Monday, December 8, 2008

About "The Case for Impeachment"
Here are some excerpts from the new book, The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office, written by Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky, released May 1, 2006 by St. Martin's Press, and now available in paperback:
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Contents
I Why Impeachment?
II An Agenda of Deceit and a Case of Overreaching
III The Origins of Impeachment
IV Impeachment, Trial and Removal
V Deadly Lies and an Illegal War
VI Dark Questions About a Dark Day
VII Taking Liberties
VIII Vengeance and Betrayal
IX Breaking Things: Bush's Way of War
X Abuse of Power, Criminal Negligence, and Other Crimes
XI Impeaching Other Bush Administration Officials
Epilogue
Appendices: Downing Street Memo, Niger Forgeries, Taguba Report, International Committee of the Red Cross Report, FBI Memo Regarding Torture at Guantanamo, Gonzales Memo on Torture,Federal Indictment of Libby, Rumsfeld Memo on Torture
Preface
We are not writing this book under any illusion that the House Republicans will pass a bill of impeachment, or even, probably, that the current Congress will see a bill of impeachment filed by a House Democrat. The Republican majority in the lower house is committed to protecting the president from impeachment, even though some of its own members have condemned his actions as unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party leadership, both at the top of the party and in the Congress, is so timid (and often so complicit in some of the president's worst crimes such as the war, the domestic spying, and undermining of civil liberties), that little action can be expected from that quarter either. We do believe, however, that the American public is way ahead of the Congress. We the People have become increasingly angry at Bush's imperious and unconstitutional behavior. As of the Ides of March 2006, a scant one-third of us still backed Bush, while other polls showed a majority of us thinking he should be removed from office both for his spying authorization and for his lying the nation into war.
The authors believe that just as the president's many impeachable crimes are political in nature, they demand a political response. What is required is that the public rise up this November, throw off years of lethargy and cynicism, and elect to Congress representatives who are committed to standing up for the Constitution, for the tradition of three co-equal branches of government, and for the civil liberties that hundreds of thousands of Americans have died defending...
Chapter V: Deadly Lies and an Illegal War
Within hours of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Bush administration began behind-the-scenes planning to launch a war against Iraq. Their true objective had nothing to do with tracking down and killing the terrorists responsible for the attacks; instead it was aimed at "regime change"--the overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein.
...As despicable and devious as Bush's lying was before the war, and as terrible as have been the consequences of those lies, this was not the only, or perhaps even the most egregious, of the presidential crimes relating to the Iraq War. The very act of invading Iraq itself takes that honor. For in deciding to invade Iraq in March 2003, the president may well have engaged in a constitutional abuse of power and a violation of the War Powers Act of 1993.
Chapter VI: Dark Questions About a Dark Day
The mounting doubts and growing questions about the veracity of administration explanations concerning what was known and what was done leading up to, during, and after the 9/11 attacks on the United States, and the growing disenchantment with the wars started in retaliation for those attacks, have created a new crisis of legitimacy for the American government. This kind of crisis, which resembles the one that followed the Kennedy assassination and the subsequent Warren Commission Report (another commission whose conclusions were widely disputed, disbelieved and discredited), breeds a cynicism about American government that is itself dangerous to democracy.
....The proper solution is an aggressive demand for honest answers from the White House and key federal agencies--the kind of demand that could probably only be made by a House Judiciary Committee impeachment inquiry. For this reason, the president should be impeached on charges of obstruction of justice, violation of his oath of office, and jeopardizing national security in relation to the 9/11 attacks and the administration's response to those attacks.
Chapter VII: Taking Liberties
Combine the government's unconstitutional and draconian treatment of Arab and other Islamic immigrants and the president's assertion of both a right to spy at will on anyone, and to declare anyone to be an "enemy combatant." Now strip away all constitutional rights so that someone so accused has no recourse to the courts, and you get a terrifying picture of government run amok. This is a constitutional crisis crying out for the remedy of impeachment. Anyone who believes he or she is immune from such treatment has little understanding of history. Imagine this nightmare: An overeager NSA Internet monitor detects an unsolicited e-mail to your computer from a suspected terrorist-linked organization. This is reported to the FBI. Agents have you declared an "enemy combatant" and you're packed off, without your family's knowledge, to a military base in a remote state, or perhaps to Guantanamo. You're not permitted to call your lawyer. You're not even allowed your "one phone call." There you could sit indefinitely, without knowledge of the charge against you, while you are subjected to presidentially approved "extreme methods" of interrogation aimed at finding out who you know and how you're linked to international terror organizations.
Chapter VIII: Vengeance and Betrayal
As for President Bush, it is difficult to imagine that he is telling the truth about what he knew at the time of the [Plame] outing, and what he knows now. Novak himself, the reporter who blew Plame's cover, has said that he believes Bush knew the identity of Novak's "two senior administration official" sources from the beginning, despite the president's feigning of ignorance. "I'm confident the president knows who the source is," he told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, North Carolina, "so I say, `Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.'"
It is important to note here that Bush, in early June 2004, acknowledged that he had consulted with a criminal attorney in the Plame outing case, saying, "This is a criminal matter, it's a serious matter."
Chapter IX: Breaking Things: Bush's Way of War
As we will see, the policy permitting torture was soon instituted in Afghanistan. Evidence of this came in a memo to the president from his White House legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who warned his boss that the American treatment of detainees captured in that conflict might be criminally prosecutable under the War Crimes Act, a measure passed in 1996, which made violation of the Third Geneva Convention punishable as a violation not just of international law, but of U.S. law. At that point, the president had two options: he could have ordered all mistreatment and torture of captured fighters to cease, or he could ignore the law and the abuses. Bush chose the latter option, attempting to keep the policy quiet, and issuing an executive order on torture (See Appendix E--FBI Report.) This secret document "opted the U.S. out" of the Geneva Conventions, in hopes of shielding American soldiers (and, Gonzales hoped, the president himself) from prosecution, and simultaneously authorized the continued use of internationally banned tactics. Indeed, in a memo to the president in January 2002, Gonzales actually adviced the president that "high officials," the president included, could eventually be prosecuted for war crimes, and suggested that by declaring torture victims not to be POWs, he might insulate himself and subordinates from such an eventuality.
