Dave Lindorff: Pelosi on Impeachment and Defending the Constitution:
It's Just Not Worth It
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 07/03/2007 - 10:17am.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Dave Lindorff

Yet now we have it from the speaker's own mouth. She isn't about
defending the Constitution. It's just not worth it.

Dave Lindorff: Pelosi on Impeachment and Defending the Constitution: It's
Just Not Worth It
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 07/03/2007 - 10:17am.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Dave Lindorff


In a fascinating article published in NewsMax yesterday, online journalists
Mike Stark and Dave Johnson report that in a conversation they had with
speaker Nancy Pelosi, the speaker told them she had decided "at least a year
ago," before Democrats had even taken control of the House and Senate, "that
impeachment was something that we could not be successful with, and that
would take up the time we needed to do some positive things to establish a
record of our priorities and [Republican] short-comings."

She reportedly added, "The President isn't worth it...he's not worth
impeaching. We've got important work to do."

Stark says he replied, "Respectfully, the question is whether or not the
Constitution is worth it," to which he says Pelosi responded, "Well, yeah,
the constitution is worth it if you can succeed."

That the leading Democrat in the House, and one of the most powerful people
in the Democratic Party leadership, could be so dismissive of the
Constitution, so seemingly ignorant of the workings of the impeachment
clause, and so openly pessimistic and negative about the power of her
opposition party is simply astonishing.

Pelosi is admitting that back in early 2006, before the off-year election
campaign had even gotten fully underway, she had already concluded that
Democrats could never hope to obtain a majority vote in the House for
impeachment!

If Democrats in 1974 had adopted such a defeatist attitude in confronting
the crimes of Richard Nixon (who after all was midway through his second
term, after having won a landslide victory over George McGovern in 1972), he
would have slid through his second term like Bush and Cheney are hoping to
do. Remember, when bills of impeachment were first filed against Nixon, only
some 25 members of Congress supported the idea of impeachment, and no one
thought that the idea had a chance.

The whole point of impeachment hearings is to investigate and make the case
for impeachment. Until that is done, it is simply nonsense to say the
process "could not be successful."

This is especially true when one considers that this president, unlike
Nixon, has actually already admitted to major crimes. There is no question
that he has seriously abused power by refusing to enact laws passed by the
Congress. In ordering the National Security Agency to spy on Americans
without obtaining court orders -- in direct violation of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act -- a federal district judge trying that
activity has ruled that it was a serial Class A felony. And even after that
August 2006 decision, the president continued with the illegal program for
another 6 months.

Not to impeach the president for these high crimes against law and the
Constitution is a dereliction of duty on the part of Pelosi and the rest of
Congress of major proportions. It is not as though she has a choice. We
objectively have a president who is willfully violating the law and
undermining the Constitution. How can Congress, all of whose members take an
oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, not initiate impeachment
proceedings?

Pelosi tells Stark and Johnson it is only worth protecting the Constitution
if there is a certainty that the impeachment process can be won. She is
wrong on several counts.

First of all, it should not at all be assumed that following impeachment
hearings, a majority of the House would not vote for impeachment -- at least
on the issues of the signing statements and the NSA FISA crimes. And should
they so vote, at that point the president would be impeached, and for all
time, his crimes and abuses of power would be labeled as wrong, thus letting
future presidents know that such behavior is unconstitutional and will not
go unchallenged. The corollary is that if Bush is not confronted for these
and other crimes, future presidents will free to adopt his cavalier attitude
towards the Constitution, and his usurpation of the legislative authority of
Congress.

Second, there is not even a requirement in the Constitution that the Senate
try and remove an impeached federal official. That is something that the
Senate decides on its own whether to do. Once the House votes for
impeachment, a president stands impeached. That in itself would be an
important act, and is hardly one that Pelosi can declare to be an impossible
goal.

Pelosi made another important admission in her interview with Stark and
Johnson, confirming something I have been saying for some time now. That is,
she admits that she and the Democratic leadership have known all along that
they couldn't pass any significant legislation. Rather, they are simply
hoping to use their legislative ability to pass bills (knowing that nothing
of consequence could survive a veto or a signing statement) to "establish a
record of our priorities" and of the Republican Party's "shortcomings."

Talk about setting the bar low!

This is hardly what Pelosi and the Democratic National Committee and
congressional campaign committees were telling voters during last year's
election campaign, or even what they were saying when they took control of
Congress in January. Back then the bold talk was all about passing an
"important Democratic agenda" of measures such as health care reform,
electoral reform, education reform, and ending the Iraq War.

I've always said this was just for show, and that the only real aim of
Pelosi et al has been to position themselves to win in 2008 -- a narrow
partisan goal that has led them to sacrifice both ending the war and
defending the Constitution.

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 6 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.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION


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 thiscantbehappening.net.