Impeachment

Last week, the Green Party of the United States announced, "By refusing to impeach, Democrats acquiesce to Bush-Cheney high crimes and misdemeanors, say Greens. Greens criticize Congress's silence on Bush executive order criminalizing antiwar protest and demand repeal of the order."



Acquiesce? Best example of that took place on Friday, in a debate Democracy Now! aired between Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan and centrist and Democratic bad-strategist Dan Gerstein. In one howler after another Gerstein revealed himself to be a small-time political operator who can't think big and a historical moron. A prime example of the latter occurred when Amy Goodman asked him if he thought "Democrats should have tried to impeach Nixon?"



"Yes, absolutely," Gerstein responded. "And I think there was clearly a much more compelling case that Richard Nixon committed high crimes and misdemeanors on the public record, (a); (b), the American people believed it, which is not an insignificant part, because no matter what the evidence is, this is a political process, as Cindy knows."





The non-Watergate expert also stated that the crimes "the impeachment movement have assumed shows impeachable offenses was presented to the American people before the 2004 election, and they still reelected George Bush."



How stupid is Gerstein or is he trying to please his bosses at Politico, the right wing trash dump made up of cry babies who couldn't make a dent at The Washington Post? Here's reality for Gerstein, Watergate was exposed to voters by The Washington Post before the 1972 election. Gerstein's a gas bag given a key board who now fancies himself a journalist but as C.I. pointed out, "I haven't laughed so hard at an idiot since a female reporter attempted to write a crime story screenplay and I told her she'd left out any reference to the background of the lead character, a journalist, and had refused to show her in the work setting. Where's the conversation about the power of the press? Does she even know about journalism? You'd think she'd mention Woodward and Bernstein?" The woman responded, "Who?" (Proving you don't have to be a gas bag to be an idiot.)



Gernstein made no coherent argument, choosing instead to shoot scattershot throughout. However, he is completely off base regarding Watergate and efforts to impeach Nixon. Gernstein maintains that Bully Boy's crimes were known of (he doesn't call them "crimes") before the 2004 election so they no longer matter. Watergate was known before the 1972 election. Had Democrats in the House listened to the likes of Gernstein then, they might have decided to play along and Nixon might have left office at the end of his term to a hero's parade.



What built the public pressure against Nixon? Don't undercount the illegal war and do not devalue the press and Congressional investigations. Gernstein, good little centrist that he is, claims he has spoken to four pollsters and two were Democrats and two were Republican (he apparently knows no non-partisans) and they tell him impeachment is a no-go as well.



The investigation into Watergate revealed the enemies list and a host of unconstitutional activities. Before the process could take place with Bully Boy, Gernstein wants to argue that it shouldn't take place and wants to hide behind his faulty, ahistorical knowledge of what happened to Richard Nixon and what Nixon did to the country.



Had Democrats listened to squeamish toads like Gernstein, Nixon could have become a national treasure instead of a national disgrace and the illegal spying on American citizens could have continued. That spying came back into vogue with the Bully Boy and though a federal judge has ruled it illegal, Gernstein doesn't see any problems with that.



Speaking last Tuesday to Michael Slate on KPFK Radio Active, Ann Wright (retired State Dept., retired military) did noting that this issue is about "the future of America." What happens or does not happen will set the agenda for all future occupants of the White House, Democratic or Republican or third-party. "I don't trust the Democrats anymore than I do the Republicans," said Wright and she's exactly correct. If a message is not sent now, when it's going to be sent?



But apparently the Constitution doesn't matter as much as elections in 2008 -- at least not to Gernsetein.



William Goodman, writing in in the introduction to the Center for Constitutional Rights' Articles of Impeachment Against Geroge W. Bush, observes that the Constitution's Article II, Section 4 is in the Constitution to begin with to allow "Congress to protect itself from executive overreaching. Clearly the framers drafted this provision in the context of what they viewed as the history of their time . . . Thus, for the framers, impeachment was a key element of American democracy in that it provided an ultimate means to curtail abuses of, or unconstitutional expansion of, executive powers."



The Gernsteins, idiots that they are, like to gaze in their crystal ball and tell you that there are not 16 Republican senators who will support impeachment.



