The fascist fantasy that the Office of the President has unitary authoritarian power to violate the law and the Constitution has not only been rejected throughout the legal establishment, even the fascist promoters within the White House are abandoning the so-called "doctrine."
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/21/2011">Imperial Presidency Declared Null and Void
by Sidney Blumenthal. . .One of the key framers of the war paradigm (in which the president in his wartime capacity as commander in chief makes and enforces laws as he sees fit, overriding the constitutional system of checks and balances), who a year ago was arguing vehemently for pushing its boundaries, confesses that he has abandoned his belief in the whole doctrine, though he refuses to say so publicly. . . Yet another Bush legal official, even now at the commanding heights of power, admits that the administration’s policies are largely discredited. In its defense, he says without a hint of irony or sarcasm, "Not everything we’ve done has been illegal." He adds, "Not everything has been ultra vires" — a legal term referring to actions beyond the law.
The resistance within the administration to Bush’s torture policy, the ultimate expression of the war paradigm, has come to an end through attrition and exhaustion. . .
Bushncheney's war on the Constitution is plain for all to see. They subverted the Constitution and order Americans to engage in torture. We rarely hear the intolerable realities denied by Congressional leadership -- the opposite in fact. When Democratic Presidential candidates and Congressional leaders claim they will stop the abusive violations in 2009 if give them the WH, they are telling us that they KNOW the acts are abusive violations. A President who arrogates the power to "give back" our inviolable rights is just as bad as arrogating the power to violate them. We must ENFORCE our rights. When officials prove they could care less if they are "exposed;" when they commit their crimes in plain sight, only impeachment and removal is the ONLY means to enforce our law.
By refusing to impeach -- a moral imperative given their oath to "defend" and their knowledge of the "attack" -- Members of Congress are, in a very real way, doing more to destroy our Constitutional democracy than Bush and Cheney ever could. Violators of our laws do not destroy our legal system. Systems are driven by people. A system is destroyed when the people we charge with critical duties within the system refuse to carry out those duties.
The leadership's failure to immediately impeach, and the refusal of the Members to demand that they do so, is not grounded in the belief that the fascist fantasy of unitary power has merit. The assumption that impeachment can't/won't/shouldn't happen is an irrationally circular one that is unquestioned within the beltway. Impeachment can't/won't/shouldn't happen because "everybody knows" it is simply outside the realm of possibility. The shared delusion is nearly universal throughout the beltway and therefore unquestioned within that world (although there are signs that the reality being injected by outsiders is beginning to shake the delusion). Their
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Senator/14">false memes have been constructed to explain a belief that is axiomatic in their world.
The fear that "something bad" will happen (e.g., the backlash beast will get us) appears to have short-circuited all rational thought on the subject. Since irrational fear appears to be the driving force, "
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/pat_k/23">impeachophobia" is a useful label. Phobics are typically aware that their fear is irrational. Impeachophobics aren't. They are blind to the irrationality and destructiveness of their refusal to impeach. The bogus "reasons" they cook up to explain their self-destructive avoidance differ in character, but they are just as bogus as the "reasons" an addict cooks up to explain their self-destructive drug seeking.
Dealing with an impeachophobic is frustrating and heartbreaking. But we know impeachophobia can be cured because it is being cured. We are seeing and rank and file Democrats "out here" conquer impeachophobia and become "impeachers" everyday. Simply being exposed to impeachment advocates has been enough for some.
Whatever position or office -- member of the press, Member of Congress, staffer, activist, citizen -- impeachophobes are all just people and people can be reached.For more on the subject, see
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/pat_k/23">Impeachophobia.
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