Is There Evidence to Impeach? by Carl Bernstein

[kpete]

Is There Evidence to Impeach?
by Carl Bernstein
Worse than Watergate? High crimes and misdemeanors justifying the impeachment of George W. Bush, as increasing numbers of Democrats in Washington hope, and, sotto voce, increasing numbers of Republicans -- including some of the president's top lieutenants -- now fear? Leaders of both parties are acutely aware of the vehemence of anti-Bush sentiment in the country, expressed especially in the increasing number of Americans -- nearing fifty percent in some polls -- who say they would favor impeachment if the president were proved to have deliberately lied to justify going to war in Iraq.

John Dean, the Watergate conspirator who ultimately shattered the Watergate conspiracy, rendered his precipitous (or perhaps prescient) impeachment verdict on Bush two years ago in the affirmative, without so much as a question mark in choosing the title of his book Worse than Watergate. On March 31, some three decades after he testified at the seminal hearings of the Senate Watergate Committee, Dean reiterated his dark view of Bush's presidency in a congressional hearing that shed more noise than light, and more partisan rancor than genuine inquiry. The ostensible subject: whether Bush should be censured for unconstitutional conduct in ordering electronic surveillance of Americans without a warrant.

Raising the worse-than-Watergate question and demanding unequivocally that Congress seek to answer it is, in fact, overdue and more than justified by ample evidence stacked up from Baghdad back to New Orleans and, of increasing relevance, inside a special prosecutor's office in downtown Washington.
............
There was understandable reluctance in the Congress to begin a serious investigation of the Nixon presidency. Then there came a time when it was unavoidable. That time in the Bush presidency has arrived.

more at:
http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/articles/060417fege08
via:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-bernstein/is-there-evidence-to-impe_b_19293.html

[BooScout]

1. Worse than Watergate?

Damn straight. No one died during Watergate.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

3. Uh oh.

You forgot Martha Mitchell.

http://sc.essortment.com/watergatescande_rays.htm

Not "killed," per se, but really punished badly by those Watergate fuckers.

[ashling]

10. My cousin did an interview

w/ Martha Mitchell ...

[OldLeftieLawyer]

11. Really?

I thought she was FABULOUS. I really felt bad for the way her life ended. She was marvelous. Just marvelous.

Got any stories?

[Hissyspit]

31. I hadn't forgotten her.

My mother was mentioning her the other week, too.

[Mugsy]

26. Relying on Americans having no stomach for two impeachments.

I've always believed that from day one, the Neocons in Bush's White House have felt they could "push the envelope" and get away with almost anything because they believed Americans would never support "two impeachments in a row".

They would have the great defense of labeling it partisan "payback" (which ironicly is what Bob Dole said Clinton's impeachment was for Nixon) and game playing and bemoaning, "Are we going to impeach EVERY President?"

Thanks to a pointless impeachment and long dragged out investigation of Clinton over nothing, they have polluted the waters and given the Bush Administration cover so that it may commit its crimes with impunity.

:evilfrown:

[Supersedeas]

33. true, but how does a rational person compare lying about sex and this *

[ClintonTyree]

34. A vast majority of Americans were willing to overlook....

Clinton's sexual peccadillo's, to them it was mach ado about nothing. Except to rabid righties of course who, as you say, wanted payback for Nixon. I believe the American people DO have the stomach for impeaching Bush, especially since his crimes have cost American families the lives of their sons and daughters and billions upon billions of dollars.

Of course we need Congressional and Independent investigations for that to happen. The only people who don't have the stomach for that are Congressional Republicans but a potential electoral blood-bath in November could change that. If Bush becomes too much of a liability for the party they may suddenly decide that Bush's crimes should bear looking into. They'll have an epiphany of sorts ;) and the big, bad, Bush regime may be in a world of trouble if they do. We'll know this November IF the votes can be counted correctly. The American people have had it with the phony, cowboy, Texas oil-man in my opinion.

[NorCalDem]

40. Exactly, impeachment doesn't hold as much water as it used too

because they took it's teeth away when the public heard about it all the time. And for what? Lying about a blow job...