It's at these moments, when these idiots are not called out, that we groan the loudest. No Senator brings impeachment. Impeachment comes from the House of Representatives. The Senate then holds a trial and determines whether there is guilt and if removal of office is necessary. But impeachment is strictly a House issue.



Yet again, Gernstein is caught putting his Krispy Kream doughnuts before his lunch time meal. If a Democratically controlled House can't get enough votes for impeachment after all the crimes of the current administration, we have a serious problem. Reality is, if the issue is moved forward, the votes are there in the House (and no 16 Republicans are necessary for the vote, nor are any other senators). The House will make the case as to why the Bully Boy is impeached and the people will decide based on that and based upon the trial in the Senate. To argue nonsense polling (by timid creatures if Gernstein can get them on the phone) is ridiculous. (And, as David Swanson has noted, only one poll has been done nationally on the impeachment of Dick Cheney and 54% of respondents favored it.) Without any action by Congress, either house, you've already got a little over 40% of Americans supporting impeachment. That's with little mainstream media coverage. That's with the Dan Gernstein Psychic Hotline butting in to debates about the merits of impeachment to squeal about the 2008 elections.



The Gernsteins want to table impeachment (which Nancy Pelosi -- in one of her many off the rocker moments of recent times -- took "off the table") and count on the 2008 elections. As people who remember those who counted on the 2004 elections to end the illegal war we say, "Not so damn fast."



A measure exists to punish the Bully Boy for his crimes. Support exists with the Congress refusing to act. That support will only grow if Congress acts. John Conyers, whose committee could start the impeachment proceedings tomorrow, has revealed he's worried what Fox "News" might say about him. That's reality. We can't have a needed impeachment because John Conyers is concerned Fox "News" might say something mean. Gernstein wants to talk 2008 so let's apply that to 2008. If the Democrats win the White House in 2008, will their first act be to bomb Fox "News"?



We don't endorse the bombing of any news outlet (we're obviously not in the same camp as Dan Rather or Michael Gordon). But short of bombing Fox "News," exactly what changes if the Dems take back the White House?



Not a damn thing. Fox "News" still exists and if John Conyers, in a Democratically controlled Congress, if a chair of a committee and a Congress member with years (too many) of service can't stand up right now to Fox "News," exactly when are we supposed to expect to see Democrats standing up?



If you buy the line that we have to put our faith in the 2008 elections, you better be prepared for that line to be sold to you over and over. It already has been. "Elect us!" cried the Dems in 2006, "Give us control! Things will be different!" They got elected and things are different. The Democrats now co-own the illegal war, they now stand with Republican members in refusing to impeach . . . Yeah, things are really different in that the Democrats have lost their excuse for doing nothing. So after the 2008 elections, should the Dems take the White House and maintain control in both houses of Congress, expect to hear, "We've got to focus on the 2010 elections. We will address via that election."



In one of the more laughable moments of last week, John Conyers attempted to sell that though the Democrats won't impeach Bully Boy before 2008, it doesn't matter. They can impeach him after he leaves office. In an exclusive interview conducted by Global Voices for Justice and aired on Wednesday's KPFK Uprising, John Conyers admitted that the current situation was "really bad. We've never been in this situation before, with someone like that in the White House." But, explaining why impeachment wasn't necessary, Conyers went on to declare, ""You don't have to be in office to get impeached. You can get impeached for something you did in office." If Conyers was even half-way serious, might we suggest to him that if he believes Fox "News" is going to make mean jokes about him for trying to impeach Bully Boy before he leaves office, he hasn't even factored in what Fox "News" will do to him if he tries to impeach Bully Boy in 2009.



What's really happening is that the American people are getting a good sense of why the Democrats have been out of power, they refuse to act. Al Gore refused to demand a full recount in 2000, he refused to fight for the election he won. Democrats largely refused to stand up to Bully Boy in 2002 against the upcoming illegal war because they didn't want to harm their chances in the 2002 elections. John Kerry, despite promising publicly no repeats of 2000's electoral misconduct, refused to challenge the vote (even though he would admit to Mark Cripsen Miller that the count was a joke). Democrats, post 2004 election, rushed to show their support for attacks on the nation and the Constitution by refusing to fight to repeal the Patriot Act. But throughout that period, we were told, if given control of a house of Congress in 2006, they would have investigative power, they would seize power, they would lead.



