As someone who under the age of five when all the mess concerning Watergate broke, I've never really comprehended the anger surrounding President Nixon on the scandal until recently. On the surfaced it seemed like this was a tumult over a break-in, but the in reality this was about a President who thought that he was above the law. When you read this editorial from the Houston Chronicle, which concerns the leaked memo that places President Bush as commander in chief above not only the Geneva Convention, but also federal law, you start to see shades of Nixon going on.
The President is supposed to uphold the Constitution and yet this Andministration seems bent on not doing that for no other reason than because it feels it doesn't have to.
In the past I thought any mention of wanting to see Bush impeached was silly. This was something in the mind of leftist Bush-haters. However, the facts more and more are showing that the President has not taken the law very seriously just like President Nixon. If President Clinton can be impeached for lying about a having sex (and it was sex) with an intern, I think it's high time to consider if we should start the process for an Admnistration that thinks the law is pointless because we are engaged in a struggle against terrorism.
Posted by Dennis at June 11, 2004 09:01 AMAshcroft’s refusal to produce the documents in the prisoner torture matter before a Senate committee makes it all too clear that the administration believes it has, finally, overcome the limitations of a Constitutional government. I don’t want to live in a dictatorship, so I’ve written to several Senators urging them to charge Ashcroft with contempt of Congress and to prosecute the charge. If millions of us simply contact the Senate (and not merely our own Senators), the weight of our urgency might bring this government down before it has the chance to pull off an October surprise that will nullify our Constitution as, in the view of Gen. Tommy Franks, merely an experiment.
I urge you all to e-mail as many Senators as you can at: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm. This is the message I sent:
Dear Senator:
Attorney General Ashcroft's recent refusal to produce documents relating to administration policies on torture is, in fact, contempt of Congress. I strongly urge you prosecute Mr. Ashcroft on this issue.
We need your leadership now. The Constitution has not been in such serious jeopardy since the Civil War. Please stand up to the administration for all of us who love our country and are appalled and frightened by this totalitarian threat.
Respectfully,
Feel free to use it, change it, or make up your own, but please write.
Follow up? Contact every media outlet you can think of, and let them know about this campaign and make sure they cover it.
For a free country,
Steve Woodring
Impeachment will be difficult to pursue during a year like this: as a year of election any and all matters will be spun as 'mudslinging' even though serious crimes have been committed by the Bush administration. Unfortunately, in this day and age they can spin 'lying to Congress' and 'violations of international treaty' as Democratic whining. Impeachment is also difficult with one party in charge of both (if not all three branches) branches of government involved in the impeachment process: Republicans are not about to crucify one of their own.
The only way impeachment can occur is if a royally huge revelation occurs (say, for example, the conspiracy theories about Nick Berg turn out to be true and his execution was staged by mercs at Abu Ghraib), or else if polling shows that congressional Republicans are sliding downward because of Bush and that they could lose in November, then maybe you'll see some impeachments (not of Bush but prolly Rumsfeld and/or Cheney). Although, let's face it, it takes more than a few months to impeach someone and the election would well be over by then.
Until then, we're gonna hafta end the Shrub administration the old-fashioned way: voting the bums out.
By the way, regarding the possibility of Bush dragging down congressional Republicans (that whole 'tailcoats' thing), isn't it slightly odd that I haven't seen Bush & Co. doing a lot of stumping for their Congress buddies by now...maybe it's just where I am in Florida...still...