Chapter X: Abuse of Power, Criminal Negligence, and Other Crimes
It is one of the more bizarre peculiarities of the Bush-Cheney administration that as aggressive as it has been at seeking to expand the power of the executive branch and the president, at the expense of the other branches of the federal government, the president himself has displayed a stunning contempt for the actual job of governing--as have many of his appointees to top administrative posts. Even as the Bush administration tries to expropriate or usurp, it has repeatedly failed to make use of executive powers it clearly does have when the health, safety, and welfare of the public are at stake. On the one hand, President Bush has declared it his unfettered prerogative to strip Americans of their citizenship rights at his own whim, to declare war at a time and place of his own choosing, to violate international laws banning torture, and even to interpret acts of Congress as he sees fit. On the other hand, this self-styled imperial leader has allowed American soldiers to go to war inadequately armed and whout body armor. He ignored the plight of a storm-hammered city for many critical days--in fact, even after he had been informed the New Orleans levees had broken he went golfing--resulting in needless death and suffering, and the near loss of a great metropolis. Perhaps most inexcusably of all, the president has failed to take any significant action to combat the threat to life on the planet posed by accelerating global warming, despite near unanimity among the scientific commmunity that it is almost too late. Indeed, he and his administration have actively obstructed efforts domestically and globally to combat climate change.
Chapter XI: Impeaching Other Bush Administration Officials
The president of the United States is the only person who is protected, while in office, from being indicted and arrested in a criminal case, so bringing a president to justice requires the arduous and politically challenging process of impeachment. Other officers, such as the vice president and members of the president's cabinet have no such protection and can simply be indicted for crimes while in office--as happened most recently to Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew.
Nonetheless, the Constitution also pointedly extends the process of impeachment to "all civil officials," and over the course of history, the process has been used--primarily against federal judges. The reason to have impeachment available for government officials other than the president is that assaults on the Constitution are often not crimes as is commonly understood, and might never meet the standard for a criminal indictment. Many offenses are purely political, such as lying to the American people or abuse of power. For that reason, we need also to consider the impeachable acts of others in the Bush administration, notably Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser and later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and White House Counsel and subsequently Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
Epilogue: The Case for Impeachment
The Bush administration, to a degree that is unprecedented and frightening, is asserting a right to unfettered presidential power. As we have seen, Bush is claiming the authority to decide upon setting the country at war...He is claiming the right to take the basic constitutional rights of citizenship away from an American on his own authority...He is claiming the right to ignore the laws passed by the Congress, the right to decide on his own what those laws mean and to act according to his own interpretation, and even the right to ignore court orders. He is claiming that as commander in chief he has powers that are outside the normal constraints of the Constitution: the power to spy on Americans without a court order, the power to ignore international law and treaties approved by Congress and signed by former presidents, the power to ignore requests from Congress for information about government activities.
The president makes these outrageous assertions based upon the self-serving argument that the nation is at war and that he is therefore not just president, but commander in chief...but this "war" he is referring to is not really a war. The so-called "War on Terror" is a police action against stateless terrorists--and as such it has no beginning and no end. If we were to accept the president's claim that it is a war, and that this justifies making him a de-facto dictator...we are permanently revoking the Constitution and all the rights and the checks and balances that the Founders so carefully put in place.
The president is dead wrong.
The Constitution was not conceived as a document for the good times. It was meant to guide the nation through times of conflict, trouble, and stress as well.
Impeachment News:
July 25, 2006
Justice Delayed is White House Murder
By Barbara Olshansky
The dramatic Supreme Court decision last month declaring the Bush administration's Guantanamo military tribunals scheme to be lawless and unconstitutional, is a landmark ruling that strikes a powerful blow for liberty. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld represents our democracy at its best, with a judicial branch taking its constitutional role seriously and boldly examining what our chief executive's actions. There could be not have been a happier day for a constitutional and human rights lawyer like myself.
But my joy in finally getting this decision was tempered by the knowledge that it came a few days late. Just two weeks earlier, three of the Guantanamo detainees that we were representing at the Center for Constitutional Rights committed suicide, despairing that they would ever be released from their horrific and illegal confinement. Making that tragic incident all the more horrible and personally wrenching for me, since one of the victims was my own client--is knowing that he had actually been scheduled to be released three days hence. Because of the wall of secrecy and inaccessibility the government has illegally erected around the detainees, even with the information recently released via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit we could not identify him and get word to him about his impending release in time.
As the lead habeas attorney for 300 of the Guantanamo detainees for CCR, the organization that brought the original challenge to the unlawful detention of hundreds of men in Guantánamo Bay, I am intimately aware of the wretched conditions under which they have been living, and of the unconstitutional lengths to which this administration has gone to keep them beyond court jurisdiction. In our original case, Rasul v. Bush, the High Court, upholding a tradition of more than 800 years' standing, said every person gets to challenge the King’s decision to place him or her in the dungeon, and the King must provide a legally cognizable reason. When that first ruling came down on June 28, 2004, I assumed our system of checks and balances was working well.
But I was wrong.
Lawyers for the detainees still had to endure two years of Administration refusal to comply with the court's decision, with the Justice Department attorneys insisting people might have the right to go to court but once there they have no protections to be enforced. Now we know this obscene delaying tactic for what it has been from the start: a blatant trampling on the Constitution by the President.
But this struggle wasn't simply an arcane legal argument between lawyers. The two long years it took for us to get back to the Supreme Court took their toll on the Guantánamo prisoners. There have been many suicide attempts, and finally three lives were lost in their quest for justice from a country that once was a beacon of liberty. The Supreme Court's forceful decision in June cannot bring back the lives of those men, at least one of whom--my client-- was known to be innocent of any crime. Nor can it give back the years--five in many cases--that have been stolen from the Guantanamo detainees, some of who were children when they were snatched from their countries by American forces, and most of whom even military officials admit are not guilty of anything.
The Bush Administration has thumbed its nose at the Constitution for too long at Guantanamo, and at other secret detention facilities around the globe. This issue of denying basic justice to wartime captives is not simply a matter of misinterpreting the law--it is a willful affront to the rule of law here in America, and to international law. It is also a stain on the honor of this nation.
