Saturday, July 14, 2007
Impeachment
It's time to put impeachment (of President Bush and Vice President Cheney) back onto the table. This administration has openly admitted committing crimes (FISA violations for starters). There are more reasons to impeach Bush and Cheney than there were to impeach Nixon during Watergate, and far more reasons than there were to impeach Clinton.
Failing to hold them responsible for their actions sets a dangerous precedent. It tells future presidents that obeying the law and upholding their oaths to the Constitution are optional, that obedience to the law is merely a political question, not a question of duty.
(If the folks in Congress wants to work their way up to this, they can always start by impeaching Alberto Gonzales.)
A lot of folks on the left have argued against impeachment, because there's so little time left before the end of the Bush administration, or because we can't possibly get the required 67 votes
in the Senate for a conviction (though for some reason neither argument stopped the Republicans from impeaching Bill Clinton). Ok, maybe there's some validity to that.
But if we refrain from impeaching Bush and Cheney, we must make it clear that political considerations are the only reason for doing so.
Failing to hold them responsible for their actions sets a dangerous precedent. It tells future presidents that obeying the law and upholding their oaths to the Constitution are optional, that obedience to the law is merely a political question, not a question of duty.
(If the folks in Congress wants to work their way up to this, they can always start by impeaching Alberto Gonzales.)
A lot of folks on the left have argued against impeachment, because there's so little time left before the end of the Bush administration, or because we can't possibly get the required 67 votes
in the Senate for a conviction (though for some reason neither argument stopped the Republicans from impeaching Bill Clinton). Ok, maybe there's some validity to that.
But if we refrain from impeaching Bush and Cheney, we must make it clear that political considerations are the only reason for doing so.
