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In my lifetime I’ve seen two impeachments, or perhaps one and a half; the first was triggered by the Watergate scandal and led to Richard Nixon’s subsequent resignation. This wasn’t technically an impeachment; think of it along the lines of a “Law and Order” episode where the suspect, faced with overwhelming evidence, pleads guilty for the best terms he can get. Of course no “L&O” district attorney, not even Fred Thompson, would then give the perpetrator a complete pardon, which is what Nixon got. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, was impeached, which means, using the “Law and Order” analogy once again, that he was tried, not that he was convicted. The irony of all this is that the Clinton case was built on a tissue of lies and innuendo, orchestrated by the Republican right in an effort to find something, anything, to overturn the elections of 1992 and 1996. One might ask what it is that Republicans find so odious about free and fair elections – they’re constantly involved in trying to either fix them or overturn them.
Rigging elections is, of course, what Watergate was about as well, and it speaks volumes about the fixation of the Republican leadership on stealing what they can’t win fairly, even when they’re ahead. That was the situation in 1972; Richard Nixon had a such comfortable lead over George McGovern (Nixon won by 18 million votes; McGovern only took Massachusetts and the District of Columbia – think about that, Blue Staters) that there was no need, other than pure political paranoia, to break in to the Democratic National Headquarters. And this wasn’t the first instance of breaking and entering by the Republicans; they burgled Daniel Ellsburg’s psychiatrist in an effort to get dirt on the man who dared to blow the whistle on the lies of Viet Nam. Burglary, bribes, political slush funds and money laundering; compare this to a cheating husband lying about fellatio – which one do you think Arthur Branch and Jack McCoy would prosecute?
So now we have another instance of High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Forget about most of the abuses of George W. Bush; we can’t prosecute him for appointing right-wing nutball jurists and eviscerating environmental laws any more than we can arrest him for being stupid (although I think there ought to be a law about that – but that’s for another time). No, just about every evil, cowardly, vindictive thing he’s done since he’s been president has been perfectly legal, and in those instances where they might have been illegal he’s had the excuse of 9/11 and a lapdog Congress all too willing to change the laws to make it legal. No rights? No trial? No problem! Ah, but lying in order to get us into war, now that’s another story; while I’m no expert on the ins and outs of the War Powers Act, I’d be willing to bet that there’s a line in there somewhere about starting a war on false pretenses. The Downing Street Memo is the smoking gun all right, and we should be able to bring charges against our phony cowboy president, but there’s just one problem – nothing’s going to happen.
Why? Well, the last time I looked, the Republicans had a 232/202 advantage over the Democrats (and one Socialist) in the House, and if by some cataclysmic freak of nature they actually approved an impeachment resolution, Republicans outnumber Democrats (and one independent) in the Senate 55/45. This isn’t even taking Joe Lieberman into account. No, until the makeup of the Senate and House changes, George W. Bush could have rough sex with My Pet Goat in a baptismal pool on national television, and Tom DeLay would tell Sean Hannity that sex with animals was good for them and Hannity would say it’s also good for the nation (while Alan Colmes would demonstrate the technique for the studio audience). So don’t hold your breath.
The only way for George W. Bush to be impeached is for Democrats to take back Congress in 2006. Let me say that again. The only way for George W. Bush to be impeached is for Democrats to take back Congress in 2006. That means that we have to work like hell to get Democrats elected in our districts, and it also means that once they are elected, they need to be reminded who elected them, and why. I live in Tennessee, and my congressman is a Democrat, but both of my senators are Republicans, one of which, as we all know to our sorrow, is Bill Frist, who says he’s not running for re-election (the better to pursue the Reverend Dobson’s designs). You can bet I’m going to do my part to make sure that the next senator from Tennessee is a Democrat. Senatorial majority or not, I believe that there are substantially more Democrats in this nation than Republicans, and if we can win back their votes – with straight talk and new ideas – then the next congress will be a Democratic congress. Then we can take care of George W. Bush. And make no mistake; this is one job that, unequivocally, must be done.
We have to go through with it; we have to put George W. Bush in the dock; we have to try him for high crimes and misdemeanors; we have to reduce this cowardly bully to a blubbering, broken wreck, so that everyone, even his supporters, will know what we know – that he is a liar, and worse, a murderer, with the blood of over 1683 soldiers on his hands. We have to show the world that we DO have some morals and that we know when we’ve been wrong and that we have the strength and will to face this and do something about it. We need to make an example of him so that no American politician will ever, ever think about doing this again. And once he’s been shown the door, we need to get an honest attorney general to bring him, and Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, and Tom Delay, and Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, and above all, Karl Rove, to trial; we need to put the evidence up there for all the world to see, to air our dirty laundry, and we need put them into prison for a long, long, time. We need to metaphorically fumigate the White House and the Congress. We need to bring our nation back into the light.
But we won’t do it this year. But we will do it next year.
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