The blood of three detainees who, despairing of receiving justice, killed themselves, is on the hands of this administration. It is wonderful that President Bush's abuse of power in this case has been slapped down by the Supreme Court, but more is called for. This abuse of power and willful violation of the rule of law and of the Geneva Conventions call for his impeachment.-------------
About the author: CCR attorney Barbara Olshansky is lead habeas counsel for 300 of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. She is co-author, with Dave Lindorff, of "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, May 2006).======================
July 8, 2006
The Case for Impeachment Now (2008 Might Be Too Late)
This review appeared initially in the July 8-9 Weekend Edition of Counterpunch Magazine
By Ron Jacobs
If George Bush were to be impeached, would it make any difference? Whenever I receive emails or mass mailings that bring up the topic of Bush's impeachment, that is the question I asked. So, it was with some curiosity that I began reading the book The Case for Impeachment, by Dave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Books, May 2006). The process of impeachment has always interested me, at least when it comes to our nation's presidents and, if any president deserved to face some kind of consequences for what he and his cronies have done to this country, George Bush is certainly first in line.
As the title clearly states, the authors of this text want to see Bush impeached. Do they believe it will happen? To be honest, they have much more faith in seeing an impeachment trial than I do. In fact, Lindorff and Olshansky go on record declaring that if a Democratic majority is elected to the House of Representatives in the November 2006 elections, we will see an impeachment resolution introduced. I hope they are right on this (I would love to see Bush and Cheney slowly twisting in the wind, to borrow Richard Nixon's phrase), but I have my doubts about the fortitude of the current crop of Democrats in power.
It is important to remember that Bush needs to be convicted of only one charge.
The book begins with a discussion of impeachment--its history, origins, context and uses over time. Bill Clinton's experience with the process is discussed, but Lindorff's and Olshansky's focus is more on the impeachments of Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon. The primary message that comes through in this discussion is that impeachable offenses are not necessarily indictable offenses. However, given the nature of public officials' responsibility to the people whom they serve, this is not an extraordinary expectation. Impeachable offenses are those that destroy the trust of the populace and violate the Constitution.
Like every US president. George Bush took an oath at his inauguration. That oath speaks of a supreme being and the law. Most importantly, the person taking that oath swears to "preserve, protect and defend" the nation's fundamental law--the Constitution. The articles of impeachment presented here present a convincing argument that Mr. Bush did not uphold that oath. This in itself is the most impeachable offense of all.
Like many US residents, I am familiar with the abuses, lies and questionably legal actions of the Bush administration. To see them arranged as Articles of Impeachment in this text accompanied with arguments for such a trial only makes the magnitude of these charges frightfully clear. This is the greatest strength of this book. It makes it abundantly clear in a concise and coherent manner, that George Bush and his administration deserve to be impeached. In fact, the authors even suggest that the impeachment hearings might be better served if such hearings began with Mr. Cheney or another subordinate. In this way, argue the authors, facts might appear that would provide a clear avenue to Mr. Bush's impeachment and conviction.
It is the process involved in impeachment that the authors place their trust. Any individual that remembers the series of hearings in 1973 and 1974 around the crimes of Richard Nixon should understand why this is so. The process of congressional hearings that impeachment entails rips apart the lies and deceptions; the duplicities and deceit; the coverups and crimes of the officials being investigated. Indeed, the high crimes and misdemeanors that the impeached official is charged with become apparent during this process. Let us hope that those in the Bush administration whom this book charges with said offenses will face such a fate.
In 1973 and 1974, as the Nixon administration circled its wagons, there was a fear that the fragile freedoms and structures defined in the US Constitution would become history unless Richard Nixon was removed from office. It is Lindorff's and Olshansky's contention that this is an even more likely--and frightening--possibility if George Bush is not impeached. Indeed, as I write this, the Supreme Court just overturned the White House's decision to hold so-called military tribunals of the captives in Guantanamo Bay Prison. In response, the Congress is already looking for ways to void this decision and make such trials legal, despite their seeming unconstitutionality. This decision and an earlier one that allows non-citizens to be held without charges have already changed the intentional meaning of the Bill of Rights--to guaranteeing these rights to citizens only instead of to all persons, as written.
The complicity of the Congress and the courts proves that the attack on the Constitution is being waged by all three divisions of the US government. Impeaching Bush and Cheney would not end the assault, but it would strike a mighty blow. Like the Hydra of Herculean legend, the beast of despotism has but one essential head and, when that head is destroyed, the Hydra will be, too. The White House is that essential head.
Impeachment will not solve the many problems besetting this too-comfortable nation, but it can begin the cure. For those who consider this to be a worthy project, Lindorff's and Olshansky's book is a necessary========================
July 7, 2006
Buzzflash Reviews The Case for Impeachment
We've offered a number of premiums and commentaries touching upon impeachment, because whether you think it will happen or not, it is still important to understand why it should happen. Of course, any book or article about why Bush (and Cheney) merit impeachment ought to begin with the phrase, "Let me count the ways."
And in a manner, The Case for Impeachment does just that. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, BuzzFlash ran an essay by Dave Lindorff, one of this book's co-authors, on "Ten Reasons To Impeach the President -- And One Reason Why Democratic Leaders Are Wrong To Be Afraid To Do It." Assuming that the Democrats win the House in 2006 (a big assumption at this point, but one can dream), Lindorff persuasively argues that "the reality is that the Democratic Party, should it manage to win a majority in House and Senate in November, will be unable to accomplish a single thing with President Bush in the White House, since the president has already claimed that he has the power to violate and ignore 750 acts and laws passed by a Congress led by his own party. Before the Democrats can count on a single bill of theirs becoming the law of the land, they will have to remove this usurper from office. Even ardent conservatives should be afraid of leaving stand actions that, if unchallenged, will set a precedent for all future presidents, Republican and Democrat, making American presidents into tyrants answerable to no one."
In short, do we fail to discuss impeachment because we fear it would be too "radical" to consider removing from power a tyrant who sees the Constitution as an obstacle?
Our revolutionary ancestors fortunately were not so timid with King George in 1776.
As one reviewer noted, "Any American who wants to preserve what's left of our precious Bill of Rights from further encroachments, and to repair the Constitutional separation of powers vitiated by George Bush, should read this essential book -- which should also be force-fed to every single member of Congress."
If the concept of impeachment makes you cringe, just look at it this way.
You either are for a reality-based democracy with respect for the Constitution -- or you are for the fantasy island version of autocratic, single-party illegal rule of the Busheviks.
It's impossible to straddle the two visions of American government. The former is the vision bequeathed to us by the founders of our nation; the latter is an extremist imposition of a relatively small band of fanatics who don't respect the rule of law.