[Joe Chi Minh]

45. I take precisely the contrary view. The grotesquely, surreally non-

-existent basis of Clinton's persecution serves only to highlight, indeed to direct a cone of search lights onto the inescapably palpable grounds for Bush's impeachment, and by association, the thoroughgoing disgrace of this outlandish margin of the Republican party; a cabal which, with the sinister assistance of the military-industrial complex, has nevertheless, been exerting an inordinate, indeed tyrannical power over the electoral and political processes of your nation and its body politic.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

42. E. Howard Hunt's wife died in a plane crash in 1972....

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Howard_Hunt>

Quote:

Hunt's wife Dorothy was killed in the December 8, 1972, plane crash of United Airlines Flight 533 in Chicago. Congress, the FBI, and the NTSB investigated the crash but did not find any basis for determining that the crash was not purely accidental. $10,000 was found in Dorothy Hunt's handbag, and was generally regarded as part of the "hush money" paid to Watergate defendants in an attempt to procure their silence regarding White House involvement.

It has been alleged that the Hunts were paid $250,000 to keep quiet about Nixon's past indiscretions, to include involvement in the JFK assassination.

Here's the next paragraph:

In 1981, Hunt won $650,000 in a libel suit against Liberty Lobby, a right-wing organization, after it published an article accusing him of being involved in the conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy. The author, Mark Lane, defended Liberty Lobby in a second trial in 1985, and he successfully overturned the original libel award. Lane outlined his theory about Hunt's and the CIA's role in Kennedy's murder in a 1991 book, Plausible Denial.

Note that Lane is far from being a conservative, but he was willing to represent Liberty Lobby, a very conservative rightwing organization, that had publicly accused E. Howard Hunt of having a role in the JFK assassination.

Before Nixon's resignation, Nixon had told one of his aides to enlist the help of the CIA in getting the FBI to back off the Watergate investigation. His comment to the aide is that the CIA didn't want all of that Bay of Pigs stuff to come out. The aide believed that Nixon was using a code phrase that actually meant the JFK assassination.

After his resignation, Nixon was pardoned by Ford for all current crimes and any other crimes that might be uncovered. Just like his role as one of the Warren Commissioners, Ford acted as the fireman to eradicate any links back to those involved.

[faithnotgreed]

2. im so glad he includes new orleans ("from baghdad to....")

in the crimes

katrina was an horrific situation (and still is)

[DearAbby]

4. It is a great article.

:thumbsup: for Carl B

[faithnotgreed]

6. absolutely - now if he would only appear in the cm as much as woodward

but i guess carl is too sane and intelligent to be invited

im grateful when he gets a chance to speak

[ShortnFiery]

5. Nominated n/t

[H2O Man]

7. Nominated.

Thank you for providing this article.

[Demeter]

8. Evidence? We've Got Public Confessions, Even!

For the BushBorg, Impeachment is Inevitable. So is the Hague.

[pacalo]

9. Excellent! Long, but worth the read.

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/articles/060417fege08

(...)

How much evidence is there to justify such action?

Certainly enough to form a consensus around a national imperative: to learn what this president and his vice president knew and when they knew it; to determine what the Bush administration has done under the guise of national security; and to find out who did what, whether legal or illegal, unconstitutional or merely under the wire, in ignorance or incompetence or with good reason, while the administration barricaded itself behind the most Draconian secrecy and disingenuous information policies of the modern presidential era.

(...)

The first fundamental question that needs to be answered by and about the president, the vice president, and their political and national-security aides, from Donald Rumsfeld to Condoleezza Rice, to Karl Rove, to Michael Chertoff, to Colin Powell, to George Tenet, to Paul Wolfowitz, to Andrew Card (and a dozen others), is whether lying, disinformation, misinformation, and manipulation of information have been a basic matter of policy—used to overwhelm dissent; to hide troublesome truths and inconvenient data from the press, public, and Congress; and to defend the president and his actions when he and they have gone awry or utterly failed.

(...)

As with Watergate, the investigation of George W. Bush and his presidency needs to start from a shared premise and set of principles that can be embraced by Democrats and Republicans, by liberals and centrists and conservatives, and by opponents of the war and its advocates: that the president of the United States and members of his administration must defend the requirements of the Constitution, obey the law, demonstrate common sense, and tell the truth. Obviously there will be disagreements, even fierce ones, along the way. Here again the Nixon example is useful: Republicans on the Senate Watergate Committee, including its vice chairman, Howard Baker of Tennessee ("What did the president know and when did he know it?"), began the investigation as defenders of Nixon. By its end, only one was willing to make any defense of Nixon's actions.

(...)

There was understandable reluctance in the Congress to begin a serious investigation of the Nixon presidency. Then there came a time when it was unavoidable. That time in the Bush presidency has arrived.

