, what can we challenge?
Well then, you might ask, isn't it more important to end the occupation, the so-called war?
Ending the war is a task that could best be accomplished by inaction, by Congress refusing to provide any more funding. Or it could be accomplished by a bill created by one committee. It is not a full-time task for the entire Congress.
However, this Congress has already demonstrated that it has no intention of ending the war. Pelosi has sworn that cutting off the funding is "off the table."
What could help move Congress would be the same thing that helped a previous Congress find the nerve to finally cut off the funding for the Vietnam War (once the troops were already home) and convinced Nixon not to veto the cut-off in funding: impeachment. In this case, even more so than Nixon's, impeachment would drive the war debate in the right direction, because impeachment would be for offenses either directly connected to the war or offenses that have been justified by "war on terror" propaganda.
In addition, should Congress actually cut off the funding and end the war, it is very likely that Bush and Cheney would misappropriate funds from the Pentagon to keep the occupation going. They did so in order to secretly begin the war, and they have never been held accountable for it. So, removing them from office is not only needed in order to give Congress the nerve to end the war, but is also needed if the war is to actually end.
Won't impeachment take up too much time and distract from other goals?
Nixon's impeachment took three months. Clinton's impeachment and trial combined took four months. The current Congress has wasted more than that amount of time already in avoiding impeachment, and has almost nothing to show for it (a minimal partial and gradual correction to the plummeting minimum wage). Congress has taken no serious steps toward ending the occupation of Iraq, and has in fact provided major new funding for it. During Nixon's impeachment and the lead up to it, in contrast, the threat of impeachment allowed Congress to raise the minimum wage, create the Endangered Species Act, and end a war.
Impeachment in this case could be very quick because of the overwhelming evidence.
If your preference is to focus on the next election, think about how that election would look were John McCain forced to choose between the Constitution and Dick Cheney.
Most impeachments happen late. The movements to impeach Truman and Hoover, and the impeachment of Johnson, happened later than where we are now.
Most impeachment movements achieve useful results in restoring the rule of law without getting all the way to impeachment, much less removal from office.
If there is time for endless hours of grilling steroid-popping baseball players, there is time for impeachment.
If Congress is sincere about wanting Bush and Cheney to obey its laws and comply with its subpoenas it will impeach. If it does not impeach, it is not sincere, and no non-impeachment investigations will get anywhere.
But isn't this all beside the point when we should not dare to impeach a president during a time of war? No, I side with the last great Republican president on this one: Abraham Lincoln. When a president takes us into an unnecessary war, and people are dying for no good reason, that is the most important time to challenge the president. And this current so-called war, we are told, will last for decades or forever. If announcing eternal war provides immunity from impeachment, can you guess what percentage of presidents will make that announcement? James Madison saw war as the tool through which a president might seize inappropriate powers. "War," he said, "is the true wet-nurse of executive aggrandizement."
Remember, we are borrowing from China to spend our grandchildren's hard-earned pay to fund an illegal occupation of a distant land, an operation that our own intelligence agencies say is boosting terrorist recruitment, an operation opposed by about 80 percent of Americans, 90 percent of Iraqis, and 70 percent of active-duty US troops. If we can't challenge THAT, what can we challenge?
Well then, you might ask, isn't it more important to end the occupation, the so-called war?
Ending the war is a task that could best be accomplished by inaction, by Congress refusing to provide any more funding. Or it could be accomplished by a bill created by one committee. It is not a full-time task for the entire Congress.
However, this Congress has already demonstrated that it has no intention of ending the war. Pelosi has sworn that cutting off the funding is "off the table."
What could help move Congress would be the same thing that helped a previous Congress find the nerve to finally cut off the funding for the Vietnam War (once the troops were already home) and convinced Nixon not to veto the cut-off in funding: impeachment. In this case, even more so than Nixon's, impeachment would drive the war debate in the right direction, because impeachment would be for offenses either directly connected to the war or offenses that have been justified by "war on terror" propaganda.
In addition, should Congress actually cut off the funding and end the war, it is very likely that Bush and Cheney would misappropriate funds from the Pentagon to keep the occupation going. They did so in order to secretly begin the war, and they have never been held accountable for it. So, removing them from office is not only needed in order to give Congress the nerve to end the war, but is also needed if the war is to actually end.
Won't impeachment take up too much time and distract from other goals?
Nixon's impeachment took three months. Clinton's impeachment and trial combined took four months. The current Congress has wasted more than that amount of time already in avoiding impeachment, and has almost nothing to show for it (a minimal partial and gradual correction to the plummeting minimum wage). Congress has taken no serious steps toward ending the occupation of Iraq, and has in fact provided major new funding for it. During Nixon's impeachment and the lead up to it, in contrast, the threat of impeachment allowed Congress to raise the minimum wage, create the Endangered Species Act, and end a war.
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