If the latter doesn't merit discussion of impeachment, what would? An act of fellatio?
Apparently Republicans think a sexual act is greater grounds for removal of a President from office than chronic illegal behavior, calculatedly lying a nation into war, throwing the Constitution out the window, and violations of international law, among other reasons.
But the Constitution itself provides a remedy for such unAmerican criminal activity.
It's called removal from office, better known as impeachment.
It's a drastic remedy, but it could save democracy from becoming another casualty of history, when fanatics are allowed to insidiously seize unchallenged power and violate the rule of law.=============================
June 22, 2006
Impeachy Keen: Review of The Case for Impeachment
By Rip Rense
Note: This review appeared on June 21 on Rip's blogsite: The Rip Post
Dave Lindorff is not a fun guy [sic!]. He's drop-dead serious, always talking about issues and problems in pointed, pithy terms. I mean, he never worries about what Britney Spears is up to, or who will be the next American Idol, or whether Katie Couric will cut it as a CBS anchor. This is, of course, makes him practically un-American.
Dave is a graybeard investigative reporter from way back, always carrying on about Iraq, New Orleans, health care, corporate larceny, environmental ruination, social injustice, how people suffer needlessly because of blunderbuss government policy.
At least he is succinct and focused in his points, but hell, that’s about the best thing you can say for him.
Look. Who really wants to hear about special prosecutors and violations of the fourth amendment and lying about Iraq’s nonexistent nuclear program when Britney's pregnant and Paul is getting divorced and Oprah's on and people want to put stone carvings of the Ten Commandments in courthouses? Who wants to listen to rationality and reason when you've got Bill O'Reilly saying we should run Iraq like Saddam? And then there's the World Cup. I mean, come on.
Lindorff's book is the same way. It's just not a fun book, not fun at all. It’s one of those serious, considered, carefully supported, solidly argued. . .issue books. It informs, and makes you (urp) think. Doesn't this guy know a thing about marketing? Dave, two words: Ann Coulter!
Coulter is fun. Matt Lauer said so, so it must be true. "Always fun having you," Matty-boy said to Mad Annie, after allowing her to maniacally talk over him for a three-minute "interview." Coulter's literary equivalent of apes throwing feces is at the top of the New York Times best-seller list.
This is what it takes to have an important book today, Dave--saying that the 9/11 widows who dared challenge the administration are primping millionaires wallowing in their husband's deaths. And calling for the killing--the killing!--of conservative Rep. John Murtha because he sees the Iraq war for the atrocity that it is.
If you want to be a star in this country--and all the best people do--you have to do something striking. I know this for a fact. When I tried to get a collection of my LTSEWH columns published recently, a bigtime agent told me my "author’s profile" was lacking. I had to get famous, then he'd read my manuscript. See?
So if I could sing like Connie Chung or scream like Bus Uncle or make a sex video with Paris Hilton or shout at the China prez when he visits Bush or skydive off the Empire State Building. . .I could get published.
Which leads me to wonder: how in hell did Lindorff manage to get The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush From Office published? By St. Martin’s Press, no less?
I can only guess that there are still a few other un-fun people walking around. Not many--you won’t find them on CNN or Fox--and their numbers are dying off faster than Bush's brain cells. But there are still some moldy types who don't thrive on flaming e-mail and glib-itis and believe in (yawn) abiding by law to take care of business. Even if the business is impeachment of the most redundantly, fabulously impeachable president in U.S. history.
No, not Warren G. Harding.
You know how they sentence mass-murderers to "consecutive life sentences?" Adding up to a point where not even a giant tortoise could serve the sentence? This is what Bush and Cheney merit. Consecutive impeachments. If Bush is not impeachable, Frankenstein liked fire and Dracula did his best work in the daytime. If Bush is not impeachable, O.J. and Robert Blake will find the real murderers and Michael Jackson is crazy about vaginas. Bush is to impeachment what green is to brocolli, toothless old hookers are to Jerry Springer, empty rhetoric is to Hillary Clinton.
So how is it that Lindorff and co-author Barbara Olshansky, the lead attorney for the three hundred "detainees" at Guantanamo (and no fun either) are among the few people making any serious noise about impeachment? How is it that their cogent, well-argued book is a blip on Amazon.com? How is it that Democrat House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi has said that "impeachment is off the table?" How is it that the streets aren't full of people demanding "throw the bums out!"?
I can only guess that the answer is fear. The mainstream media--often almost a corporate adjunct of the government--fear finding themselves without a nice fun corporate paycheck. And the American sheeple so fear "the terrorists" that not backing our "leadership," come hell or heavy reactor water, is widely seen as cowardly, if not treasonous. Never mind up to 100,000 innocent Iraqis wiped out in the Bush invasion. Never mind 2500 U.S. and 113 British soldiers killed, and 69 journalists who filed their last dispatches from the desert. Never mind Rumsfeld and Cheney's slaughter of the CIA.
That's the problem: never mind.
Never mind that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice fabricated fantastic fun lies in order to justify the invasion. Never mind the fun 104-acre, 5500-employee, billion-dollar U.S. Embassy being built in Baghdad. Never mind depleted uranium poisoning. Never mind dead children. Never mind that Iraq is far worse off now than it was under Saddam. Never mind that this is actually a permanent occupation of the Middle East on behalf of corporate America, Europe, and Israel. Never mind the evisceration of privacy, and colossal spying on all American citizens by the Bush administration. Never mind the Constitution. Never mind Valerie Plame. Never mind the unanswered 9/11 questions. Never mind the sanctioning of kidnap, torture and imprisonment(!) without warrant or prosecution. Never mind all that--there are terrorists out there!
Or course, there is a bit of an irony. By keeping a lying, Constitution-shredding, quasi-theocratic "Christian" near-dictatorship in power--that's you, George!--terrorists "win." As it stands now, Uncle Sam is being led around by the nose--by terrorist threat. Every time Bush ups the ante on totalitarianism at home and war abroad, terrorists laugh their turbans off.
Lindorff knows all this--and it is what prompted him and Olshanksy to do what they saw as their patriotic duty to write this no-fun book. It happens to be a sharp, compelling, meticulously researched document that can leave no objective reader opposing impeachment hearings, if not the speedy removal of Bush--and Cheney--from office.
If that's not fun enough for you, hey, don't read it. But if you believe in holding impeachment hearings, as increasing numbers of citizens do, at least buy it. It's the surest way to be make your voice heard. Next to voting out all Repugnicans in November.
Throw the bums out? Now that sounds like fun.
Maybe Dave and Barbara are on to something, after all.
Q&A: DAVE LINDORFF ON IMPEACHMENT
Rip Post: Give me some sort of comparative analogy for impeaching Clinton vs. impeaching Bush. . .
Lindorff: It's like having your dog put to sleep for drooling on your sofa, and then turning around and paying the full bill to a corrupt contractor who used beach sand in the concrete of your house foundation and substandard lumber on the framing, so that the whole thing collapsed right after you took possession--and then hiring him again to build you a second house.
RP: Why aren’t more Americans interested in discussing impeachment?
Lindorff: From all the evidence I can see, the American people want to discuss impeachment, but the media are afraid of it. The Zogby and Ipsos polls on the impeachment question both show a majority of all Americans to favor impeachment, and as many as 80 percent of Democrats favor impeachment at this point. But the mainstream media just treat the story like a wacky out-of-the-mainstream idea. It makes no sense, unless you assume, as I do, that the media are frightened of the power of the administration, and its retaliatory ability to affect licensing decisions, etc.
RP: Why are Democrat leaders like Pelosi saying they will not pursue impeachment?
Lindorff: I think that the Democratic leadership for the most part is composed of people who are afraid of a) their own shadows and b) the rank and file. It's incredible that they would actually say they don't support impeachment as a November campaign theme because they fear it could "energize the Republican base." What about doing something to "energize the Democratic base"? That's something that the Democratic Party leadership hasn't tried in, what? A quarter of a century? And look at the stunning results of their cowardice! If the Democratic Party were to make impeaching Bush a centerpiece of the 2006 elections, they'd have record turnout in November, they'd sweep their House and Senate races, and Bush would be out on his ass.
RP: Is there a fear that impeaching the administration will "weaken" the country and make it more prey to terrorist attack?
Lindorff: Only the wilfully ignorant believe that Bush is doing anything to make America safer from terror. What Bush has been doing for five years is dividing this country against itself on every issue. If that's strengthening the country, I give up. If we weren't spending $200+ billion in Iraq each year, we'd have plenty of money to spend on buying tipsters inside Al Qaeda, on checking all containers that enter the U.S., and on foreign aid to the countries that are producing the next batch of terrorists--with some left over to pay for education, healthcare, dykes around New Orleans, environmental protection and maybe even publicly funded elections.
June 4, 2006
10 Reasons to Impeach Bush...And One Reason Why the Cowardly Democratic Leadership Shouldn't Be Afraid to Do It
As prospects grow for a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives, and perhaps even the Senate, this November, the idea of impeachment is gaining attention. Yet even as polls show increasing numbers of Americans supporting the idea of removing Bush from office before the end of his term, Democratic Party leaders keep backing away.
This is not simply bad politics. It is cowardly, wrong and dangerous.
Let's look at the facts.
President Bush has committed grave offenses against the Constitution and against the people of the United States. Among these offenses are:
1. Initiating a war of aggression against a nation that posed no immediate threat to the U.S.--a war that has needlessly killed 2500 Americans and maimed and damaged over 20,000 more, while killing between 50-100,000 innocent Iraqi men, women and children.
2. Lying and organizing a conspiracy to trick the American people and the U.S. Congress into approving an unnecessary and illegal war.
3. Approving and encouraging, in violation of U.S. and international law, the use of torture, kidnapping and rendering of prisoners of war captured in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the course of the so-called War on Terror.
4. Illegally stripping the right of citizenship and the protections of the constitution from American citizens, denying them the fundamental right to have their cases heard in a court, to hear the charges against them, to be judged in a public court by a jury of their peers, and to have access to a lawyer.
5. Authorizing the spying on American citizens and their communications by the National Security Agency and other U.S. police and intelligence agencies, in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
6. Obstructing investigation into and covering up knowledge of the deliberate exposing of the identity of a U.S. CIA undercover operative, and possibly conspiring in that initial outing itself.
7. Obstructing the investigation into the 9-11 attacks and lying to investigators from the Congress and the bi-partisan 9-11 Commission--actions that come perilously close to treason.
8. Violating the due process and other constitutional rights of thousands of citizens and legal residents by rounding them up and disappearing or deporting them without hearings.
9. Abuse of power, undermining of the constitution and violating the presidential oath of office by deliberately refusing to administer over 750 acts duly passed into law by the Congress--actions with if left unchallenged would make the Congress a vestigial body, and the president a dictator.
10. Criminal negligence in failing to provide American troops with adequate armor before sending them into a war of choice, criminal negligence in going to war against a weak, third-world nation without any planning for post war occupation and reconstruction, criminal negligence in failing to respond to a known and growing crisis in the storm-blasted city of New Orleans, and criminal negligence in failing to act, and in fact in actively obstructing efforts by other countries and American state governments, to deal with the looming crisis of global warming.
Each one of these offenses (and it is not meant to be a complete list) would be sufficient on its own to require the president’s removal from office, and in some cases, where an actual statutory crime can be charged, his subsequent indictment and trial. Together they cry out for impeachment and removal.
There are those, like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who argue against impeachment, claiming that it would be a diversion from the "important agenda" of the Democratic Party. Aside from the fact that there is not much "there" there in the so-called agenda of the so-called opposition, the reality is that the Democratic Party, should it manage to win a majority in House and Senate in November, will be unable to accomplish a single thing with President Bush in the White House, since the president has already claimed that he has the power to violate and ignore 750 acts and laws passed by a Congress led by his own party. Before the Democrats can count on a single bill of theirs becoming the law of the land, they will have to remove this usurper from office. Even ardent conservatives should be afraid of leaving stand actions that, if unchallenged, will set a precedent for all future presidents, Republican and Democrat, making American presidents into tyrants answerable to no one.
There are those who fear that impeaching Bush would mean turning over the White House to Vice President Dick Cheney. This is nonsense. The vice president has long been known to be the real president, and any constitutional crimes that are exposed in the course of impeachment hearings will quickly be traced also to Cheney's office. The vice president, however, does not have the president's Constitutional immunity from prosecution, and would likely be indicted and forced to resign long before Bush's impeachment got to a Senate trial. Nor would impeaching Bush mean turning the White House over to Rep. Dennis Hastert. Besides the fact that Hastert is reportedly facing his own legal troubles, impeachment is not even going to occur unless the Democrats take over the House in November first, and that would make the next person in line after Cheney none other than Democrat Pelosi.
There are people, especially in the media, who say impeachment is a bad idea both because it would allegedly cause a "constitutional crisis" and because it would lead to public anger at Democrats who promoted another divisive political battle. This is both unprincipled and absurd. First of all, impeachment is no constitutional crisis: the Founders thought it so important that they included impeachment of the president in the same Article II of the Constitution that defines the president’s powers. If anything, we are facing a constitutional crisis right now. Impeachment is an integral part of the governing process. Secondly, polls suggest that a majority of Americans favor impeachment -- certainly more than ever favored impeachment of either Clinton or Nixon. People have had it with the sanctimoniousness, the dishonesty, the staggering incompetence and the nasty political dirty tricks of this administration. Third, they want an opposition that will stand on principle. But finally and most importantly, the crimes of this president and this administration are so grievous that it is shameful to even talk about practicalities and political advantage. The president simply must be impeached, because as the Willie Sutton of Constitutional violators he is putting the Republic and the Constitution at grave risk. The only principled and valid discussion about strategy is about how best to achieve impeachment, not about whether to seek impeachment.
No one should imagine that a successful impeachment of President Bush would usher in some wonderful new world of honest and progressive government. The Democratic Party long ago lost its soul and its right to call itself a party of the people. But if the American people, in the course of this 2006 election year, force the Democratic Party to do that which their leaders are afraid to do--to impeach this criminal president--there is a chance that those same people will also push the Democratic Party to do other things that it has not done in decades: namely to act in the interests of ordinary working people instead of the same moneyed interests that own the party of Lincoln.
May 11, 2006
Save American Democracy! Impeach Bush
By Linn Washington Jr.
(This article appeared in the May 11 edition of the Philadelphia Tribune, America's oldest African-American paper.)
Add criminal negligence to the list of offenses justifying impeachment proceedings against President Bush.
The callously inept response to Hurricane Katrina by Bush clearly contributed to exacerbating the horrific suffering and death along the Gulf Coast, especially in the flood ravaged city of New Orleans.
Including a criminal negligence charge to the already long list of impeachable offenses against Bush is one of the unique angles contained in the new book, The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office. (St. Martin’s Press)
A key point stressed by the co-authors of this book last week during their presentation at Philadelphia’s Free Library on the Parkway in Center City is that impeaching Bush is not partisan politics.
Impeaching Bush seeks to prevent this emperor wannabe from further destruction of US constitutional protections, the nation at-large and the wider world.
"Impeachment is not a left v. right issue or a Democrat v. Republican issue. It is a humanity issue," said co-author Barbara Olshansky, a lawyer and constitutional law expert.
The Bush Administration's undercutting constitutional rights plus its defiant refusal to follow the rule of law domestically and internationally constitutes the "most wholesale theft from the US people imaginable," added Olshansky, deputy director for the New York City-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
Bush's failure to address the insidious issue of global warming, the co-authors argue, is perhaps his "greatest crime."
Olshansky's co-author, Philadelphia-area investigative reporter/author Dave Lindorff, says Bush is a "serious threat" to American democracy and world peace.
"The impeachable crimes of George Bush are really, really serious. They are not like Clinton's perjury about infidelity. Clinton's lies were not of constitutional gravity," Lindorff said.
"War crimes in Iraq, torture in secret prisons around the world, failing to provide soldiers with proper armor, the criminally negligent response to Katrina…the crimes of Bush are so grievous, it is irresponsible not to impeach," Lindorff declared, criticizing those Capitol Hill Democrats who downplay the importance of impeachment.
The US Constitution (Article II, Section 4) authorizes impeachment of the president, vice-president and all civil officers of the US for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
Bush's doing nothing while flood waters ravaged a major city qualifies as a "high crime."
In the book Olshansky and Lindorff document examples of the lie-based negligence Bush exhibited during Katrina.
Bush, for example, claimed that it was impossible to know that the hurricane would destroy the levees protecting the below sea level city.
However, a Bush Administration video-tape of a meeting held the day before Katrina struck "showed the president…being repeatedly warned…that the New Orleans levees could be breeched…and that rescue teams and resources were inadequate for the looming disaster."
Despite getting this dire briefing, this video obscenely shows the vacationing Bush asking “not one single question…” the book states.
Another Bush lie around Katrina relates to blame shifting where the White House blamed state and local officials for not declaring a state of emergency earlier.
The book details how days before Katrina struck, Louisiana Governor Blanco declared a state of emergency and the "White House responded by declaring a national emergency in the state."
Shamelessly, the Bush Administration lied about this state of emergency sequence despite its emergency declaration being posted on the White House web site.
This Katrina-based charge is uniquely interesting to the black community for two reasons: (1) blacks disproportionately bore the brunt of the devastating suffering and death caused by Katrina; and (2) Bush's inaction is another example of the bigotry embedded in his Administration.
Despite Bush’s televised promises to address poverty along the Gulf Coast, blacks in that region have been virtually excluded from jobs created by post-Katrina contracts given primarily to Bush-connected cronies.
Last week, Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Ca) released information documenting tens of millions of dollars in waste related to those crony contracts.
Also last week, Waxman, along with three members of the Congressional Black Caucus, released a report documenting the decrease in black political appointees under Bush despite "the number of political appointees on the federal payroll" soaring during Bush's two-terms.
Lindorff, during last week's presentation, said that impeachment proceedings are possible if the Democratic Party gains control of the Congress in the fall ’06 mid-term elections.
Lindorff notes that Michigan Congressman John Conyers introduced legislation last December to investigate impeachment and censure Bush for his lies about the Iraq War and domestic spying.
"The Democrats only need to gain 15-seats in the House to take control. If the Democrats gain control, Conyers will become chair of the Judiciary Committee," Lindorff said. "During the Nixon years, the real evidence of his crimes came out during the impeachment hearings."
Lindorff faults the mainstream news media for its "colossal failure" in holding Bush accountable, a "shameful" dereliction of the media’s watchdog duty.
Lindorff also assigns blame to the American public for not defending its democracy against Bush Administration assaults on law and basic liberties.