I didn’t know about this comment made by Arlen Specter:

"He's smoking Dutch Cleanser," said Specter when Bush's attorney general claimed legality for the president's secret order authorizing the wiretapping of Americans by the N.S.A. — first revealed in The New York Times in December.

[Jack Rabbit]

12. There is more than enough evidence against Bush and Cheney

Carl Bernstein, one of the intrepid Washington Post reporters who investigated and uncovered the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon over thirty years ago, asks in a short piece in today's Huffington Post whether there is enough evidence for impeachment of Mr. Bush. Bernstein concludes that take of impeachment or even censure is now premature, but the time right for Congress to vote to investigate Mr. Bush's wrongdoing.

My personal view is slightly different. What an honest investigation would find is now a forgone conclusion. There is more than enough evidence to impeach and remove both Bush and Cheney and has been for some time.

We should know that there is enough evidence when the best defense they can offer is the Nixonian "If the President does it, it isn't illegal". We should note that that was nothing more than a whimper of a protest Mr. Nixon made in a post-resignation interview. The argument that Bush and his allies are using was refuted in 1974.

Anybody does not now believe that Bush deliberately lied the United States into an unnecessary war is a fool. Memoranda leaked from the British government shows that he knew that case against Saddam was weak, but he would only admit this privately. In public, the official bluster was certain that Saddam had weapons and that they were aimed at us. In addition, we know that the state department's intelligence reports had it right, but only information supporting the case for war found its way into the NIE. The defense now is . . . well, what is it? Are they going to tell us if the president says it, it isn't a lie?

The problem with Nixon was fixed by removing Nixon. The other crooks who covered up Watergate had left before him and no one accused Vice President Ford, who was appointed following the resignation of Spiro Agnew due to corruption charges unrelated to Watergate, of having anything to do with Nixon's scandals.

This problem is more complicated. Bush not only refuses to admit that he has done anything wrong, but continues to reward those who conspired with him. Dick Cheney, who informed us of Saddam's "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program, was not dropped from the ticket in 2004. Donald Rumsfeld, who know exactly where Saddam's non-existent biochemical arsenal was, remains as Secretary of Defense. Condoleezza Rice, who spoke of smoking guns and mushroom clouds, is promoted from National Security Adviser to Secretary of State. Alberto Gonzales, who authorized the so-called legal justification for torture, is promoted from White House council to Attorney General. The President, Vice President and three of the four top cabinet officers all either lied about what they know the threat Saddam's Iraq posed, knowing that the evidence was actually inconclusive, or told the President of the United States, with legal reasoning so spurious as not to be taken seriously, that he had the right to set aside treaties and torture combat detainees and prisoners of war.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Gonzales all warrant impeachment and removal from office. They should all be tried afterward for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

[The Wizard]

22. Kim Jong Bush

With the exception of "Dear Leader," the entire cartel could be charged with crimes. As for "Dear Leader," everyone knows our President is a nut.
Questioning Dear Leader's sanity is our patriotic duty. Every day in every way he's looking and sounding more like Kim jong mentally Ill.
Will he offer the insanity defense?

[Jack Rabbit]

27. I'm a little reluctant to question his sanity

I'm married to a therapist intern and have an awareness that mental illness is a clinical diagnosis which I have no training to make. I wonder about Bush's upbringing (like Pappy and Babs, I've been a parent) in that he appears to me to be a spoiled brat who expects everything to be handed to him on a silver platter and attempts to stack the rules so that he wins. I also take note of rumors about his ferocious temper.

Having said that I don't feel competent to make a diagnosis of Bush, I will say that throughout my life I have wondered about a judgment in read about while a college student of some who are qualifed to make such a diagonis about presidential candidates in general: one has got to be a megalomaniac to think one can do the most difficult and power job in the world better than anybody else.

[EVDebs]

39. Some shrinks, in Salon.com, give their opinions of Bush

The inner W.

Three new psychological portraits of George W. Bush paint him as a control freak driven by rage, fear and an almost murderous Oedipal competition with his father. And that's before we get to Mom.

By Laura Miller
http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2004/06/16/bush_on_couch/index.html

[EVDebs]

13. Carl's 1977 Rolling Stone piece 'CIA and the Media' needs updated

and that alone should provide the evidence. Really Carl, anyone reading the Op Mockingbirded-up press and watching PsyOp'ed CNN video media knows there's PLENTY of evidence.

