Elizabeth Holtzman: An Analysis of Kucinich's Impeachment Case Against Bush

[babylonsister]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/34027

An Analysis of Kucinich's Impeachment Case Against Bush
Submitted by davidswanson on Thu, 2008-06-12 12:17.

By Elizabeth Holtzman, Huffington Post



Some will want to dismiss Rep. Dennis Kucinich's introduction of articles of impeachment against President Bush as quixotic, but it's not. Twenty House Republicans joined nearly all House Democrats in voting to send the articles to the Judiciary Committee. This comes on the heels of the Senate Intelligence Committee's 107-page report confirming, with the vote of two Republican Senators, that President Bush abused his office by deceiving Congress and the American people into the Iraq war. Although Kucinich's articles included other impeachment grounds as well, deception about the war is arguably the most serious one.

We have long known that the reasons President Bush and his team gave for going to war in Iraq were false. Many have contended that the president deliberately misled the nation into war. Scott McClellan, for example, with his insider's perspective, says in his new book that the president used exaggerations and misleading statements to win public and Congressional support for going to war in Iraq. Now we have important corroboration of such claims: the Senate Intelligence Report has made it official in a way that Congress will find hard to ignore.

The report describes a drum roll of groundless statements by the president, the vice president and other top officials. While it does not use the word "lie," it offers plenty of evidence that we were "led to war based on false pretences," to quote Committee chair Senator Rockefeller. The report shows there was no intelligence to back up the President's contention that Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were in cahoots, or his claim that Saddam would give WMD to terrorists, much less the Vice President's fantasy that American soldiers would be welcomed as liberators.

Now that these are official findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the question is, what do we do about it? Just wring our hands? Simply hope for change in the November elections? Or does the Constitution now require something more of us?

snip//

Yes, even at the end of their terms, President Bush and Vice President Cheney can still be impeached and removed from office. There might just be sufficient time to finish impeachment before they leave office, and technically they could be impeached even after that. This administration can still be held accountable for the consequences of the unnecessary Iraq War and other grave abuses. The American people still have a chance to witness the Constitution in action as it appropriately limits the powers of this president, preventing further abuses by him (such as bombing Iran without approval of Congress) or by his successors.

This would be an important lesson in democracy. We last learned it 34 years ago during the Nixon impeachment process, which reminded Americans how the Constitution works. But our collective memory of those far-off events may have faded, especially after the past eight years of President Bush asserting extreme claims for presidential power, coupled with the failure of Congress to respond forcefully. As a result, as a nation we may have a diminished level of constitutional literacy compared to 1974. It's time to reinvigorate that literacy. We need to understand once again that acquiescing in this president seriously deceiving us into war means ignoring what the Constitution says, and jeopardizing our democracy.

[groovedaddy]

1. The watergate investigations also lead to the Church Committee

hearings on the CIA/FBI/NSA abuses of the constitution and the eventual enactment of FISA as a check on these abuses.

[havocmom]

2. Republicans on the Hill, faced with the likelihood of a DEM President soon,

may well be easier to convince that restoring balance, oversight, and cutting back the Imperial Presidency trends bush/cheney have usurped is a good idea.

Easier to get a conviction with more GOP Hill Squatters looking at the hard political realities of today?

[ellenfl]

7. the republicons certainly won't want a dem to have those powers! eom

[Dhalgren]

3. We have to stop viewing the upholding of our Constitution

through a purely political lens. At some point we have to start upholding our Constitution without regard to the short-term politics, but with regard for the long-term health of our democracy; for our children's sake and their children's. This is a real deal breaker for me. If the Democratic Party, and all of its "leadership", do not pursue EVERY member of the Bush regime who has violate the law or the Constitution, then they deserve no support and no votes. They are either part of the solution or they are part of the problem - and with this issue they have an opportunity to show which they are...

[groovedaddy]

5. Amen! You are absolutely right. n.t

[biermeister]

6. I agree 100%!! k&r

[grasswire]

11. well said (eom)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. For those who don't know, Elizabeth Holtzman was one of the sharpest members of

the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate hearings in 1973.

She later ran and was nominated for Senator from New York, but the incumbent Dem Senator, Jacob Javits, who was dying of ALS, ran as an independent after not getting the endorsement and took away enough votes from Holtzman to put Alphonse D'Amato in office. :grr:

[King Bacon Fat]

8. Javits was a Republican!

But a liberal Republican, a Republican with a brain.

He ran as the Liberal Party's candidate.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. You're right

I did remember that Holtzman lost because Javits siphoned off just enough votes to put D'Amato in office.

[Raster]

10. But...but...but...we can't impeach because it's not a good political move....

we might piss off voters... we might lose an election... our complicity and collaboration might come to light and middle America may come to realize just what a bunch of crooks we really are.

Cowards, collaborators and accomplices: the Congress of the United States.

[Don Davis]

12. McClellan Book Confirms Bushies Both ‘Worse Than,’ and ‘Not As Good As,’ Watergate

http://satiricalpolitical.com/?p=1848