"I believe there is a disease of cynicism in this country. People sit back and don't participate," he said. "They say there's no use, but if we don't get involved, nothing will happen." Linn Washington Jr. is an award-winning writer who teaches journalism at Temple University.==============================
May 4, 2006
Dave Lindorff on Impeachment
Hear Dave Lindorff and Harold Meyerson discuss the impeachment of George W. Bush on Philadelphia NPR affiliate station WHYY, on the Radio Times show with host Marty Moss-Coane.
Also:
Impeachment weighed again:
President Bush's actions threaten basic freedoms and the American system of checks and balancesDave Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky
(This article ran on May 3 in the Philadelphia Inquirer)
Who would have thought, just seven years after the Clinton impeachment farce, we'd again be considering impeachment? Yet here we are, five years into the Bush presidency, and again impeachment is in the air.
For some time, opponents of the Iraq War have been calling for impeachment. You could see their signs at marches, but given Republican control of the House, it was hard to take the idea seriously.
In recent months, though, impeachment calls have gained a new seriousness--and wider public support--and for good reason: This November, a shift of only 15 House seats would give Democrats control of the House and of the Judiciary Committee. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), who would become Judiciary Committee chair, has already submitted a bill calling for an investigation into impeachable crimes, and would certainly welcome an impeachment bill.
More important, over the last five years, Bush has become the Willie Sutton of constitutional violators. While the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for lying about sex was a case of frivolous political harassment, this president's many "high crimes and misdemeanors" pose such a threat to basic freedoms, and to the system of checks and balances, that not to impeach would be irresponsible.
Among Bush's most serious impeachable actions:
Lying to Congress and the American people about the need to invade Iraq. It has become increasingly clear that Iraq had no nuclear program, no weapons of mass destruction, and posed no imminent threat to America. It was a lie when Bush told Americans we were at risk of attack in 2002 and 2003, and it was a lie when, on March 18, 2003, he wrote Congress to announce his invasion of Iraq, saying it posed a threat to America and was linked to 9/11.
Refusing to cooperate with congressional and 9/11 Commission probes. To this day, the White House has refused to respond to legitimate requests from such committees for information needed to investigate 9/11, and to help guard against future attacks.
Violating the Bill of Rights. President Bush has willfully authorized the indefinite detention without charge of U.S. citizens and the detention and deportation of legal residents, and has illegally used the National Security Agency to spy on Americans without a court order.
Obstruction of justice. While the special counsel's investigation is continuing, it appears that Bush was at least aware of efforts to cover up, and may well have been involved in, a White House campaign to punish and discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson by illegally exposing his wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA operative.
War crimes. There is powerful evidence Bush authorized, promoted, and then attempted to cover up a policy of kidnapping, "renditioning" and torture, all in violation of the Geneva Conventions to which the United States is a signatory. He also waged a war of aggression, and engaged in a conspiracy to promote that war--all of which is a "crime against peace" under the Nuremberg Charter, which the United States helped to write.
Abuse of power. Bush has willfully ignored more than 750 acts passed by Congress.
Criminal negligence. Incompetence isn't impeachable, but, in the cases such as Bush's abject failure to deal with the threat and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, or in his failure to adequately protect troops sent into Iraq, or to plan for the aftermath of the Iraq invasion, gross incompetence becomes criminal negligence. The same is true of this president's perhaps greatest crime: his failure to deal with, and his willful obstruction of efforts to ward off, global warming.
Critics argue that it's wrong to impeach if there is no chance the Senate will convict. We disagree. This president's constitutional crimes have never been fully investigated, or, in many cases, investigated at all. Yet remember, it was only during the Watergate and impeachment hearings that Richard Nixon's most serious crimes came to light. Who knows what even Senate Republicans would do once witnesses, compelled to testify under oath in a House Judiciary Committee, started to tell the truth about Bush administration actions?
For all these reasons, impeachment should be a key issue this election year, and a bill of impeachment should be submitted to the next House Judiciary Committee.
Dangerous Times Ahead
The noose is tightening around George Bush and his gang of White House crooks and liars, with prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald reportedly getting closer to an indictment of Karl Rove, and now with the Illinois and California state legislatures considering resolutions that would have those states submit bills of impeachment to the U.S. House of Representatives--an alternative means of bringing an impeachment case against a president when, as now, the sitting members of Congress don't have the courage or conviction to do so themselves.
These are dangerous times, because the Bush family history, and the Rove M.O., are to attack viciously and without restraint when cornered.
At a book signing on Friday at Columbia University, a number of journalists told me they worried that Bush, Rove and Cheney, if they thought they were going to lose the House in November and face serious investigations into their crimes and deceits, would do something treasonous, like launching a war against Iran, or perhaps allowing another major terrorist attack against a U.S. target, so that they could then clamp down further on domestic freedom and ramp up jingoistic support among their wavering base.
The time for vacillating, cowering Democrats is over. The only way to defeat this threat is to warn about it and resist it openly now.
Democrats also need to stop waffling about voter security and vote fraud. It is essential that all voting machines in November have paper records, and that an army of activists begin now preparing to block Republican efforts to confuse and intimidate progressive voters to keep them from even getting to the polls.
Italians and other people in nations around the globe have shown the way, standing up to fraud and intimidation to insist on honest elections, and throwing out charlatans.
November 2006 will be America's turn.
Will the American people be up to the task?
Three state representatives in Illinois--Rep. Karen A. Yarbrough (217-782-8120), Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (217)- 782-8062), and Rep. Eddie Washington (217-558-1012)-- have struck the first blow in defense of liberty, and have shown us all the way. They were quickly followed over the weekend by California Assemblyman Paul Koretz (310-285-5490), who introduced a bill calling for impeachment of both Bush and Cheney.==================================
Omigod! Senate Dems May Have to Take a Stand!
The squeeky sound you hear emanating from the windows of the Dirkson Senate Office building is from the slippery, leather-seated butts of Democratic members of Congress as they contemplate having to vote up or down on Sen. Russ Feingold's censure motion.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the chair of the Judiciary Committee, who has accommodated Feingold with a Friday hearing on the Wisconsin Democrat's censure motion, said Wednesday that he was prepared to send the motion censuring President Bush for his illegal NSA spying authorization to the full Senate for a vote by the membership.
