Impeachment: It Still Matters

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/17/9672/

Impeachment: It Still Matters
The Brattleboro Reformer

snip//

In an interview with Harpers magazine in 2005, Conyers was asked why impeachment was important.

“To take away the excuse that we didn’t know,” Conyers said at the time. “So that two or four or 10 years from now, if somebody should ask, ‘Where were you, Conyers, and where was the United States Congress?’ when the Bush administration declared the Constitution inoperative and revoked the license of parliamentary government, none of the company now present can plead ignorance or temporary insanity, can say that ’somehow it escaped our notice’ that the President was setting himself up as a supreme leader exempt from the rule of law.”

snip//

The evidence continues to accumulate of the lies that were told to justify an invasion of Iraq, of the war crimes and constitutional abuses committed in the course of the so-called war on terror, of the subversion of the Constitution by the Bush administration in so many different ways.

Yet Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership in Congress want no part of impeachment. They still think impeachment is a distraction. They still think it is unnecessary, and could hurt the party’s chances in November. They still think that it’s better to run out the clock and let the Bush administration slink out of town.

We disagree. What Conyers said in 2005, when he was powerless to act upon his words, still holds true today, when he finally has the power to start the impeachment process.

This is about history, the historical record and ensuring the truth is known. This is about putting the blame of this nation’s worst foreign policy disaster solely on the shoulders of the president who created it. This is about letting future presidents know that the rule of law still means something and that the Constitution applies to everyone.

This is not about vindictiveness and partisan politics. The acts committed by the Bush administration rise to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” that our founders said justifies the impeachment of public officials. And if the Democrats refuse to act upon the articles of impeachment, they are no better than the administration in upholding their oaths of office. They are co-conspirators, and history will not judge them kindly for putting politics above the Constitution.

[niyad]

1. from a bumper sticker seen yesterday in this VERY red county:

impeach bush. torture cheney

[Occam Bandage]

2. 67: It isn't getting any smaller.