JOHN NICHOLS: It's time to impeach Bush, Cheney and the public knows it

[babylonsister]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/325316_impeach29.html?source=rss

It's time to impeach Bush, Cheney and the public knows it

JOHN NICHOLS
GUEST COLUMNIST

Recently the Bill Moyers Journal on PBS devoted a full hour to the subject of impeaching George W. Bush and Dick Cheney -- the first such attention by a national network.

The remarkable thing about the response was not its size or intensity. After visiting more than a dozen states to address the issue, I have come to understand the depth of the public's desire for accountability.

But it was only after Moyers invited conservative legal scholar Bruce Fein and me to lay out not merely the specific grounds for impeachment but the historical rationale for applying the "heroic medicine" -- the Founders' preferred cure for a constitutional crisis -- that I fully understood the extent to which Americans recognize that this is about a lot more than the high crimes and misdemeanors of a regal president and his monarchical vice president.

The stakes are enormous: If Bush and Cheney are not held accountable, this administration will hand off to its successors a toolbox of powers greater than any executive has ever held -- more authority, concentrated in fewer hands, than the Founders could have conceived or would have allowed.

snip//

Pelosi should step out of the way and let her colleagues restore the rule of law. More than a dozen have shown their desire to do so by co-sponsoring Rep. Dennis Kucinich's articles of impeachment against Cheney.

Clearly, impeachment is not just around the corner; even Sen. Russ Feingold's "relatively modest response" to the crisis -- censure resolutions against Bush and Cheney --faces an uphill struggle. At this late stage, it will be difficult to turn the need for accountability into action on Capitol Hill. But even an impeachment effort that falls short lays down a historical marker; it tells Bush and Cheney and all those who succeed them that an executive branch that imagines itself superior to Congress and the rule of law will arouse popular fury.

Bush, it is said, has begun to worry about his legacy. The rest of us should, too. No matter how unsuccessful we may think his tenure has been, it will leave a mark on the republic. If that mark is of a presidency without limit or accountability, Bush and Cheney will have changed the country far more fundamentally than any of their predecessors.


John Nichols is chief Washington correspondent for The Nation. Reprinted with permission from the Aug. 13-20 issue of The Nation (www.TheNation.com)

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Lead, follow, or get out of the way!

No administration in history was more deserving of impeachment than the junta currently in power. From all indications, impeachment sounds like a helluva good idea to a large segment of the American public, and future generations will hold the 110th Congress in much higher esteem than if they do nothing.

[flyarm]

2. K&R..impeach now!! now is not soon enough!! ..thx!! eom

[Disturbed]

4. Congress will be on vacation until Sept.

I am somewhat worried about what will happen in the meantime.

Will Turkey attack in Iraq?

Will the US attack inside of Pakistan?

Will there be a major Terrorist Attack within the USA?

[Dinger]

6. What About A Special Session Of Congress?

Could that or could that not shorten this vacation bullshit ?

[mmonk]

3. The last line he said in that piece sums it up and why excuses

are not worthy of mention at this point. The longer we wait, the more the chance the damage will be set if it isn't done by sometime in 08.

[Dinger]

5. True Story

Right after the giggling murderer was given the WH by the felonious five, I went to a fortune teller. It was at a fair here in Wisconsin. I was with my mom. We both did it on kind of a whim. The fortune teller said that * would not finish his term. Now, whatever that means is anyone's guess. This is not some tinfoil shit, and I'm not making it up. It was the one time I ever visited a fortune teller. Guess we'll know in about a year and a half she was right.

[Senator]

7. "The Public Knows" -- There's No Need to "Teach" Them Anything

This is a crucial point to keep making.

One of the failures of our "reality/knowledge based" community on the left -- particularly among the politicians -- is the mindset that we can "teach our way" to victory/resolution/understanding. That if just enough information is "uncovered" that our job is done and the great public/electorate will then, finally, rise up to make things happen.

It simply has never been the case. People get their own information and people act on very little information, but those who "needed convincing" about the necessity of dumping bushcheney have long since turned against them. The time for "case making" and pleading with the Euphemedia to "report what on we insiders know" is long past.

If the DC Dems finally say "Impeach!," the response from the public will not be "How Come?"

Rather, it will be "How Come It Took So Long?"

--

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. It's been time a while ago

the question will be how long will it take our elites to ahem, wake up?