The 'I' word - Boston Globe Editorial

[kpete]

The 'I' word
Why a growing grassroots movement on the left wants to impeach the president -- and why Democrats in Washington don't even want to talk about it.
By Drake Bennett | June 24, 2007

FOR ELIZABETH HOLTZMAN it was the discovery, in late 2005, that the Bush administration had been monitoring Americans' phone and email conversations without warrants that convinced her that the President shouldn't be allowed to serve out the remainder of his term.

....................

Today Holtzman is one of the leading voices in a small but energetic movement seeking to impeach not only President Bush but his vice president, Dick Cheney. In March, the Massachusetts Democratic Party joined 13 others, in states like California, Nevada, and New Hampshire, in passing a resolution in support of impeachment. The legislatures of nearly 80 towns and cities (most in Massachusetts, Vermont, and California) have passed similar resolutions, and state legislators in 11 states have introduced impeachment bills.

......................

To impeachment's champions, however, these tactical arguments are worth little. What's at stake, they argue, is the Constitution itself. "I'd like to see (Bush and Cheney) tried and convicted and put behind bars," says Washington's David Swanson, co-founder of After Downing Street, an organization dedicated to doing just that. "That would be a satisfactory outcome. Not because I dislike them or think they're unpleasant people, but I don't want future presidents to think they can do these things."

..............

But the brief the would-be impeachers bring against Bush and Cheney is more sweeping than the 1973 case against Nixon. A list of impeachable offenses listed on After Downing Street's website includes the President's "allowing his administration to condone torture," threatening the use of force against Iran, his use of presidential signing statements to revise laws passed by Congress, the dropping of cluster bombs in Iraq, and Bush's failure to take reasonable steps to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina.


more at:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/06/23/the_i_word/

[struggle4progress]

1. It's good to see ANY discussion of this at all in the media

[AndyTiedye]

2. Time To Open a Big Can of IMPEACH!

[Ghost in the Machine]

5. I'm already planning to serve an imPEACHment Cobbler at my restaurant

if they ever initiate impeachment proceedings...

[AndyTiedye]

9. Why Wait? Do It Now! You'd Probably Sell A Lot of Them!

[AndyTiedye]

10. Thinking of Printing Up some more "IM" Stickers and Going to the Supermarket

:evilgrin:

[Ghost in the Machine]

13. Heh! Good idea! n/t

[Breeze54]

7. I love it!

;)

[Breeze54]

3. We think alike!!

;)

:thumbsup:

:kick: & R'd!

[EFerrari]

4. I can't even keep up with rec'ing all these impeachment threads.

:toast:

[supernova]

6. We should continue

to do exactly what we are doing... talking about impeachement. The public discourse has to have time to catch up with us. Most of the public still isn't familiar with all of the topics we have been discussing in the blogosphere since 9/11.

Let's keep talking about it and let it circulate in the public. We can play good cop/bad cop with the Speaker.

[OzarkDem]

8. and Beltway Dem "strategists" disagree

They think it would be a distraction and slow down the legislative agenda? How is it possible to do that?

Dems are getting precious little accomplished in Congress for fear of angering Bush and the GOP. If the GOP and Bush are still running the show in Congress, whats the harm in proceeding with impeachment? None.

Our Dem leaders in Congress are lily livered idiots.

[Swamp Rat]

11. IMPEACH!!

[Hissyspit]

12. "Polls show the public doesn't think impeachment should be a priority" WHAT POLLS??

What the hell is he talking about?

[DKRC]

14. Heard a woman on Thom Hartmann's show say the same thing!

They're not talking to me or anyone I know if they're actually taking polls. I think they're desperately trying to keep the lid on this and it pisses me off everytime I hear it.

[Prophet 451]

15. Not all of those are impeachable

The impeachment clause specifically says "high crimes and misdemenours". While the bar was set very low for Clinton, if we want this to stick, it needs to be serious charges. Therefore, the following needs to go:
- the stuff involving NOLA and Katrina (incompetance, even egregious incompetance, is not a crime)
- the charge of threatening force against Iran (sabre-rattling is not a crime and other presidents have done similar things)

However, that still leaves:
- Warantless wiretapping
- Abuse of signing statements
- Contempt of Congress (this was one of the charges against Nixon)
- Torture (a war crime)
- Launching a war of conquest
- Ignoring subpoenas (that one's a biggie)
- Outing a covert agent (not technically treason but certainly harmful to national security)
- Suspending habeus corpus
- Asserting "unitary executive theory" to essentially remove both himself and Cheney from any oversight whatsoever (that one's current, huge and would be grounds for impeachment and criminal charges all by itself)
- Possibly electoral fraud (that one would need some more investigation to make it stand up).

[Bluebear]

16. RE: "the stuff involving NOLA and Katrina"

The 'stuff' cannot be dismissed as mere incompetence. Criminal negligence comes to mind.

[Prophet 451]

17. Excuse the "stuff" remark

It was just easier than trying to renumerate the various cock-ups involved.

If it rises to the level of criminal negligence, then obviously that would be an impeachable offence. To be honest, I don't know because I haven't looked at it that closely (the Bush admin puts out so many fuck-ups, scandals and outrages, it's impossible to keep up with all of them).

[Bluebear]

18. A couple good briefs on Katrina, Bush and negligence . . .

"Criminal Negligence and Katrina" by Larry Johnson

The provocative title is intentional. Why did the Bush Administration fail to act according to the National Response Plan they created in December of 2004 to deal with an incident like Katrina?

What do you do when the words on the paper don't match the action in the field? People are dying today in New Orleans because of the failure to provide immediate aid are dead in part because of the negligence of Michael Chertoff. That is a harsh judgment, but if you will take time to read the National Response Plan that was signed into effect in December of 2004 there is no other reasonable conclusion.

The current effort by the Bush Administration to blame the victims in Louisiana and Mississippi is bad enough, but they are in big trouble once Americans take the time to understand that they the Administration ignored it's own plan for dealing with a threat like Katrina. Why did they fail to implement the plan until it was too late to save lives along the Gulf Coast?

Don't take my word for it, read the plan yourself. You can download it at http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf

================

“I have kind a sinking feeling in my gut right now… You know, from this tape it looks like everybody was fully aware.” New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin

It is clear now that Michael Chertoff and George Bush can be directly implicated in the deaths of the 1,300 Americans who died in Hurricane Katrina. The newly released video from the Associated Press proves beyond a reasonable doubt that they were adequately warned of the gravity of the approaching storm and the risks it posed to people of New Orleans. The only question now is whether the charges should be criminal negligence or manslaughter. We leave that to the attorneys.

As the video shows both Bush and his Homeland Security chief were told by federal disaster officials in unambiguous language “that the storm could breach levees and overwhelm rescuers”.

What could be clearer than that?

Bush’s comments three days later that, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees”, was obviously meant to mislead the public and redirect the blame away from himself.

For some unknown reason, Bush and his lieutenants ignored the warnings of the Hurricane experts and stubbornly refused to take timely action…


http://www.gnn.tv/forum/thread.php?id=13543

[Prophet 451]

19. Cheers n/t

[ThomWV]

21. All it takes is 1. How many blowjobs did they impeach Clinton for?

[Prophet 451]

22. Yeah, but

They impeached over a trifling incident that really should have been dismissed as a character flaw and Clinton won through (rightfully, in his case). If we want these to stick, the charges and evidence need to be overwhelming.

[treestar]

23. Your second list is better

It ought to be about the blatant claims to be above the law.

[zippy890]

20. 'High Crimes and Misdemeanors' abound

IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY

:dem: