| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"JHR" |
| Date: |
31 Jul 2007 08:21:07 PM |
| Object: |
Talk of Impeachment Gets Louder |
Published on Friday, July 27, 2007 by The Seattle Post Intelligencer
Talk of Impeachment Gets Louder
by Hubert G. Locke
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was quick to quash any such idea after the
Democratic sweep of Congress in last November's election. And the full-page
ads from such groups as Why We Can't Wait, calling for the impeachment of
the president, were dismissed as just more national noise from the Looney
Left - hardly to be taken seriously in the raging maelstrom of last fall's
election politics.
But that was six months ago. Now, in midsummer and on the eve of a
congressionally mandated assessment of the unending madness in Iraq, strange
and ominous signs are beginning to appear in all sorts of odd and curious
quarters, suggesting that this nation should not have to endure another 18
months of the George W. Bush administration and that, if we do, it well
might be at the nation's peril.
Much of the current dismay swirls around Vice President ***** Cheney, who is
busily ignoring rules of government he doesn't like and declaring his office
to be beyond the purview of anyone's scrutiny, while actively setting about
to demolish any government agency that has the impertinence to suggest
otherwise. Cheney's advocacy of interrogation techniques for "enemy
combatants" that many think tantamount to torture, of monitoring phone calls
and e-mails without bothering about warrants, and of ignoring the niceties
of the Geneva Conventions when dealing with terrorists has put him out of
favor even with a growing number of conservatives. Some want to jettison him
as a hopeless drag on the Republican Party's electoral prospects next year;
others are beginning to join the throng that is convinced Cheney is out of
control and needs to be dispatched for the heath and safety of the republic
itself.
According to a senior U.S. diplomat, Cheney "kind of runs by his own rules";
he should, therefore, be a prime target for indictment for having cynically
broken a whole bucket of U.S. laws. He has become an arrogant symbol for all
that is despicable about the current administration and a contemptible
example of the danger of letting such a high office fall into the hands of
an ideologue.
The media are also speaking these days of a looming constitutional crisis as
committee chairs in the House and the Senate confront a White House refusal
to provide requested documents regarding the firings of U.S. attorneys by
the Justice Department. The chairs of the two judiciary committees are
seasoned, tough-minded Democrats who are not likely to take kindly to a
flouting of their authority to look over the shoulder of the executive and
his minions as they go about managing and manipulating the affairs of
government. It's hard to imagine either of them blinking if the White House
tries to stare them down.
The last time the nation heard talk of constitutional crises was in the
tumultuous second term of the Nixon administration, when first a vice
president and then the president himself bit the dust. That's why an op-ed
piece in The New York Times last month takes on heightened significance as
yet another warning rumble about the Bush White House and its future.
The op-ed was written by Egil Krogh, a Seattle attorney whose name figured
prominently in the Nixon years when he was deputy assistant to the
president. Krogh, by his own account, wrote the memo that recommended, in
the name of "national security," the burglary in 1971 that ultimately led to
the Watergate scandal. Krogh incurred a two- to six-year sentence and spent
almost five months in prison for his efforts.
In the closing paragraph of his column, Krogh describes sending a memo to
the White House staff, shortly after the inauguration of George W. Bush,
reminding those who would serve the current president of the importance of
personal integrity and of relying on "well-established legal precedents and
not some hazy, loose notion of what such phrases as 'national security' and
'commander in chief' could be tortured into meaning." In his last sentence,
he wonders "if they received my message."
Six months ago, the mayor of Salt Lake City - a Democrat no less - appeared
before a committee of our state Senate to speak on behalf of a resolution
asking Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Bush for "heinous
human rights violations, breaches of trust, abuses of power injurious to the
nation, war crimes and misleading Congress and the American people." Six
months ago, hardly anyone took such talk seriously.
What a difference six months can make!
Hubert G. Locke, Seattle, is a retired professor and former dean of the
Daniel J. Evans Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of
Washington.
© The Seattle Post Intelligencer
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