Editorial: Hey Bully Boy, what's that smell?

What's that smell?

There's an odor about the Bully Boy these days, a really foul odor.

From Democracy Now!:

Bush Approval Rating on Iraq, Presidency At All-Time Low
In other news, a new CBS News poll has found the number of Americans who approve of President Bush's overall job performance and his handling of the Iraq war has fallen to an all-time low. 34 percent of Americans give the President a favorable job approval rating, while even less -- 30 percent -- approve of the President's handling of the Iraq war. Meanwhile, less than a third of Americans believe President Bush has adequately responded to the needs of victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Ah yes, the smell of failure. The curtain's been pulled back on the once great and mighty Oz.
But it's more than that. The odor's much more than that.

From Ken Werner's "Resolution to Impeach Bush-Cheney Passes 7-3" (BeyondChron.org):

On Tuesday, February 28, 2006, the City and County of San Francisco became the first large municipality to call for the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, by a 7-3 vote. Supervisors Sean Elsbernd, Michela Alioto-Pier, and Sophie Maxwell cast the dissenting votes (Sup. Jake McGoldrick was absent for the vote). Sup. Chris Daly commenced his introduction of Agenda Item 27 with "I initially thought this ... would be a noncontroversial piece of legislation. Perhaps it still is, maybe not-a-unanimous-vote piece of legislation. But if you remember when we took our oath of office we swore to uphold the Constitution."
Sup. Daly again called attention to the strongest argument for impeachment, Bush lying to the American people about the reason for preemptively attacking Iraq based on forged documents regarding Saddam Hussein's "alleged" intent to purchase yellowcake from Niger: "Bush knowingly included false and misleading evidence in his January 2003 State of the Union Address stating Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Niger to build nuclear weapons." Sup. Daly also pointed to the Bush administration's failure to respond to the imminent disaster posed by Hurricane Katrina and asked the other supervisors to imagine if something like that happened in San Francisco where "primarily African-American people, some of whom were sick, elderly, disabled [were] left there basically for five days to die."
As he stated last week, Sup. Daly also returned to the argument regarding the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo: "If you look at the scandals of the sanctioned torture at the Abu Ghraib prison facility and at Guantanamo Bay, [it is a] clear violation of the Geneva Convention in terms of treatment of prisoners."

"Oh," you say, "that's just San Francisco." (Tracy Schmitt, who knew you were one of our readers.) But it's not just San Francisco. (California's Arcata and Santa Cruz had already passed similar measures.) And it's not just California. Last Tuesday, it took strong root elsewhere. From Democracy Now!:


Five Vermont Towns Back Impeachment of Bush
In Vermont, five towns have approved measures calling for the impeachment of President Bush. The votes come at a time when the talk of impeachment is increasing. On Monday the Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy article pointing out how polls show there is greater support among the public for the impeachment of President Bush than there ever was for President Clinton. In 1998, polls showed 27 percent of the country backed the impeachment of Clinton if he lied about having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Meanwhile a recent Zogby poll showed 51 percent of the country said Congress should consider impeaching Bush if he didn't tell truth about the reasons for the Iraq war.

If he tries an illegal overreach, you must impeach?

Sounds good to us.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has just released Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush (which we note here this edition). In January, Elizabeth Holtzman penned The Nation cover story "The Impeachment of George W. Bush." February saw the publication of Lewis Lapham's Harper's Magazine cover story "The Case For Impeachment" and last week Matthew Rothschild offer The Progressive's Matthew Rothschild's "Grounds for Impeachment." Rothschild has written and spoken about impeachment of the Bully Boy prior to this article. We're not attempting to portray him as just discovering the issue. We are noting the gathering effect this is having.

It's just the coproate press that doesn't seem to notice (or care?). One of the exceptions, as Democracy Now! noted last week, has been The Wall Street Journal which addressed it in terms of there being more public support for impeaching the Bully Boy then there ever was for impeaching Bill Clinton. Nancy Pelosi (and others) can counsel that we should just focus on the 2006 elections. Dianne Feinstein can offer little quips about what, in San Francisco, supervisors should be focused on. (Do you really want to go there Dianne? Do you really want people, for instance, to examine your own public actions and statements as supervisor following the murder of Harvey Milk? We didn't think so.)

But if you believe that the warrantless spying on Americans was illegal (as most Constitutional scholars believe it was), then you do have to take the issue seriously. You can't just decide, "I'll focus on the 2006 elections." That's not how you respond in a democracy. That's not the way the Constitution reads.

And unless you're John McCain, acting the fool (well . . . maybe not acting), and spouting off lines like "Anybody who says the president of the United States is lying about weapons of mass destruction is lying" you're probably among the numbers that wonder if Bully Boy lied or that don't wonder because you know he did.

On top of the disclosures of "fixed" intel in the Downing Street Memos comes this:

Bush Was Given Intelligence Discrediting Stated Reasons for Invasion
In other news, investigative journalist Murray Waas is reporting President Bush was personally delivered intelligence reports before the Iraq war that cast doubt on his administration's stated reasons for launching an invasion. One report, delivered in January 2003, said Saddam Hussein was highly unlikely to attack the United States unless "ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime." Another intelligence report dated October 2002 said both the Energy Department and the State Department's intelligence bureau had concluded Saddam Hussein's attempts to purchase aluminum tubes were "intended for conventional weapons." Waas writes that the disclosure is "the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, [Vice President Dick] Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither the president nor the vice president told the public about the disagreement among the agencies."

Is lying a nation into war something you can stay silent on? If you stay silent, you're tolerating it and okaying it. Or, as Matthew Rothschild stated last Tuesday on KPFA's The Morning Show:

I think it's important for us to keep pressing the case for impeachment . . . because if we don't, what essentially that we're saying is that it's okay for Bush to be doing what he's been doing, for him to be violating these laws. And it sets the precedent for the next person to come in and say, "I can decide what laws I want to obey and which ones I don't. The last guy did it."

Which may be why John Conyers bill calling for an exploration into the issue of impeachment has now been signed by thirty House members:

The current 30 total co-sponsors are Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA), Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA), Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO), Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA), Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN), Rep. John Olver (D-MA), Rep. Major Owens (D-NY), Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ), Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), Rep. Martin Sabo (D-MN), Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Rep. Fortney Pete Stark (D-CA), Rep. John Tierney (D-MA), Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).

There's a very foul odor wafting off the Bully Boy. We hope it's the smell of impeachment.


[This editorial was written by:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim;
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude;
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man;
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review;
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills);
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix;
Mike of Mikey Likes It!;
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz;
and Wally of The Daily Jot.]