What we've seen is a few show hearings. We've yet to see any follow up no matter how outrageous the revelations have been. Pat Tillman's death, the revelations last week, are yet another prime example. Congress may get some credit for exposing the facts but they didn't do anything with it. Have we even seen Congress pass any sort of law? No. Alberto Gonzales is a serial criminal and hearings show us that repeatedly but where's the Congressional action?



The do-nothing Dems think they can do nothing and win even more control in 2008. They thought they could do that with John Kerry's 2004 campaign as well. Kerry was riding an all time high after announcing John Edwards as his running mate. The campaign got some of their best press during that time, The New York Times even ran a photo of the couples and the Edwards' young children on the front page. High in the polls, they decided not to make any bold moves because they were ahead! So they did nothing, over and over, and their lead fell and fell.



That's what little punks like Dan Gernstein keep preaching to the Democrats: "Don't do anything to upset your chances of winning." How that translates to the American people is seeing a party that does nothing, in power or out.



Though the Democratic Party does nothing to inspire working class people, they do vote for the party and it's hard for a lot of them. They have jobs, they have kids, they may have trouble getting to the polling station. But they're expected to show up and use their vote . . . for a party that repeatedly refuses to do anything.



In a New York Times Sunday Magazine cover story, Matt Bai addressed some of the problems with the Kerry campaign ("Kerry's Undeclared War," October 10, 2004, pp 38 -45, 52, 68-70). Bai noted that while "liberal think-tanks" were "challenging some of Bush's most basic assumptions about the post-9/11 world -- including, most provocatively, the very idea that we are, in fact, in a war" (p. 41), Kerry was eager to agree with Bully Boy's points but argue the "smarter" war. Kerry also didn't define the illegal war as illegal:



Kerry has argued that Bush's war in Iraq is a disaster, that troops should be brought home before the end of the next presidential term and that the Iraq war is a 'profound diversion' from the war on terror and the real showdown with Al Qaeda.



Real showdown? Was he trying to be the president or the world's gun slinger? At best, what Kerry offered, was that by 2008 US troops might be out of Iraq. Without him in the White House, we already have that possibility. And, it should be noted, Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign is making the same prolonged promise -- to put it mildly -- elect her and the troops might be out of Iraq by the end of her first term. Elect her to two terms and Americans might even get health care. Elect her to three terms, we hear, and she'll give 12 free CDs for the price of one via a BMG mailing.



In fact, the BMG scam is the perfect model. With one vote, you're guaranteed that, if elected, Dems will do this and that. But each month, you keep getting shipments you never would have requested and the things you want are never offered.



John Conyers promises a lot when he's away from the Hill and then he and his assistants deny it. One recent example is Conyers' promise that if three more members of the House signed on to impeachment, he would introduce an impeachment resolution. As Stuart Hutchison (AfterDowningStreet) reveals, Conyers' assistant Arif Haque has attempted to rewrite that by insisting Conyers said "three Republicans" when, in fact, Conyers said no such thing. If Conyers could show some of the bravery on the Hill that he demonstrates when off it, impeachment might get started.



The 2004 election did not decide impeachment anymore than it decided the issue of Iraq. Were that not the case, those disapproving on the illegal war would not have grown to 90%. What's also grown has been disgust with the Democratically controlled Congress and those are the numbers that pollsters should fret over. As the Dems refuse to end the illegal war, refuse to do anything, they fall and fall in the polls. The reality is that the Republicans don't need a "bounce," they just need to maintain their ratings while the Democrats continue their own free fall.



"Well, you know, like Dan said, why don't we elect a Democratic president in ’08, and they take office in ’09?" asked Cindy Sheehan before answering on the Democracy Now! debate. "Hundreds of our soldiers, thousands of Iraqi people will be killed by then. There will be the least chance for stabilization of the Middle East if we wait that long. I believe that impeachment is necessary to restore rule of law to this country, but to also in the future prevent abuses of executive power."



And that's the real issue.