The Oct 1977 Rolling Stone article should be re-printed on the web just for posterity's sake. His buddy, Woodward's intel background along with Sen Bennett's of UT (Mullen & Co/CIA) make for interesting reading too:

""I have told Woodward everything I know about the Watergate case, except the Mullen Company's tie to the CIA."--Robert F. Bennett, testifying before House Special Committee on Intelligence, July 2, 1974.
Robert Bennett was the head of Robert R. Mullen and Co., a CIA front headquartered in the very same building as the CIA's Domestic Operations Division""

www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/07.03.97/scoop-9727.html

If I'm not mistaken, Nixon's impeachment charges included abuse of federal agencies like the CIA. If stovepiping absolute BULLSHIT in order to start a war doesn't qualify, I don't know what the hell will. With Office of Special Plans, and the entire 'end-run' of normal intelligence analysts and analysis, you had an intelligence coup d'etat reporting directly to Bush and telling him exactly what he already wanted to hear. Bernstein is developing the flair for the obvious that his partner Woodward lacked all along.

Scroll down to July 27 for full text of Nixon's articles of impeachment at:

www.watergate.info/chronology/1974.shtml

Article One says this-- "endeavouring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States".

Bush, PNAC, WHIG, and OSP at the DoD did an excellent job at doing exactly that ! How else do you get the media to laugh at this joke ? The joke was ON THE MEDIA !

Bush's Iraq WMD Joke Backfires
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3570845.stm

[hootinholler]

14. Impeachable? Hell he's indictable!

Right this very moment. We only need a prosecutor with the stones to do it!

DU thread.

-Hoot

[joefree1]

15. It's looking very very on

Pass the salt. :popcorn:

[Vidar]

16. So good to hear after what a whore Woodward turned out to be!

[KAT119]

17. K&R!

[The Wielding Truth]

18. We deserve a nation for the people. Bush Co. must be held responsible.

[Swamp Rat]

19. yeah you rite!

"... in fact, overdue and more than justified by ample evidence stacked up from Baghdad back to New Orleans..."

Ya damn straight!!! :mad:

[Senator]

20. Specter on Gonzales: "He's Smoking Dutch Cleanser."

Bernstein re-reports this bottom-line conclusion about the notion that the bushkid is not a crook.

It's a good thing to keep tossing into the echo chamber whenever we can.

--

[abester]

21. consider this chilling fact

"increasing number of Americans -- nearing fifty percent in some polls -- who say they would favor impeachment if the president were proved to have deliberately lied to justify going to war in Iraq."

Anybody who paid attention to the news these last few years knows as fact that the President lies, and does it with conviction and a matter of course. Powell is proven to have lied before the UN. Bush is proven to have lied himself in press conferences.

And yet, the polls tell us that even if everyone is convinced, still more than half would feel he is fit for President despite his lying to congress and deceiving the people into starting a war of agression that by now has claimed more than a hunderd thausand victims.

What _ARE_ they thinking??
jesus...

[renate]

30. welcome to DU!

:hi:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

43. The real question here is, "Who are they polling"? My guess is...

...that most, if not all, of the polling organizations are polling people with very conservative views. If 50% of those people are willing to support impeachment, you can bet that the real number is well over 70%.

[bonzotex]

23. Americans still don't know all this.

Excellent article. Bernstein sums it all up beautifully. I wish every American would sit down and really read his words. They won't. His article is too long and uses too many big words, facts and historical references.

Watch the wingnut pundits go ballistic. Bernstein will be swiftboated. Most of our elected Democrats will mumble and shuffle in the peanut galleries.

I was talking with one of our company's truck drivers yesterday. His son, a Marine, is returning from his second tour in Iraq. This father still supports Bush and the war. He knows something was terribly wrong with how the war was started and executed, but still thinks the Iraqis want our troops there and we are fighting Al Quaeda in Iraq.

We talked about salaries, gas prices and the cost of living. He knows his paychecks don't go as far as they used to and he won't get a raise that will make up the difference. He is nervous about the future and doesn't know what to do other than keep his head down and work hard. He has no retirement savings other than Social Security. He opted out of our company's health care plan so he would have a slightly bigger paycheck each two weeks. (This is not uncommon with blue collar workers who consider themselves healthy)

He gets his news from AM radio because that is what he can reliably listen to in his truck. He had never heard of AAR until I told him to check it out. He is willing to consider what the Democrats have to say, but he simply never hears it unless he runs into a Democrat like me by chance.

