| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"unknown" |
| Date: |
10 Oct 2003 01:40:08 PM |
| Object: |
Impeach Bush Now |
Published on Thursday, October 9, 2003 by the Globe & Mail/Canada
Impeach Bush Now
Unmasking a CIA Agent is Bad, Lying to Congress Worse. With Each US
Death in Iraq, the Case Against the President Grows Stronger.
by John R. MacArthur
Now that the U.S. government's chief weapons inspector in Iraq has, in
effect, confirmed an obvious truth -- that President George W. Bush
and his closest advisers promoted a non-existent nuclear and chemical
weapons threat from Iraq to justify a war -- an obvious question
presents itself: Why aren't Americans talking seriously about
impeachment?
After all, Mr. Bush now stands plausibly accused of the lofty crime of
subverting the Constitution of the United States -- that is, lying to
Congress about an imminent danger to the American people in order to
collect enough votes to authorize his corporate/imperial project in
Iraq. Yet, outside of a few brave remarks from Senator Robert Graham,
and the considered opinion of Watergate stool pigeon John W. Dean,
almost nobody dares speak the "I" word.
Is the notion really so preposterous? Reasonable people can disagree
about the "intent" of the founding fathers when they wrote the clause
that states that "the president . . . shall be removed from office on
impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery and other high
crimes and misdemeanors."
But one doesn't need to be a constitutional scholar to interpret the
meaning of a civil covenant that leaves plenty of room for political
maneuver.
Indeed, the genius of James Madison and his colleagues lay not so much
in their literal specificity, but in their deliberate ambiguity.
Depending on the era and circumstances, one man's high crime is Bill
Clinton lying about sex with Monica Lewinsky in front of a grand jury;
another's is Richard Nixon's involvement in (and lying about) the
Watergate burglary cover up. Lately, my idea of a high crime is lying
to Congress, before the authorization for war was voted last Oct. 11
-- a time when the administration was touting an atomic bomb threat
from embargo-starved Baghdad.
Those who imagine there might be some "strict constructionist" guide
to launching an impeachment should consider Alexander Hamilton's
elucidation of the Senate's purview in the event of an impeachment
trial. "The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which
proceed from the conduct of public men, or, in other words, from the
abuse or violation of some public trust," he wrote. "They are of a
nature which may with particular propriety be denominated POLITICAL,
as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society
itself."
Can there be any greater violation of the public trust than to bear
false witness to the people's representatives in pursuit of short-term
political gain? Can there be injuries more immediate to society than
to send American citizens to their death on a fraudulent pretext? With
each shooting of a U.S. soldier in Iraq, the case for impeachment
grows stronger.
Until now, most critics of the administration have focused on the
President's alleged lie in his January 28th State of the Union address
about Iraq's phantom uranium purchases from Niger. Distracted by the
current furor over who in the administration leaked the name of Joseph
Wilson's CIA-employed wife, the attack dogs are forgetting an
important point -- that lying after Oct. 11, the day the Senate passed
the war bill -- isn't as politically (or, I suspect, legally)
significant as lying before the vote, when the rush to war could have
been halted. Anyway, Mr. Bush's alibi -- that the British were the
source on Niger "yellowcake" -- is tough to get around, since Tony
Blair seems mafia-like in his devotion to lying to protect his friend
George Bush.
But look at what Mr. Bush was saying on Sept. 7, 2002 when he appeared
at a press conference with Mr. Blair at Camp David. The British Prime
Minister had just invoked "the threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons
of mass destruction, chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons
capability," and added for emphasis "that threat is real." And then,
significantly: "We only need to look at the report from the
International Atomic [Energy] Agency this morning showing what has
been going on at the former nuclear weapons sites to realize that."
Mr. Bush took the ball from Mr. Blair and ran for darkness. In
response to the question, "Can you tell us what conclusive evidence of
any nuclear -- new evidence you have of nuclear weapons capabilities
of Saddam Hussein, Mr. Bush replied, "We just heard the Prime Minister
talk about the new report. I would remind you that when the inspectors
first went into Iraq and were denied -- finally denied access, a
report came out of the Atomic -- the IAEA that they were six months
away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we
need."
Well, there wasn't any new report from the IAEA. Nor had there ever
been one specifying a timetable for Iraq's acquisition of an atom
bomb. A prosecutor could do a lot with that.
And 9/7 was only the start. By the time the congressional resolution
was drafted and ready for a vote, Mr. Bush, either personally or
through his surrogates, had asserted an al-Qaeda connection with
Saddam that didn't exist, and had larded his first lie about the "six
months away" menace with all sorts of other A-bomb claptrap, my
personal favorite being the attempted purchase of "high-grade"
aluminum tubes (they were intended for conventional rockets).
These are big lies. And if Mr. Bush suborned his henchmen to lie on
his behalf, as Richard Nixon did in Watergate, it would seem an
equally grave crime against the Constitution.
I'm sorry that Senator Graham is such a realist. "The fact is. . .Tom
DeLay and the other [Republican] leadership of the House are not going
to impeach George W. Bush," Mr. Graham told a TV interviewer in
July.But not all the Republican members of the House are so cynical,
nor so politically self-destructive. If Mr. Bush continues to fall in
the polls, GIs keep dying, and l'affaire Wilson leads to the
appointment of a special counsel, the rodents might start fleeing the
sinking ship, seeking cover in the vagaries of Article II, Section IV.
Then Mr. Bush's question, "What more evidence do we need?" might
finally take on the significance it deserves.
.
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| User: "starwars" |
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| Title: Re: Impeach Bush Now |
10 Oct 2003 03:00:26 PM |
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In article <cvudov45562jf813f2teojn4b7cbcisnfs@4ax.com>
unknown <unknown@unknown.org> wrote:
Published on Thursday, October 9, 2003 by the Globe & Mail/Canada
Impeach Bush Now
Keep crying, loser.
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| User: "R West" |
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| Title: Re: Impeach Bush Now |
10 Oct 2003 05:55:33 PM |
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starwars <nobody@tatooine.homelinux.net> wrote in
news:7adb32c462fcc50732153f2de89557e0@tatooine.homelinux.net:
In article <cvudov45562jf813f2teojn4b7cbcisnfs@4ax.com>
unknown <unknown@unknown.org> wrote:
Published on Thursday, October 9, 2003 by the Globe & Mail/Canada
Impeach Bush Now
Keep crying, loser.
We are all the loser here. Wait until you get the tab for this *****.
Regards,
R West
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