Recall that when Feingold initially filed his censure bill, not a single Democratic colleague offered support. Most, like Sen. Hillary Clinton, ran from reporters when asked for comment, or improbably claimed, like Sens. Obama and Dodd, not to have read it. Finally, under pressure from local voters, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Tom Harkin (D-IW) signed on as co-sponsors, but that was it.
If Sen. Specter follows through and allows the motion to go to a full Senate vote, it will be fun to see the Senate's cowardly Democrats put on the spot: do they do what the vast majority of Democratic and independent voters want, and vote for censure, or do they duck and cover, and either abstain or vote no? If they do the latter, there should be hell to pay for some of them this November.
It should be all the harder for cowardly Democratic senators after testimony from two legal experts--Bruce Fein, a constitutional law specialist and former deputy attorney general under President Reagan, and John Dean, former White House Counsel under President Nixon.
As I report in my forthcoming book The Case for Impeachment, Fein has said, "If President Bush is totally unapologetic and says `I continue to maintain that as a wartime President I can do anything I want--I don't need to consult any other branches'--that is an impeachable offense. It's more dangerous than Clinton's lying under oath because it jeopartides our democratic dispensation and civil liberties for the ages."
As for John Dean, I quote him in the book as saying that Bush "claims that implicit in Congress' authorization of his use of force against the Taliban in Afghanistan, following the 9/11 attack, was an exemption from FISA. No sane member of Congress believes that the Authorization of Use of Military Force provided such authorization. No first year law student would mistakenly make such a claim. It is not merely a stretch; it is ludicrous."
Assuming these two men will offer similar testimony in open hearings, it will be fun to watch Democratic Senators squirming.
Sen. Feingold is to be commended for helping us see who is really a member of an opposition party, and who's just in Congress for the perks.==========================================
Constitution Under Assault
As the Senate Judiciary Committee takes up Sen. Russ Feingold's censure motion, we need to point out how this president has, to an unprecedented degree, usurped power for the presidency, based upon the bogus claim that the Constitution doesn't count in wartime. According to Bush, in wartime he is no longer simply a president, he is a commander in chief.
Bush has used this argument to declare that international agreements, such as the Geneva Conventions on the Treatment of Prisoners of War and on the treatment of civilian noncombatants, to which the U.S. is a signatory, do not apply. He has used this argument to claim that he has the right to revoke the rights of citizenship from an American citizen whom he alone has determined to be an "enemy combatant"(a term he made up and defined himself). He has used this argument to claim that he does not need to obey or enforce laws duly passed by the Congress, such as the law banning torture, the law requiring regular reports on the use of provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act, or the 1978 Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act.
Bush is wrong on two grounds.
First of all, the country is decidedly not at war. The Afghanistan War, which began on October 7, 2001, ended long ago--actually in the hills of Tora Bora, when the last of remnants of the Taliban government were captured, killed or dispersed, and legally in October 2002, with the formation of a new Afghan government in Kabul. At this point, the U.S. is simply part of a U.N. operation that is supporting the regime at its request (okay, we know that's a fiction and Karzai is a U.S. puppet , but it's the legal situation). That is not a war.
The Iraq War ended either back on April 30, 2003, with the fall of the Iraqi government and what Bush himself called "the end of major combat," or, if one prefers, it ended on June 28, 2004 with the creation of a new Iraqi government, and the famous "handover of sovereignty" to an Iraqi regime. What had been an occupation already--not a war--at that point became another U.S. support effort on behalf of a host regime.
In fact, when Bush says America is at war, he is referring to the so-called "War on Terror." But that is no war any more than the "War on Drugs" was a war. To claim that the nation is on an emergency war footing, as it was in the War of 1812 or the Civil War, or World Wars I or II or even the Korean or Vietnam Wars, is ludicrous. The nation's existence is not threatened by terrorists, the number of military personnel dedicated to fighting terror is miniscule, and certainly the country is not being unduly impacted. Worse still, this "war" has no real beginning or end, or even any real way to measure its progress.
To claim that this "war" is grounds for ignoring the Constitution is simply the kind of stuff that real cowboys try to step around on the Texas prairie.
But Bush is wrong on a second ground, too. Even if we were to concede that his bogus "war" was real, he's wrong that this means the Constitution goes on hold for the duration. The Founding Fathers did not write the nation's founding document as an instruction manual for the good times. They wrote it to help the nation get through the bad times without falling into tyranny. There is no "opt out" clause in the document, as Bush and his "mob attorney" Alberto Gonzales are claiming.
The president has thrown down the gauntlet to the Congress, the Courts and the American people. If he is allowed to have his way, thumbing his nose at international treaties, acts of Congress, court orders and the Constitution itself, for another two years, the government he hands over to the next president in 2008, whether Democrat or Republican, will be one that the Founders would not recognize.
That cannot be allowed to happen.
If Congress and the courts will not reassert their co-equal power and defend the Constitution from this massive assault, We the People must rise up on Election Day this November and vote in a Congress that will.==================================
We're Only Here to Help, Dem Leaders Say
One of the smarmier moves by the Democratic Party leadership occurred a couple of days ago right after Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), one of the few genuine progressives among Democrats in Congress, introduced his motion to censure President Bush for his NSA spying program.
Recall that Feingold at first couldn't find a single Democratic Senator to join him, and ultimately only found two--Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Tom Harkin. Meanwhile, as his other supposed colleagues ducked under their desks, Republicans attacked him shamelessly, suggesting that the Wisconsin senator's motion was tantamount to treason in a "time of war."
Along came Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, with a letter to Democratic voters, urging them in an indignant tone to "sign the petition" defending Feingold's patriotism and right to file his censure motion--oh, and of course to contribute money to the Democratic Party.
This is the same Harry Reid who, along with 41 other Democratic Senators, has run as fast as he could away from Feingold's quite reasonable motion of censure, providing Republicans with the opening to attack him as a traitor.
Reid and his cowardly, calculating fellow weasels should be ashamed of themselves. If ever a president deserved a censure, it's this one.
If voters want to defend Sen. Feingold, they should be telling Sen. Reid and his herd of gutless colleagues that they should sign on to Feingold's censure motion. It's what a real opposition party would do. The Democratic Party should try it.
Every Democratic senator should have to vote up or down on whether she or he thinks the president has commmitted a crime in deliberately violating an act of Congress and allowing the National Security Agency to spy, without a warrant, on Americans.
Feingold is right: we voters have a right to know where our senators stand on this issue.