He will never read Bernstein's article. He can not name any Democratic politicians he would vote for right now. He can't name a single Democratic politician in Texas (our state).

When the Democrats can craft a message that reaches this guy we will win both Houses and the Presidency with no problem.

[KoKo]

24. Thanks for sharing that....it's what many of us see out there with our

own contacts. Even folks I know who could read Bernstein's article and get the connections seem not to want to hear what Bush has done. It's almost like some folks are "sleepwalking" not wanting to believe what's going on.

I think it has something to do with the Clinton years. The Repugs have sucessfully caused many Americans to press the "mute button." They just can't handle any more Presidential Impeachments. They don't want to believe what they see is happening.

The group I'm seeing this with are some of the very ones who remember Watergate and knew whay Nixon was impeached. For some reason they just can't deal with this. :shrug:

[bonzotex]

49. Sleep walking....

Good analogy. If you pay attention then you realize it's not a dream but a nightmare. Easier to just put your head down and ignore the fangs and claws clicking behind your neck.

More and more I believe that most voters just need one thing, one tag they can hold onto and that is how they will vote, no matter what. For some, they have equated the Repugs with Christianity and will not change no matter how un-Christian the results. For others it's anti-gay or unspoken racist ideology or some other "moral" value that they think the R stands for.

I don't know if some of these people can be reached or changed.

[emald]

25. Is there evidence to impeach????????? `

Bushit has left no lack of evidence in his wake. Question is does anyone with standing have the stones to pursue the monkey criminal. It seems our congress critters find his actions to be just dandy, save for a few ineffectual voices.
Hell this idiot is convictable on sedition, being AWOL, being a human being without a soul, and so many other important charges that he should be in prison awaiting a hanging, in texass.

Is there evidence my ass.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

44. That's what Bernstein is stating very clearly.

[peekaloo]

28. More Bernstein(s) Less Woodward(s)

:kick:

[npincus]

29. Bi-partisanship is dead. Let's have hearings after Nov. 2006.

[myrna minx]

32. I have to kick this.

:kick:

[VP505]

35. I don't believe

that any thinking person would doubt that Bu$h, Cheney deserve impeachment, and that Rummy, Rice, and a few others should be fired. However the reality of it is that it WON'T happen as long as the GOP has control of both houses. It would be a mistake to push for impeachment before we have control of the house, because if we do,it could backfire at the polls in November. Remember there is already a move to use the "I" word as a campaign talking point to motivate Bu$h's base to get out the vote.

[Serial Mom]

36. 'bout time! Senate Hearings / Investigation but

can we find enough members of both parties to do this?

"and public hearings conducted by a sober, distinguished committee of Congress."

Most members of Congress have not lived up to their job as being a check & balance to the other branches of government and seem to be there only to campaign to get re-elected and back their party.

[bdamomma]

37. two words hell yes

if bush was in dictator in another country he would have been ousted by now.

[cyclezealot]

38. start the process by having a sit in in Sen.Pat Roberts office.

he thinks it his responsibility to be Bush's Senate Cover up Committee. Blame him more than Specter even for putting a finger in the dam, backing up needed information, the American people need to hear. takes a flood because many of them are tone deaf.

[bostonbabs]

41. What a great read

Bernstein is so good.

[oxbow]

46. Too bad the article's only available on the web...

more people need to read this. It's savvy marketing, because more libs get their news from the internet. However, it's about time that people stopped being afraid of rocking the boat. Changes are a coming, and no-one can stop em at this point.

[Independent_Liberal]

47. Yes, Carl. There's lots of impeachiness.

It's very peachy.

:D

[rman]

48. Worse then Watergate and Iran-Contra combined

It's the culmination of well over half a century of Kissinger-esque national and international crimes.

Clinton ultimately was impeached for something for which there was no evidence when the procedures started (the definition of "sexual relations").

On W we've got violation of the Constitution, multiple violations of the Geneva Convention (war of aggression, torture), Election fraud (2000 would be easy to prove), violating national security (Plame leak).
Bush already has nowhere near the popular support that Clinton had -during- the impeachment procedures.

So why is he still there? I think it shows how much power "they" really have.

[calimary]

50. Is there evidence? Does the Pope shit in the woods with Catholic bears?

DAMNED STRAIGHT there's evidence. As much evidence as there are stars in the sky. Or as many lies as junior's told throughout his miserable pathetic life.